Arsenal crowned Premier League champions for first time in 22 years – live reaction

⚽ Gunners win fourth Premier League title after City held
⚽ Bournemouth 1-1 Man City | Table | Follow us on Bluesky

We’ll keep the focus here on Arsenal’s title win – so Gunners fans, drop me a line here wherever you are. I have to give a shoutout to my friends from uni, Andy and James. We watched the Invicibles’ parade on a beaten-up telly at our student digs in Cardiff, and it’s been a long, long wait for them to celebrate again. Congratulations, chaps.

Pep Guardiola has offered his congratulations to Arsenal and Arteta, his former assistant at Manchester City. “We were close. On behalf of everyone at Manchester City, we congratulate Mikel and all the staff, players and fans on winning the Premier League. They deserve it, for so much hard work and effort.

Teenagers behind mass shooting in San Diego rushed at mosque ‘fully armored’

The firearms the shooters, aged 17 and 18, used in the fatal rampage were registered to one of their parents

The two teenage assailants responsible for a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California, rushed toward the mosque “fully armored” with handguns and rifles, authorities said.

A security guard shot and struck one of the shooters, according to members of the mosque – but the attacker continued charging. The guard also alerted administrators of the school at the Islamic Center, telling them to go into lockdown, before he was shot and killed. “If it was not for him … The carnage would be much worse,” said imam Taha Hassane. “He sacrificed his life.”

Southampton may face legal challenge from own players after being kicked out of playoff final

• Club admit breaches but are confident over appeal

• Boro reinstated to take on Hull in Saturday’s final

Southampton could face a legal claim from their players for loss of earnings after the club were expelled from the Championship playoff final for spying on training sessions staged by Middlesbrough and two other second-tier rivals.

The squad have been discussing their options after Boro, semi-final losers to Tonda Eckert’s side, were reinstated to Saturday’s Wembley showpiece against Hull City. It is understood there is widespread fury in Southampton’s dressing room, presenting Eckert and the board with another headache after a fraught period.

Fernández and Chelsea sink Spurs as survival battle goes to the final day

Tottenham’s woes in this corner of London are well-established and well-documented. When they made this latest trip to Stamford Bridge, the statistics showed they had won just once since 1990 – a sequence of 40 matches in all competitions.

Never mind. They needed only a draw to effectively ensure their Premier League survival, to send West Ham down and draw a veil over this most wretched of seasons.

Trump's past tax returns get protection from IRS enforcement under 'lawfare' fund settlement

President Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for a fund that can compensate allies who were targeted under the Biden administration.

AI sparks backlash from new graduates. How deep does the disapproval go?

Many Americans are signaling disapproval of the technology amid fears that it will eclipse already competitive entry-level jobs.

Chinese execs, shipping container companies accused of price fixing during pandemic

The indictment, which was first reported by CBS News, marks the latest in a series of probes by the Justice Dept. related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mangione supporters should not have been given press passes, mayor says

Luigi Mangione supporters have loudly made their feelings known outside every court appearance, but several are now in court with official press passes.

JD Vance urges UK anti-immigration activists to ‘keep on going’

US vice-president appeared to align with attendees of Tommy Robinson’s ‘unite the kingdom’ rally in London

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has urged anti-immigration activists in the UK to “keep on going” after tens of thousands gathered for a rally in London.

Vance appeared to align himself with those who attended a march on Saturday where the far-right activist Tommy Robinson told supporters to prepare for the “battle of Britain”.

Is the teen summer job a thing of the past?

A summer job was once a seasonal tradition for millions of American teenagers. No more — here's why fewer young people are expected to clock in when school ends.

Arsenal crowned Premier League champions after Manchester City draw

• Arsenal win title for the first time since 2004

• Players celebrate together at training ground

• Live: reaction as Gunners crowned champions

Arsenal are Premier League champions for the first time since Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles in 2004 after Manchester City drew 1-1 at Bournemouth.

Arsenal’s squad gathered at the training ground in Hertfordshire to watch the game, with Declan Rice posting a picture on Instagram within minutes of the full-time whistle of him with Kai Havertz, Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka, Myles Lewis-Skelly and William Saliba. “I told you all .. it’s done,” wrote the England midfielder in reference to his “It’s not done” battlecry after Arsenal lost to City last month.

Mortgage rates surge to highest level since July

Mortgage rates continued to move higher Tuesday on uncertainty over the war with Iran. They are at the highest level since last July.

New York woman dies after stepping out of car into open manhole

Family seeks answers after incident at uncovered maintenance hole near Cartier building late at night

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The family of a New York woman is struggling for answers after the 56-year-old fell to her death upon stepping out of her car and slipping down an open maintenance hole on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.

The woman in question died on Monday night and was identified by family members as Donike Gocaj, from Briarcliff Manor, a commuter belt area north of New York City.

Vance defends stock-trading spree in Trump financial filings: 'Come on, man'

Vice President JD Vance said at the White House on Tuesday that he and President Donald Trump both support banning congressional stock trading.

Trump endorses Paxton in Texas Senate race ahead of runoff

President Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday in the Texas Senate race, seeking to bring to an end a costly contest just a week ahead of the scheduled runoff.

Brazil’s World Cup squad offers a hint of the magical pragmatism of 1994

There is no shortage of entertainers in Carlo Ancelotti’s picks for this summer’s tournament. They’ll also need a solid base if they are to win a sixth title

In their attacking heyday, Brazil never struggled to find a winning complement in defence. Individual attacking brilliance only comes off if others nearby are doing the hard yards; for every Ronaldinho, there is a Roque Júnior.

The current generation doesn’t lack entertainers. Of Carlo Ancelotti’s 26-man squad for the World Cup, which was announced on Monday, nine players are listed as attackers, a high number for most squads, with nine defenders left to sweat their responsibilities whenever possession changes hands.

Polymarket to let users make prediction market bets on private companies

Polymarket users can now trade on private companies' valuations, IPOs and secondary market activity.

Bitter Christmas review – grief, loss and artistic betrayal in Almodóvar’s film within a film

Cannes film festival: Spaniard’s latest life-v-art auto-metafiction feels slightly muddled as he directs a director directing a director

With its rich, warm, summery colours, nothing could surely be less bitter or less Christmassy than this film. It’s the latest from Cannes competition regular Pedro Almodóvar, partly set during Christmas; the female lead actually complains about the yuletide traffic at one stage. But there’s no tinsel or sleigh bells or shopping for presents. Like Die Hard, it eludes classification. It is another – which is to say, yet another – double-layered creation by Almodóvar, a kind of movie auto-metafiction of the sort that he has virtually invented, a life-v-art dialectical process that he is evidently unable to do without.

Like the recent Pain and Glory, Bitter Christmas is a candidly personal movie, circling around ideas like grief, loss, the vampirism of art and the betrayal involved in basing fictional characters on real people. Perhaps by emphasising this last point, Almodóvar is pre-empting or cauterising a crisis in his own life, showing us a gay male artist’s perspective on the question of whether women are not being given enough credit as the wellspring for inspiration or indeed as artists themselves. The result is a complex, slightly muddled, almost surreally modernist noir-melodrama or open-ended telenovela of the sort he habitually offers. Almodóvar always alchemises the real-unreal duality into something watchable, although perhaps he is going over old ground. Bitter Christmas, incidentally, features what for arthouse movies is becoming mandatory, the haughty anti-Netflix gag, even though the film does feel like streaming TV in some ways.

Todd Blanche says he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell

Acting US attorney general made comments about the Epstein associate at a Senate hearing over budget requests

• US politics live – latest updates

Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.

Blanche’s comments came during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, where he was testifying before the appropriations subcommittee over budget requests for the justice department.

Chinese companies probed over cuts to shipping container production before pandemic

Investigators have been looking at a handful of Chinese firms that together control the majority of unrefrigerated shipping container manufacturing around the globe, the sources said.

Nicolas Winding Refn breaks down at Cannes recalling near-death due to ‘leaking heart’

The director of Drive, unveiling new thriller My Private Hell, told journalists he ‘died for 25 minutes’ in 2023

The Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, best known for films such as the Pusher trilogy and Drive, has emotionally spoken about his near-death experience and heart surgery three years ago.

The director, whose first film in 10 years, Her Private Hell, premiered on Monday evening, told gathered journalists that he had “died for 25 minutes” in 2023.

Trump threatens ‘a big hit’ if Tehran does not make deal soon

Renewed threat comes after US president said he was ‘an hour away’ from ordering a strike before pulling back

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has again threatened Iran, saying the US may launch new attacks if Tehran continues to refuse the significant concessions he wants before a deal can be struck to end the Middle East war.

The US president said he had called off a fresh wave of strikes, which would have broken the ceasefire in place since early last month. “I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Trump endorses attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas Senate primary

US president calls Paxton an ‘America First Patriot’ and ‘MAGA Warrior’ ahead of runoff against John Cornyn

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump has endorsed the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, in the state’s Republican primary, bolstering his bid to unseat the incumbent US senator, John Cornyn.

The US president praised Paxton, a hardliner who has pitched himself as a political warrior for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, as an “America First Patriot” in a post on social media on Tuesday.

Billie Jean King graduates from college at age 82 after leaving for tennis: ‘Yeah baby, only 61 years!’

King distinguished herself as a tennis champ at Cal State Los Angeles, winning Wimbledon doubles while enrolled

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When Billie Jean King left college in 1964, she had a purpose. Within a few years, she had become the top-ranked tennis professional in the world. Over a trailblazing career, she won 39 championships, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal – all while pushing publicly for gender and pay equality.

Last year, she finally returned to finish the degree in history she started more than six decades ago. On Monday, she graduated at 82 years old.

Meta is rapidly reorganizing its workers’ jobs around AI: ‘Transfers aren’t optional’

Some employees will be moved to new teams focused on AI agents and cloud infrastructure

As Meta races to recenter itself around artificial intelligence, the tech giant is mandating that more than 7,000 workers must move to new teams, and it’s radically changing some employees’ jobs. The Guardian has also learned that some of these reassigned employees will shift to two new teams: one building AI cloud infrastructure and another that’s building an internal AI agent codenamed Hatch.

Late last week, Meta employees received a notice that engineers had been “selected” for reassignment and would begin reporting to the cloud infrastructure and Hatch teams by the end of this week. Meta made a similar move last month when it reshuffled at least 1,000 engineers on to a new data labeling team called Applied AI, or AAI – at first giving them the option to volunteer, but later telling workers: “Transfers aren’t optional.”

The 10 most affordable U.S. cities to buy a home

Buyers can still find lower-cost homes in some midsize cities, especially across the Rust Belt and Sun Belt, a new analysis finds.

Ella Baron on Nigel Farage’s vision for Britain – cartoon

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The Guardian view on saving for old age: alarming shortfalls set the scene for a pensions overhaul | Editorial

Auto-enrolment has made retirement more secure for many. But some groups, including women, need more support

Recommendations from the government-backed Pensions Commission are not due until next year. But its interim warning that at least 15 million Britons are not saving enough for retirement already signals the scale of the challenge. The trend towards increasing longevity means that the issue of retirement incomes is unavoidable. At some point during the next decade, a threshold is expected to be reached whereby there are three pensioners for every 10 working-age adults.

The decision to reconvene this expert group was a good one. The automatic enrolment system it proposed has been a success, with around 90% of eligible employees signing up since 2012, along with their employers. But millions of low-paid workers, as well as the vast majority of self-employed people, face an uncertain future unless they too are helped to plan and save. One suggestion, made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) as part of its own pensions review, was that HM Revenue and Customs could oversee a system whereby self-employed taxpayers would be enabled to make pension contributions at the same time as paying their tax bill.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The Guardian view on domestic workers: Indonesia shows that, against the odds, they are fighting for their rights | Editorial

Tens of millions of women and men worldwide are isolated and enjoy fewer protections than other labourers. Landmark legislation is a sign of hope

Domestic workers are used to hard graft for minimal reward. But in Indonesia, more than two decades of activism has finally paid off. Last month, the country’s parliament passed legislation classifying them as workers, ensuring that they are entitled to health insurance, days off and pensions. It also outlaws hiring under-18s for such jobs. For more than four million people, this is a significant step forward.

The challenges go far beyond Indonesia. There are around 75 million people in the sector worldwide, experiencing “lower wages, fewer benefits and fewer legal or social protections than other workers”, says the International Domestic Workers Federation. Three-quarters of them are women. Because they work in people’s homes they are isolated, and many get little or no time off. That makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse by employers and particularly hard to organise. Accommodation is often grim and food inadequate.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Surrey police launch investigation into UK Epstein abuse allegations

Force says two women have come forward alleging they were victims of attacks detailed in Epstein files

Surrey police have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse after two women came forward to say they were the victims of attacks in Britain detailed in the Epstein files.

The force said the claims dated back to the 1980s and 1990s, with one in Surrey and allegations concerning Berkshire understood to relate to the Windsor estate.

Son of Mango fashion chain founder arrested in Spain over father’s death

Jonathan Andic released on €1m bail after being questioned in connection with death of Isak Andic in 2024

The son of Isak Andic, the founder of the fashion chain Mango, has been released on bail of €1m (£866,000) after being arrested and questioned in connection with his father’s death in Catalonia almost 18 months ago.

Andic died in December 2024 after apparently falling 100 metres down a ravine while hiking in Montserrat, near Barcelona, with his son, Jonathan. His death aged 71 prompted tributes to him from politicians, journalists and the fashion world.

Three Toronto police officers arrested over sexual assault in Barcelona

Two off-duty officers allegedly assaulted a sex worker in a taxi in Ciutat Vella, according to police in Catalonia

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The Toronto police force, which is already under intense public scrutiny, is facing fresh questions after it emerged that three off-duty officers on vacation in Barcelona were arrested in connection with a sexual assault last week.

According to police in Barcelona, the alleged assault occurred in the early hours of 13 May, when the trio of police officers were travelling in a taxi with a sex worker in the Ciutat Vella neighbourhood of the Catalan capital.

Trump says he was 'an hour away' from Iran strike decision before he postponed it

Asked how long Iran has to come to the table, Trump said it could be two or three days, or perhaps until Sunday or early next week.

Police to seek criminal charges against 77 companies and people over Grenfell fire

Scotland Yard to send files to CPS with ‘strong evidence’ of potential wrongdoing – but any trials could be years away

Scotland Yard has said it hopes to bring criminal charges against 77 companies and individuals for the Grenfell Tower fire, but trials will not start until a decade after the disaster that killed 72 people.

The Guardian understands a king’s counsel, a senior lawyer experienced in prosecutions, has been appointed to lead the crown’s criminal cases, which are expected to be complex and possibly last years.

Czech football coach who secretly filmed female players handed lifetime ban

• Petr Vlachovsky was first convicted in May 2025

• Five-year domestic coaching ban was seen as too lenient

Uefa has handed a lifetime ban from all football-related activity to Petr Vlachovsky, the Czech coach who used a hidden camera to secretly film his female players in their changing rooms.

Vlachovsky was convicted in May 2025, having been found to have filmed 14 players at FC Slovacko over a four-year period. He was convicted without a public hearing and handed a suspended one-year prison sentence and a five-year domestic coaching ban, which prompted calls from the Czech players’ union for his punishment to be broadened.

Artificial eggshell comes first in attempt to revive giant flightless moa

De-extinction firm Colossal Biosciences hopes incubation system can be scaled up but other scientists are sceptical

The flightless moa, an extinct bird of New Zealand, stood more than 3 metres tall, weighed over 200kg and had eggs larger than those of any bird now living. Now the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences says it is a step closer to resurrecting the moa after creating an artificial eggshell.

Colossal hopes the artificial incubation system, which it successfully used to hatch chickens, could be scaled up to create a bird as big as the moa in future. “We’ve created a novel shell-less culture system that is fully scalable and biologically accurate,” said Prof Andrew Pask, the chief biology officer at Colossal.

Vingegaard fails to snatch pink jersey as Ganna triumphs in Giro time trial

• Vingegaard cuts gap on overall leader Eulálio to 27sec

• Ganna wins stage 10 in 45min 53sec

Filippo Ganna sailed to an easy victory in stage 10’s individual time trial at the Giro d’Italia on Tuesday,. The pre-race favourite, Jonas Vingegaard, failed in his bid to take the overall lead as Afonso Eulálio battled hard to keep the pink jersey.

No one could come close to Ganna, a time trial specialist who completed the flat, 42km (26-mile) route along the Tuscan coast from Viareggio to Massa in 45min 53sec. Ganna had little to worry about while waiting for confirmation of his eighth Giro stage win – seven of those have come in time trials.

Trump endorses Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in Texas Senate primary runoff

President Trump has endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas GOP runoff for U.S. Senate, one week before voting ends in the contentious and expensive primary.

Changes to Married at First Sight UK put participants at risk, say insiders

‘The boundaries of entertainment are always pushed for each series,’ psychologist says, with show’s future in doubt

The pressure to keep audiences glued to hit reality TV shows is leading to participants being put in increasingly risky and exploitative situations, according to a psychologist and executive who have both previously worked on Married at First Sight UK.

Two women have alleged they were raped during the filming of the show, which is one of Channel 4’s most popular and profitable programmes, and said not enough was done to protect them.

Aerial footage shows California brush fire spreading across Simi Valley – video

A fast-growing brush fire that started on Monday morning in southern California has prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people and damaged at least one home.

The Sandy fire was reported just after 10am in Simi Valley, a city in Ventura county about 30 miles north-west of Los Angeles. The blaze spread to more than 1,300 acres by its second day. Several neighbourhoods in nearby northern LA were put under evacuation warnings. Under an evacuation warning, residents are not required to leave immediately but are encouraged to be alert and be prepared to leave if conditions worsen

• Fast-growing southern California brush fire prompts evacuation orders

Woman shot dead by police in Jamaica at protest over previous police shooting

Investigation launched as video circulates online showing officer firing at vehicle and colleagues dragging away body

Authorities in Jamaica have launched an investigation after CCTV footage of a woman’s fatal shooting by police sent shock waves across the Caribbean nation.

Footage circulating on social media shows a police officer firing at a vehicle during a protest on Sunday in Granville, in Jamaica’s north-western parish of St James. The bullet hit Latoya Bulgin, 45, who was behind the wheel of the vehicle.

Minnesota becomes first state to ban prediction markets

While dozens of states have taken legal action against the controversial industry, Minnesota is the first state to pass a law making it a felony for companies like Kalshi and Polymarket to operate.

Musk v Altman: tech bros at war over OpenAI – The Latest

A long and bitter legal battle between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman has culminated in victory for the OpenAI boss. Musk has vowed to appeal the verdict. But what did the trial reveal about big tech and the global AI race? Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US tech and power reporter Nick Robins-Early

States sue over new student loan limits on certain nursing and healthcare degrees

New York, Arizona, North Carolina, Kentucky and Nevada are among the states challenging a rule that limits federal student loans for graduate degrees in nursing, physical therapy and more.

Can't keep a habit? This comic shares a proven formula to make it stick

In this illustrated guide, behavioral scientist BJ Fogg breaks down his Tiny Habits framework to help you rethink your approach to starting (or restarting) a habit.

American doctor working in Congo tests positive for Ebola

An American medical missionary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was evacuated after testing positive for Ebola.

WHO considers use of experimental vaccines as Ebola cases and deaths rise in DRC

WHO chief said he was ‘deeply concerned’ after at least 500 suspected Ebola cases and 130 deaths reported in outbreak of Bundibugyo strain

• ‘It’s heartbreaking’: panic in eastern DRC over return of Ebola

Global health leaders are considering whether vaccines or medicines still in development could be used to fight Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as the World Health Organization’s chief said he was deeply concerned by the outbreak’s speed and scale.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there had been at least 500 suspected cases of Ebola and 130 suspected deaths in DRC since the new outbreak began – up from about 200 cases and 65 deaths when it was announced on Friday.

What are Samsung union workers demanding and how might a strike play out?

Nearly 48,000 workers are threatening an 18-day walkout amid fears of global memory chip shortages

The South Korean memory chip maker Samsung Electronics is facing its worst-ever strike, with nearly 48,000 workers threatening to walk off production lines on Thursday for 18 days over a dispute about bonus payouts.

Here are key things to know:

‘People should aim to get a variety’: the pros and cons of popular protein sources

From beans, lentils and tofu to chicken, pork, beef and fish, experts weigh the health benefits and potential drawbacks

Do you think you’re not getting enough protein? Debbie Fetter, an associate professor in nutrition at the University of California, Davis, likes to ask her students this same question. In a lecture hall of more than 500 people, “almost every hand shoots up”, she says.

Protein is top of mind for consumers. A 2024 survey of 3,000 Americans suggests most are trying to eat more of it, and research shows that foods labeled “more protein” are especially appealing to consumers.

Russian jamming blamed after Nato jet downs Ukrainian drone over Estonia

Officials from Baltic states say Moscow behind latest such incident but also tell Kyiv to be more careful with its routing

A Romanian F-16 Nato jet shot down a drone over Estonia on Tuesday in what appears to be the latest case of Russian electronic jamming diverting long-range Ukrainian drones into the alliance’s territory.

A local resident told the Estonian public broadcaster, ERR, that he had seen two fighter jets – part of a Nato force policing the skies over the Baltic states – flying in the area before a loud bang that brought the drone down. He said the drone had crashed about 30 metres from the nearest residential building.

Feldman and Beckett: Words and Music review – hypnotic absurdism at Sheffield Chamber Music festival

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
This fascinating and bold concert featured the works of the ‘word man’ and the ‘note man’, and their absurdist radio play Words and Music

A few months before he died, Morton Feldman told a radio interviewer that he considered Samuel Beckett to be “a word man, a fantastic word man” and that he, Feldman, always thought of himself as a note man. The two worked together twice, first on an opera and then, in 1987, on Words and Music, an absurdist radio play that Beckett repurposed with Feldman’s music. Their mutual sympathy was apparent in Sheffield Chamber Music festival’s affectionate staging of the latter, which occupied this concert’s second half.

Before that, however, the juxtaposition of a minimalist Beckett monologue with one of Feldman’s classic uncoordinated scores laid bare their deep artistic synergy. Rockaby, a desolate exploration of ageing and isolation, was the opener. Directed in the round by Vicky Featherstone, the rigid protagonist – a magnetic Siobhán McSweeney – revolved in her rocking chair, listening and occasionally responding to her own recorded voice. It was hard not to sense the heavy hand of dementia behind the singsong fragments and the fading woman’s desperate final quest for human connection.

Bessent urges G7 to help U.S. attack Iran's finances

The Iran war continues to wreak havoc on global oil supply and the broader economy, even as the conflict appears to be locked in an uneasy stalemate.

Her Private Hell review – Nicolas Winding Refn’s shapeshifting fantasia is a dreamy swirl of strangeness

Cannes film festival: Refn’s film eludes definition as it moves through time and space, from doomy reality to strange dream worlds populated by quasi-Lynchian characters

The title’s first word should probably be “His”. Nicolas Winding Refn has returned to Cannes with a bizarre new fantasia moodscape, a midnight movie of fear and dreamy disquiet, meaning … what, exactly? The setting of the film – a twist on the 60s pulp shocker of the same title by Norman J Warren – morphs and shapeshifts from place to place, with the antilogical procedure of a dream, from a supposedly real outer world to the inner space of hallucination and memory. It starts in a giant, empty hotel (whose colossal Stygian corridors are not unlike those in Refn’s Only God Forgives) in the middle of a digitally rendered dystopian city, wreathed in the kind of mist that tends to conceal a serial killer, and people here are frightened of someone called the “Leather Man”.

We move to the fictional action of a movie the hotel’s inhabitants are (possibly) planning to make, or perhaps to the world of their fears and imaginings, their ideas occasioned by this ostensible realist premise. And then we move to a situation from the past in US-occupied postwar Japan, where a haunted GI is looking for his daughter. This is a story populated by quasi-Lynchian characters and gargoyles with strange nicknames – the whole imagined landscape, lit by Refn’s throbbingly neon purples, reds and blues, looks like a nightclub in hell. And yet it is less violent and explicit than his earlier adventures. The pace is doomy, sepulchral and slow; like Refn’s TV series Too Old to Die Young, it moves at the pace of a zombie which has been shot but still keeps on shuffling forward. Or perhaps it is more like that of a sleepwalker who walks and talks slowly, but has a clearer idea of what is happening than those who are, in a more banal sense, awake.

Vladimir Putin arrives in Beijing for state visit hot on heels of Trump

Russian leader says relations between two countries have reached ‘unprecedented level’ on eve of 25th visit to China

Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing for a state visit, four days after Donald Trump left China.

The Russian leader’s visit to China – his 25th, according to Chinese state media – reflects Beijing’s growing confidence on the world stage as a centre of global diplomatic activity.

Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea target Jarrod Bowen amid drop threat

• West Ham will need to raise more than £100m if relegated

• Relegation could force England player to reassess future

Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are interested in Jarrod Bowen as rival clubs prepare to capitalise on West Ham’s financial problems by targeting their best players.

West Ham will need to raise more than £100m if relegated from the Premier League and there is growing interest in Bowen from a host of top sides.

Security guard killed in San Diego Islamic Center shooting remembered as a hero

A security guard who was among the victims killed in a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego is being hailed for his heroism and bravery during the attack.

Carlos Alcaraz ruled out of Wimbledon as recovery from wrist injury goes on

• ‘Unfortunately I’m still not ready to compete’

• Spaniard had already pulled out of the French Open

Carlos Alcaraz has been forced to withdraw from Wimbledon as he continues his recovery from the wrist injury that will force him out of action for at least three months during the most significant part of the tennis season.

Alcaraz has not competed since withdrawing from his second-round match at the Barcelona Open last month after feeling pain in his right wrist in his opening match of the tournament. The 23-year-old had already been forced to withdraw from the rest of the clay-court season, including the French Open, which begins on Sunday.

Roasted butternut pumpkin with chickpeas and tahini mandarin yoghurt – recipe

It’s seeds off, skin on in this autumnal pumpkin dish – and don’t be afraid to let it turn extra golden in the oven

A delicious way to enjoy butternut pumpkin. No need to remove the skin, and try not to overcrowd the tray; give everything space so it roasts rather than steaming. And don’t be shy with colour – those dark edges on the pumpkin are where all the flavour is. I serve this with sliced chilli on the side to keep it family friendly.

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Darren Robertson, co-founder of Three Blue Ducks, and Doug Innes-Will, Bundanon executive chef, are hosting a Twilight Feast as part of the Make Good festival on 30 May at Bundanon, NSW

The ICC’s investigation of its chief prosecutor has been a failure | Kenneth Roth

Karim Khan is wrong to say he has been exonerated of sexual misconduct. The case must proceed swiftly

The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been on an exoneration tour, with stops including an interview with Mehdi Hasan and an appearance at the Oxford Union. Accused by a lawyer in his office of repeated sexual misconduct, which he denies, he claims that an internal review of the allegations has vindicated him but the situation is more complex than that.

It has been a year since Khan took a leave of absence while the claims against him were investigated as an internal employment matter. That absence has left the ICC under the control of his deputies, with important decisions to be taken in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. Yet the ICC member states, which have ultimate authority over whether Khan stays or goes, have dawdled, acting as if they had all the time in the world. And the procedure that they relied on to resolve the matter turned out to be a travesty.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he served as a federal prosecutor in New York and Washington

A noble cat’s move down the street made me wonder: what makes a place a home? | Clarke Gayford

After years living out of not much more than a suitcase between Auckland, Boston, Spain and London, our small family unit of three is now in Sydney

When my sister and her family renovated their home, a kind absent neighbour a hundred metres or so away offered an empty place to stay through the worst of the refit. Left behind, though, was my sister’s noble cat, with a plan in place to return daily, topping up bowls and delivering encouraging pats as they navigated the steady stream of tradies together.

But then a funny thing happened. The cat, having got wind of its family relocation, promptly upped its own four little leg-sticks and wandered down the street, crossing the road, moving into this temporary abode with them.

Gambling addicts are struggling as Kalshi and Polymarket explode in the US: ‘You could be betting your rent away’

Experts warn that although prediction markets are not regulated as gambling platforms, they are just as addictive

When Kevin first heard about the prediction market Kalshi, he knew deep down it would be wise to stay away. Kalshi reminded him of a weakness of his: sports betting.

Kevin, who is 36 and works in law enforcement in Texas, has been a gambling addict for 18 years. It’s a problem that cost him his first marriage and forced him to file for bankruptcy.

Live chicks hatched from artificial eggshell, biotech company says

Independent scientists say the technology, while impressive, lacks some components to be truly considered an artificial egg.

Japan, China lead foreign government retreat from U.S. Treasurys as Iran war fallout stokes currency fears

The sell-off came as the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran conflict and resulting surge in crude oil prices sent the yen and other Asian currencies tumbling.

Jon Stewart on Trump’s visit with Xi: ‘All you came back with was his Instagram?’

Late-night hosts discussed the president’s trip to China and his latest bizarre social media posting spree

Late-night hosts covered Donald Trump’s recent trip to China and how he headed straight back to a social media posting binge as soon as he returned.

‘America’s Mona Lisa’: how chance, genius and cheap paint made the masterpiece Whistler’s Mother

When his 15-year-old model did a runner, Whistler’s mother stepped in. As the triumphant result arrives in Britain, the work’s restorer writes about its creator’s brilliance – while wishing he’d used better paint

‘One does like to make one’s mummy just as nice as possible.” So James Abbott McNeill Whistler said about his triumphant painting of his mother Anna – or Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 as he christened it. Whistler was not a man given to undue modesty, but in 2026 his words sound like a rare understatement. Over the past century and a half, Whistler’s Mother, as it is commonly known, has become America’s equivalent of the Mona Lisa. Anna has never stopped travelling around museums in the US and beyond in those years. This month, for the first time in almost two generations, it will return to London, the city where Anna was painted in Whistler’s Chelsea studio, as part of Tate Britain’s Whistler show.

I got to know every inch of the picture over many months, as I restored it for the Musée d’Orsay to the state it is in now (I was commissioned by the Louvre, the owner of the painting). Whistler is the only artist whose portrait of his mother has reached such superstar status – and its history is fascinating.

A study investigates: Did the abrupt end of USAID have an impact on violence?

That's the provocative question that researchers dug into after the U.S. shut down its premier aid agency.

Jackson Pollock painting sells for record $181m at Christie’s in New York

Abstract expressionist’s Number 7A, 1948, becomes the fourth most expensive work ever sold at auction

A Jackson Pollock painting has sold for a record $181.2m (£135.3m) at Christie’s in New York.

The sale on Monday made Number 7A, 1948 the fourth most expensive work ever sold at auction, according to ARTnews.

What to know about today's primaries in Georgia, Kentucky and more

Voters are going to the polls Tuesday for primaries in several states, including the most expensive House primary in history.

Sally Rooney on a new Hebrew translation of Intermezzo: ‘The Israeli culture sector is complicit in apartheid’

Four years after Rooney cited BDS in declining a different Israeli publisher, she speaks with activist Samir Eskanda about the artist’s role in the boycott movement

• Sally Rooney to publish Hebrew translation of novel with BDS-compliant publisher

Intermezzo, the most recent book by Irish novelist Sally Rooney, will be published in Hebrew this month by the Israeli publisher November Books, in collaboration with +972 Magazine and Local Call. The announcement comes more than four years after Rooney, citing the global boycott movement against Israel, turned down a translation offer by a different Israeli publisher for an earlier book.

Below, Rooney talks to the Irish Palestinian activist Samir Eskanda about her decision to work with November Books, which has been deemed to be in compliance with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. They discuss what first brought her to the boycott, the movement’s aims and targets and the role of the artist in bringing about radical change.

The Republican project isn’t to win in November. It’s to make November cease to matter | Jamil Smith

New electoral maps are erasing Black representations. The effort takes its cues from American history

Early this month, a single pen stroke effectively ended representative Steve Cohen’s career in Congress. The man who has represented Memphis for 19 years will turn 77 later this month, but he wasn’t planning on retiring. He hadn’t lost any primary. The reason was that his district had been erased around him.

A new electoral map, passed by the Republican-led state legislature and signed by Bill Lee, the governor, divides the ninth district three ways. “Last week Tennessee Republicans silenced the Black vote here in Memphis to make Republican victories likely,” Cohen said in his statement. That’s succinct and accurate.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Cuba condemns U.S. sanctions, accuses Washington of building ‘fraudulent case’ for military action

The comments come after a fresh wave of U.S. sanctions and amid mounting speculation that the U.S. could carry out military strikes against Cuba.

When I look at what Zohran Mamdani is doing as mayor, I’m jealous of New Yorkers | Arwa Mahdawi

Sure, he’s not perfect, but on libraries, childcare and potholes, he’s getting the job done. Why can’t more politicians give a damn?

Some people buy a motorbike when they have a midlife crisis. Others take up a hobby like pottery. I, meanwhile, have channelled all my perimenopausal rage and existential angst into regularly calling government officials in Philadelphia and complaining about the city’s trash problem. Sometimes I also offer helpful suggestions as to how they can improve things, but these never seem well received. However, the last time I called the mayor’s office the woman who picked up did say: “You’ve called here before, haven’t you?” Which led me to believe that 1) not many people with English accents are calling the Philadelphia mayor’s office to offer unsolicited advice on urban sanitation; and 2) I should probably seek help with my trash obsession.

Since I seem to be airing all my unresolved psychological issues, I should probably add that I have recently diagnosed myself with a condition called Mamdani Mayoral Envy (MME). Depending on your location, you may suffer from it too. Symptoms include reading about New York and wondering why your city can’t be led by someone who actually seems to give a damn the way Zohran Mamdani does.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Ebola in the DRC needs the world’s attention now – if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you don’t wait and watch | Devi Sridhar

A rare strain, conflict and aid cuts make this outbreak more dangerous than ever. In the interconnected world we live in, the west can’t afford to turn away

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

At the weekend the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a “public health emergency of international concern”. This designation is the highest alarm level the WHO has to notify its member states about a health crisis that is considered extraordinary, has multi-country risk and requires a coordinated international response. Usually, the director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, would convene a meeting of international health experts to discuss whether an outbreak meets the legal criteria, but for the first time in the agency’s history, he went ahead and declared it after consulting the governments of the DRC and Uganda, and analysing the data presented.

So what is happening now and why are health experts so concerned? We recently learned that there are several hundred suspected cases and 131 suspected deaths from Ebola in the eastern part of the DRC and possibly neighbouring Uganda. Ebola is one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases, with symptoms progressing from fever and vomiting to internal bleeding and organ failure.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Musk and Altman take their battle from court to Wall Street ahead of landmark IPOs

Now that the Musk-Altman trial has reached a verdict, the two billionaires can turn their attention to readying their companies for the public market.

Israel's trying to expel a whole Palestinian district in East Jerusalem, activists say

Israeli authorities are issuing Palestinians demolition orders in East Jerusalem at an accelerated rate since Israel launched war with Iran, human rights groups and U.N. experts say.

HS2 bill could rise to £102bn with first trains delayed until 2039, government admits

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander blames Conservative government for ‘obscene increase in times and costs’

The HS2 high-speed railway will now cost up to £102.7bn and trains will not start running between London and Birmingham until as late as 2039, the government has admitted – £70bn more and 13 years later than originally promised.

The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the truncated railway would not be entirely completed until as late as 2043.

Security guard killed in San Diego mosque shooting remembered: "He saved a lot of lives"

Three people were killed in a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime. Two teenage suspects were also found dead. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

Former Spanish PM under criminal investigation as €53m bailout of airline examined

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who denies any wrongdoing, ordered to appear at Spain’s highest criminal court on suspicion of influence-peddling

The former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been placed under investigation for alleged influence-peddling and other offences by a judge examining the state bailout of a Venezuela-linked airline during the Covid pandemic.

Zapatero, a socialist who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011, has been ordered to appear before Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, on 2 June.

‘This is mine, I own it’: how Tracey Emin and Frida Kahlo inspired me to make meaning out of pain

Emin’s unsparing examination of her cancer and Kahlo’s intensely imagined response to traumatic injury moved our writer to take self-portraits while recovering from a serious operation

In a photographic self-portrait taken not long after she was diagnosed with squamous cell bladder cancer in 2020, Tracey Emin’s iPhone shrouds her right breast as our line of vision descends from her catheter to her urostomy bag to her disposable knickers. Her body is fragile here in this hospital mirror, yet her gaze is anything but. It looks us dead in the eye as if to say: I matter, this matters – a sureness that challenges the notion of subjugation in times of ill-health.

Even now, six years after her life-saving surgery, Emin refuses to conform to what may, or may not, make us feel comfortable when it comes to her post-operative body. As well as losing her bladder, Emin also lost her uterus, ovaries, lymph nodes, part of her colon, her urethra and part of her vagina. And yet she has found a striking autonomy in documenting the changes in her body. “This is mine, I own it,” she affirmed in an interview not long after her surgery.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu review – helmeted hero tangles with hateful Hutts in decent feature outing

The badass bounty hunter and his little green friend take on the Empire and Jabba the Hutt’s family in this solid enough addition to the ever-expanding universe

Here is a non-canonical, or semi-canonical tale – maybe the distinction is beginning to blur – from the Star Wars universe, serving up some entertaining but very familiar Star Wars narrative tropes on a spectacular Imax scale. And if you thought it was possible to end a movie like this without a climactic aerial combat scene involving X-wing fighters, think again. It is developed from the Disney+ streaming TV series The Mandalorian and set in the timeframe just after Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, in which holdout warlords from the defeated Empire are plotting a return against the New Republic.

Pedro Pascal plays the Mandalorian, a badass freebooting bounty hunter not unlike Han Solo, only he has on his shoulder Grogu, his “ward”. (That quaint Victorian term is revived here for the first time since the days of Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne.) Grogu is the Yoda-species infant with nascent telekinetic powers. As for the Mandalorian, he has a voice like Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, and in fact he’s the guy with no face; he hardly ever removes his helmet – apart from in one key scene – despite the fact that it must surely restrict his visual field. And he must surely remove it occasionally to eat and drink and trim his moustache. Body-double actors Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne variously play the helmeted Mandalorian striding around, giving director Jon Favreau and Pascal exceptional leeway with the filming and voice-recording schedule. The Mandalorian is a vivid symbol of the importance of genre IP over old-fashioned star presence and the obvious comparison with Dave Prowse body-doubling Darth Vader is disconcerting.

Putin in China and a photocall in Cannes: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

To revive an extinct bird, you first need an artificial egg

Colossal Biosciences, a Texas company trying to bring extinct species back to life, reports creating artificial eggs that would be necessary to revive extinct birds such as the dodo.

How to stop pasta sticking together | Kitchen aide

Don’t just tip it into boiling water and leave it, says our pasta panel – it needs a bit of attention

When I cook pasta with a hollow (eg, orecchiette), how do I stop it sticking together? The water is always boiling and salted, sometimes with oil, but last week my granddaughter and I spent half an hour going through the damn stuff.
David, Manchester
“Pasta is an engaged activity, so it’s really important that you don’t just drop it [in boiling water] and walk away,” says Dara Klein, of Tiella in east London. “Like a dear friend, pay it some attention.” David mentions orecchiette, which is a particularly vulnerable shape, says the Guardian’s Italian correspondent, Rachel Roddy: “They have a habit of falling into each other,” she sympathises, and in such times it’s best to check your basic principles. “It’s always the same rules,” Roddy says. “The water should be fast boiling, add salt, then stir, so you’ve got that double movement.” She isn’t one for adding olive oil, mind. Neither is Klein: “It’s just not necessary. And even if you’ve added a healthy glug of oil to the water, you’re still going to get clumping if you don’t stir.”

This may seem obvious, but make sure your pasta hasn’t intertwined in the bag before shaking it into the rolling water, and don’t be daft and dump the lot in all at once. “As soon as the pasta is in the water, give it a stir with a wooden spoon,” says Klein, who then stirs every minute to ensure those pasta shapes float free.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email [email protected]

Why data sleuths are archiving the Jeffrey Epstein files: ‘We want to provide some clarity’

Tommy Carstensen oversees one of the most sophisticated archives of Epstein materials, while Tristan Lee’s database allows searches of faces who appear in the files

Before the US Department of Justice (DoJ) missed a legally mandated, December 2025 deadline to release unclassified files related to the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein, the Denmark-based data scientist and bioinformatician Tommy Carstensen was not especially concerned with the case of the accused sex trafficker.

“I hadn’t even watched the Netflix documentary,” he said.

Soldier who survived Iranian attack in Kuwait slams Pentagon's response: "This was a failure"

Soldiers who survived the Iranian drone strike in Kuwait tell CBS News the U.S. Army ignored a request for more medical support weeks before the deadly attack. Some of the survivors say at least one of the six soldiers who were killed in the March 1 attack could have been saved.

The Dark Side of Married at First Sight review – there is enough awful detail here to fuel 1,000 more exposés

The allegations of rape and sexual assault in this documentary about the Channel 4 series are hugely troubling and revealing. Surely this is the end for MAFS?

Well. My goodness. Allegations of rape and sexual assault have arisen from a reality show built around the conceit of strangers “marrying” each other at first sight, then cohabiting in the full expectation that “marital” relations will ensue – and if not, they will be quizzed by a panel of “experts” as to why not. All this, and under the pressures of filming and the medium’s insatiable appetite for emotional drama and conflict, plus manufactured situations such as group dinner parties to encourage any grievances to burst into flames on top of that? The only possible true surprise here, surely, is that this hasn’t happened before.

Panorama’s latest exposé, The Dark Side of Married at First Sight, is presented by Noor Nanji, who has previously worked on investigations into the allegations of various forms of sexual and other misconduct behind the scenes at the BBC hits Strictly Come Dancing and MasterChef. This time, the focus is on allegations by three former “wives” who appeared on Channel 4’s wildly popular show (10 series and – at least until now – counting), known by fans as MAFS, or MAFS UK to distinguish it from the international editions that have developed since the original Danish version in 2013.

California mosque shooting leaves 5 dead. And, judge dismisses Trump's IRS lawsuit

San Diego authorities are investigating a deadly shooting at a mosque as a hate crime. And, Trump dropped his lawsuit against the IRS, paving the way for an "anti-weaponization fund."

3 killed in shooting at Islamic Center of San Diego, police say; 2 suspects dead

Three people were killed in a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, and two suspected shooters were found dead inside a vehicle nearby, police said.

Orcas could be casualty in Carney’s push for pipeline, environmental groups fear

Rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada collides with laws meant to protect endangered species

Environmental groups in Canada fear endangered orcas could become a casualty of Mark Carney’s push for a new oil pipeline, as the rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure collides with laws meant to protect threatened species.

The decades-long tragedy of the critically endangered southern resident orcas has become emblematic of an ecosystem in crisis. But fishermen, whale-watching companies and the marine transport industry have long feuded over who bears the most blame.

‘If your financial adviser is earning a commission, I say, run’: An investing expert’s advice

Personal finance guru Jeremy Schneider explains what human experts can still do better than robo-investors and AI

Jeremy Schneider has a $4m portfolio and says he spends about five minutes a year managing it. Investing, he says, is dead simple.

So why did he start a financial advising firm?

Keep investing simple. One target date index fund works for most people.

Use AI and roboadvisers for straightforward tasks – buying index funds, defining financial concepts, and summarizing information – but remember AI is not foolproof.

Be frugal and live below your means, which will give you more money to put toward your goals.

If you’re looking for paid financial advice, learn about how the adviser gets paid – and what conflicts of interest might result.

Some plants have a genetic superpower that may help them survive a cataclysm

Get ready for a biology lesson. Certain plants have extra sets of chromosomes. And it turns out, it's a useful trait for a species facing a dramatic event like climate change.

‘Her crotchless trousers are etched in my brain for ever’: Valie Export remembered by the artists she influenced

Peaches, Florentina Holzinger, Joan Jonas and more pay tribute to the fearless feminist performance artist, who died last week

Peaches

The missing men of the American marriage market

A new study suggests the growing educational and economic divide between men and women is reshaping marriage and family life in America — leaving many women with a shrinking pool of economically stable partners.

Why more US women are moving abroad: ‘It’s because of Trump, right? Yes and no’

As many as 40% of women aged 15 to 44 say they want to migrate, citing better work life balance to Trump’s politics

It was in 2022, when Americans were reeling from the news that the supreme court had overturned Roe v Wade, that Jen Barnett got a firsthand glimpse of just how viable her new business could be.

Days before the court ruling, she had launched a website aimed at Americans looking to move abroad. As confusion and consternation set in over what the ruling meant for US women, Barnett watched traffic to her website steadily tick upward. “We had this huge spike.”

New report reveals sharp rise in online sale of primates on social media in US

Researchers found over 1,600 primates listed for sale on Facebook, TikTok and more over a six-week period in 2025

A new report from leading wildlife and conservation organizations has revealed a sharp rise in the online sale of primates across major social media platforms in the US, raising concerns about wildlife trafficking, public safety and animal welfare.

The report, titled Primates for Purchase: The Surge in Sales on Social Media in the US, was released Tuesday by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

US claims ‘emergency refugee situation’ as it admits 10,000 more white South Africans

Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners facing genocide with costs of resettling them at $100m

The US government has said it will increase the number of white South Africans it admits as refugees this year from about 7,500 to 17,500, claiming that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.”

Since starting his second term in office last year, Donald Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners are racially targeted and face a “white genocide”, which South Africa’s government has furiously rebutted.

U.S. announces Ebola-related travel restrictions amid outbreak in Congo, Uganda

The Trump administration announced it's restricting people who don't have U.S. passports from entering the country if they have been in Congo, South Sudan or Uganda amid the Ebola outbreak.

Houseplant hacks: can a potato help cuttings to grow?

It sounds like a handy, natural propagation trick, but tried-and-tested methods are more reliable

The problem
Taking cuttings is one of the most satisfying things you can do as a plant owner, but most people lack confidence. Stems sit in water for weeks doing nothing, or collapse in soil before roots appear. So when a hack promises to speed things up using nothing more than a raw potato, news travels fast.

The hack
The potato is supposed to keep the cutting hydrated and release nutrients as it breaks down, giving the stem everything it needs to form roots before it has to fend for itself. Some videos claim that potatoes contain salicylic acid, which encourages rooting.

Queer art, bowler hats and an Annie Hall script: inside Diane Keaton’s archive as treasures go on sale

New exhibition opens the ‘file cabinet’ of the late actor’s mind, spotlighting self-made collages and iconic men’s suits

• ‘A photographer with a cool and deadly eye’: Diane Keaton’s creativity behind the lens

On a recent Friday afternoon, I stood before “the wall”: a sprawling collage created by Diane Keaton. The late actor pinned objects of fascination to this collage – including snaps of herself in Parisian photo booths, a fake ear with acupuncture points, mugshots of Victorian women, bingo cards, a menu from a defunct California gambling den and a photograph she took of her friend Carol Kane – over many decades.

The piece is one of Keaton’s many personal effects on view at Bonhams in West Hollywood before showing in New York later this month. Anna Hicks, the head of private and iconic collections at the auction house, tells me that this sizable piece, covering nearly an entire wall, constitutes a mere slice of the 8x30ft collage Keaton kept inside her Sullivan Canyon home. Bonhams specialists found even more ephemera, such as signed photos of her The Godfather co-star Al Pacino, tucked underneath this towering assemblage. “I think it tells you a lot about her,” Hicks says. “All her thoughts and different things that she found important or interesting, she just pinned up here.”

Forza Horizon 6 review – classic open world racing sim roars beautifully into Japan

Microsoft; PC, Xbox Series X/S (PS5 due later)
Dreamy vistas of the country’s natural beauties are stunningly delivered – but won’t distract from thrilling high-end driving adventures

The Forza Horizon games have always been about drama. Not just the tension and excitement of racing, but also the sensory impact of the natural environment – the sun rising over a dense city, rain clouds hovering above a valley floor. There are moments in this game – perhaps after emerging from a dense forest, or coming up from an underpass – where Mount Fuji briefly appears in the distance, hazy yet majestic, the Platonic ideal of a volcano – and it almost takes your breath away. Fans of this series have been waiting years for Japan and now here it is, the whole country, reduced, remixed and repackaged as a driving paradise.

In many ways, Forza Horizon 6 is a continuation of what this series has always been about. You enter a festival-style driving competition then drive around a vast map splattered with various races and challenges, earning reputation by competing well and buying new vehicles for your extensive garage. There are slight changes this time – you start as a rookie not an established legend, so you have to qualify to enter the festival, and Playground has re-introduced the need to unlock successive levels of competition bringing back the sense of progression from the earliest titles in the series. You start out clattering about in slower C-class vehicles on easier circuits and have to work hard to start lining up against super cars such as the Ferrari J50 or Lamborghini Huracán.