2 pilots killed after plane, firetruck collide at New York's LaGuardia Airport

New York's LaGuardia Airport is closed after an Air Canada Express plane and emergency vehicle collided on a runway late Sunday, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of people. Tom Hanson and Kris Van Cleave have the latest.

'This is insane.' Long lines plague U.S. airports as TSA officers face second missed paycheck in shutdown

The Trump administration said it plans to send ICE officers to help ease airport congestion amid TSA officer absences as they face second missed full paycheck.

Trump postpones threat to attack Iran power plants as Israel launches new strikes

In the Iran war, President Trump postponed his threat to strike Iran's civilian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz isn't reopened. Charlie D'Agata has the latest on the war, including new attacks from Israel and Iran continuing to strike back.

Supreme Court hearing dispute today over late-arriving mail ballots

The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots that are postmarked by but received up to five days after Election Day to be counted.

Trump tells CNBC 'we are very intent on making a deal' with Iran

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he would order the military to postpone strikes on Iran's power plants and energy infrastructure for five days.

CBS News poll shows majority of Americans don't approve of Iran war as gas prices rise

In a recent CBS News poll, 57% of respondents said they think the war with Iran is not going well for the U.S. and 66% called it a "war of choice." Fewer than one-third think the Trump administration has clearly stated U.S. goals in the conflict. Ed O'Keefe reports.

Orbán orders probe into ‘wiretapping’ of his foreign minister amid claims of Russia links – Europe live

Hungarian PM orders investigation after allegations that his foreign minister was leaking confidential EU talks to Russia

Meanwhile, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán attempted to get on the front foot after allegations that his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was leaking confidential EU talks to Russia as he ordered a probe into what he called a wiretapping of Szijjártó’s phone.

“We are dealing with two serious issues: there is evidence that Hungary’s foreign minister was wiretapped, and we also have indications of who may be behind it. This must be investigated immediately,” Orban tweeted on Monday, as reported by Reuters.

Counter-terror police investigating after ‘horrific antisemitic attack’ on Jewish community ambulances – latest updates

CCTV showed three people setting light to an ambulance in Golders Green in the early hours of Monday morning

The London Fire Brigade received 56 calls about the fire attack on four Jewish community ambulances, which involved the explosion of several cylinders stored in the vehicles, a senior figure from the fire service said.

Giving a statement at the scene in Golders Green, Paul Askew, deputy assistant commissioner for the London Fire Brigade, said:

Early this morning, London Fire Brigade control room took the first of 56 calls reporting a fire on Highfield Road in Golders Green.

Upon arrival, crews were met with a well-developed fire involving four ambulances. Several cylinders stored within the vehicles exploded because of the heat, causing damage to the windows of a nearby residential block.

We have already spoken to local community and faith leaders and will continue that work today. A specific policing plan focused on key community locations across the area is under way and will continue beyond the coming days as we move towards Passover in early April.

This attack comes at a time when fears are already heightened given global events and recent attacks targeting Jewish communities in other parts of Europe.

Stocks set to surge after Trump postpones ultimatum for Iran

Crude oil prices dropped after President Trump said the administration had held "good and productive" peace talks with Iran.

English clubs’ plea for bigger Champions League squads rejected after Spanish backlash

• Premier League clubs wanted 28-man squad for Europe

• Atlético Madrid among Spanish clubs with reservations

Uefa has rejected requests from English clubs to increase the size of Champions League squads to 28 next season, following a backlash led by their counterparts in Spain.

As reported by The Guardian the issue of larger squad sizes was discussed at a meeting of Uefa’s club competitions committee last month, but the proposal has not been put forward for the next meeting of Uefa’s executive committee, which will take place before the Europa League final in Istanbul on 20 May.

Pilot and co-pilot killed after Air Canada jet collision at LaGuardia New York

Nine people hospitalised and airport closed after landing plane hits fire truck responding to separate incident

The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada Express regional jet have been killed after it collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport, in an incident that closed the airport.

The collision also caused serious injuries with nine people in the hospital. It happened as a firefighting vehicle was responding to a separate incident, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport and reported having two employees hurt while they travelled in the fire truck.

England bring Ben White in from exile and also call up Scotland target Harvey Barnes

• White has not played for England since 2022

• Scotland were hopeful of picking winger Barnes

Ben White has been recalled to the England squad by Thomas Tuchel for the Wembley friendlies against Uruguay and Japan, ending his partly self-imposed exile. The Arsenal right-back has not been involved in the setup since he left camp during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar for personal reasons. He made himself unavailable for the remainder of Gareth Southgate’s tenure.

Tuchel said last March, before he named his first England squad, that White “wants to be back,” although he did not pick him then as the player had only just returned after a serious knee injury.

Trump sends ICE agents to airports amid TSA shortages as partial shutdown continues

The Trump administration is deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to some airports to fill in for Transportation Security Administration officers amid staffing shortages during the partial government shutdown. Democrats have slammed the move as ICE agents have been at the center of the partial shutdown on Capitol Hill. Skyler Henry reports.

Middle East crisis live: Trump postpones military strikes on Iranian power plants for a five day period

US president says he has instructed his defence department against strikes following ‘productive conversations’

• Iran vows to destroy Middle East water and energy facilities if US attacks power plants

British prime minister Keir Starmer is set to chair an emergency meeting on the economic fallout from the war in Iran on Monday, with chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey also attending, the UK government has said.

Financial markets face another turbulent week after Iran said it would strike its Gulf neighbours’ energy and water systems if Donald Trump followed through on his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it doesn’t fully open up the crucial strait of Hormuz.

Topics expected to be covered are the economic impact of the crisis on families and businesses, energy security and the resilience of industry and supply chains alongside the international response.

Break down of how collision between plane, firetruck unfolded at LaGuardia Airport

Robert Sumwalt, a former chair of the NTSB and a CBS News transportation safety expert, joins "CBS Mornings" to discuss the collision on a LaGuardia Airport runway between a plane and firetruck. Sumwalt explains what the NTSB investigation will look like, how long it could take and discusses air traffic control staffing.

It’s 100 and out for Kwasniok after derby thriller leaves chaotic Köln in trouble | Andy Brassell

The breathless 3-3 draw with Mönchengladbach only highlighted the disarray that has cost head coach his job

Lukas Kwasniok will always be able to say that he led FC Köln in the historic 100th top-flight Rhineland derby against Borussia Mönchengladbach. He will always be able to say that his team fought as hard as the occasion demanded, overcame myriad setbacks and never deserted the cause, or him.

Yet Kwasniok will also have to acknowledge that this was the end; that even a derby as intense as this and everything his team did right in it could not exist in a bubble separately from an increasingly fraught situation in Köln’s season. The writing had felt like it was on the wall for a while and when sporting director Thomas Kessler spoke after the game, it was sprayed in neon capitals. “It was,” Kessler acknowledged after a thrilling 3-3 draw, “a rollercoaster of emotions but ultimately, we have to say that the point isn’t enough today.” As soon as Kessler conceded that final point it wasn’t a case of if but when for Kwasniok.

Cecily Brown: ‘I was too shy to talk to all these super cool kids like Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst’

She left London because her paintings felt hopelessly unfashionable compared with the work of the YBA’s. Now she’s back with a blockbuster show – and the world has come round to her point of view

People say that Cecily Brown left London in the early 1990s because of the YBAs – as if, she laughs, she wanted to get away from them. “I actually had great admiration for the art being made, I just wasn’t in sync with them.” While Damien Hirst was dunking dead animals in formaldehyde and Sarah Lucas was devouring bananas in front of the camera, Brown was wielding a palette and brush. “There was this feeling in London at the time that if you were a painter, you were a loser. I didn’t feel like a saddo for being a painter in New York.”

You would think, then, that she’d be returning triumphant. She was taken on in her 20s by mega-gallery Gagosian, and has works in MoMA and the Tate. Recent shows include a survey at the Met in New York. Her paintings, slippery and complex canvases that are richly allusive and reward slow looking, sell for millions, making her one of the most valuable living female artists.

Trump delays strikes on Iran's power plants for 5 days. And, ICE deploys to airports

Trump says he will deploy ICE agents to U.S. airports to help address delays. And, the president said he would delay strikes on Iranian power plants for five days.

‘There’s biological treasure here’: Chile’s endemic seals gain protection with new marine park

Sixty years after the discovery of a colony of Juan Fernández fur seals, previously thought to be extinct, a landmark agreement extends ‘no take’ zone around the wildlife-rich archipelago

Six decades ago, pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle made a bittersweet discovery while diving off Chile’s oceanic islands with the US National Science Foundation vessel, the Anton Bruun. She found the remains of a baby fur seal, one of the world’s most isolated aquatic mammals.

Endemic to the Juan Fernández archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, and once prized for its fur and meat, the species, Arctocephalus philippii, was believed to have been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. But, Earle said: “A baby must have a mum and dad somewhere.”

Pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle. Photograph: Andy Mann/Blue Marine Foundation

‘Kids say they take a quick look at TikTok’: a new kind of distracted driving is on the rise

As watching videos, using touchscreens, and even livestreaming behind the wheel become more common, experts warn of increased risk of crashes

Jackie was on her way to a doctor’s appointment last fall when she realized her Uber driver’s eyes were not fully on the road. “He had a video playing on his phone and was intermittently looking at it,” she said. Jackie, who is 32 and lives in New Jersey, could not tell exactly what the driver was watching, but she remembers seeing shots of people talking – she guessed it was a video podcast. “I was definitely feeling a lot of dread and distress.”

As they continued on their 40-minute drive down the New Jersey Turnpike – a hectic highway that is not easy driving – Jackie considered saying something. But she felt vulnerable as a rider. “I was alone in a car with someone who was already doing something I found shocking and reckless,” she said. “I didn’t know how they were going to react.”

Cristian Romero promises ‘200%’ effort in Tottenham’s battle against relegation

• Spurs dropped to 17th after 3-0 loss to Nottingham Forest

• ‘The most important thing is to understand the situation’

Cristian Romero has promised to put 200% into Tottenham’s seven remaining “finals” to avoid a seismic Premier League exit.

Spurs’ survival hopes took a significant hit after a demoralising 3-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest on Sunday, dropping them to 17th and increasing the possibility of a first relegation since 1977. Tottenham’s winless league run stands at 13 matches and despite fans flooding the streets in N17 to give the team bus a raucous welcome, the pre-match optimism was replaced with a sense of inevitability after another abject defeat.

As Jewish ambulances are set ablaze, we must quell the flames of hate from Golders Green to the West Bank | David Davidi-Brown

Britons face a clear choice: fuel the division arising from all the horror abroad or refuse to let that hatred take hold in our own communities

A few weeks ago in Tel Aviv, on my first days there – before what has now become an extended stay due to the war – I stopped at a small place to grab lunch. I began my order in hesitant Hebrew, thinking I was doing well, but after a moment that exposed my linguistic limitations, the man behind the counter switched to English to ask where I was from. “London,” I said. “Ah,” he replied with a chuckle. “Londonistan.”

With the easy certainty of someone stating a fact, he then told me that London is no longer safe for Jews. I brushed it off at the time. It feels harder to dismiss now.

ICE agents will be deployed to U.S. airports on Monday: Homan

The shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security has caused massive pileups at airport security lines.

‘Absolute moral rigour’: new Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire’s ideals face stern test

Leftwing victor has pledged to cut officials’ expenses and luxuries, but first must turn his attention to a series of crises

When Paris’s new leftwing mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, leapt on a bike for a victory tour along the French capital’s large network of new cycle lanes on Sunday night, he was sending a crucial message to Paris residents.

Not only would he continue to build bike lanes and keep limits on cars in the city, keeping the French capital’s pro-cycling focus on environmental issues and reducing its dangerous air pollution., he was also seeking to style himself as humble, frugal – “of an absolute moral rigour”, in his words – after promising to shrink Paris officials’ hefty expenses accounts and end the use of chauffeur-driven cars.

2 pilots killed as plane and fire-rescue truck collide at LaGuardia Airport

Two pilots were killed and dozens of people injured at New York's LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night when an arriving Air Canada Express plane and fire and rescue vehicle collided, authorities said.

Secrets of the karst: new species found in Cambodia’s limestone caves – in pictures

A survey has revealed the vast array of wildlife – some never seen before – living within the south-east Asian country’s karst ecosystems. The work was led by international wildlife conservation charity Fauna & Flora in collaboration with Cambodia’s environment ministry and field experts

• I discovered three new geckos in Cambodia’s limestone caves – and that’s not all we found

The sun may be shining but beware eating alfresco – it can turn into an absolute indignity

During a trip to London I ended up perching on a wall, balancing a salad bowl on my knees. It wasn’t what I’d had in mind

Spring seems to be settling in and that’s great, but I have been recently reminded of one of its worst bits: not hay fever or wrong coat season, but the absolute indignity of alfresco eating.

I usually avoid eating outside; it’s fraught with dangers, from the stress position that is “sitting on picnic blanket” to seagull attack. But last week, giddy with the warm weather and leaving my sordid home office to come to London, my better judgment deserted me. I had one goal: I would treat myself to one of those fancy salad bowls I keep reading about (the “slop” ones that are harbingers of civilisational collapse), sitting in the sun. I wanted to emulate metropolitan sophisticates by paying £12 for elite rabbit food; I wanted improbable amounts of protein and fancy dressing; I wanted vitamin D. You don’t get that in York.

The pet I’ll never forget: Harriet, the hedgehog in my airing cupboard

Her job was to tackle slugs in the garden, but she soon found a way into my home – and my heart

Harriet came into my life when I asked my vet if I could get a hedgehog to come and live in my garden and deal with the slugs. She found me Harriet in Tiggywinkles, a Buckinghamshire-based wildlife hospital. Harriet was rather shy. I brought her home in a cardboard box and put it on the ground, on its side. She poked her nose out and, as soon as she saw me, scuttled off to hide in a corner of the garden.

Harriet settled in well and did her job efficiently, eating all the slugs. She slept in an old compost bag in the garden, to which I added some dried leaves to make a bed for her. One day, sitting on the sofa with my legs stretched out, I felt something touching my bare toes. It was Harriet, examining them. She had come in through the cat flap.

Trump delays striking Iran's power plants for 5 days, citing 'productive' talks

Trump said the U.S. will postpone any strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, even as Israel continued hitting Tehran and Iran warned it could retaliate across the Gulf.

‘We smell blood’: O’Reilly believes Wembley glory can reignite Manchester City title bid

• Two-goal hero says City are ready to hunt down Arsenal

• Rodri feels Carabao Cup can be springboard in title race

Nico O’Reilly has stated Manchester City “smell blood” as they hunt down Arsenal’s nine-point Premier League advantage following Sunday’s 2-0 Carabao Cup final triumph.

Two second-half headers by O’Reilly defeated Mikel Arteta’s team at Wembley to give City the season’s first major trophy. Pep Guardiola’s side have a game in hand on the leaders and host them next month at the Etihad Stadium.

Pete Hegseth is promoting a nihilist cult of death | Jan-Werner Mueller

The Trump administration is embracing violence for the sake of violence

It appears that members of Trump’s cabinet get chosen not despite their endorsements of violence, but because of them. Pete Hegseth was primarily known as a dapper TV host willing to defend war crimes. Markwayne Mullin is apparently still proud of challenging a witness to a fistfight at a Senate hearing; he also refuses to apologize for “understanding” an assault on fellow senator Rand Paul. Never before has an administration so openly glorified outright killing as the current White House propaganda machine does with its obscene snuff videos of the Iran war and the destruction of small boats.

Unlike with fascism in the 20th century, there is no attempt to promote or symbolically reward self-sacrifice – it is just video game-style killing at a distance, justified not with strategic objectives, but with seemingly uncontrollable emotions (“fury” and a thirst for vengeance). And all accompanied by open admissions that basic laws of warfare will be broken. Actual soldiers with longstanding codes of honor, as opposed to the fantasy world Hegseth is creating with his cliche-ridden chatter on TV, would not punch enemies when they are down.

More than 40 Middle East energy assets ‘severely damaged,’ IEA chief says

The IEA’s Fatih Birol warned that damage to energy infrastructure across the Middle East would take some time to repair.

The Magic Faraway Tree review – spruced up Blyton with Foy and Garfield proves fruitful

Paddington 2 co-creator Simon Farnaby branches out with adaptation of children’s classic boasting lively performances and some sharp gags

The estimable Simon Farnaby got hall-of-famer status for co-creating the film Paddington 2, an achievement which by common consent is basically up there with the moon landing and the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Now this screenwriting powerhouse of British movie entertainment has adapted and modernised Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree books from the late 1930s and 40s – all about a huge enchanted tree whose branches are a canopy of magical wonder.

The result is a thoroughly likable and sweet-natured family fantasy film for the Easter holidays, with acres of innocent jollity and eccentric quirkiness.

Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor review – portrait of a working-class artist in New York

This novel is stacked with ideas about Black art and aesthetics – but its language is too clumsy and academic to bring them to life

Brandon Taylor’s third novel, following the Booker-shortlisted Real Life and 2023’s The Late Americans, is full of hands. It’s set in the years after a pandemic that made many people desperate “to touch and be touched”. Long before then, no one had ever held the hand of its chief character, a young painter called Wyeth – not even his mother. In the doldrums, he recalls a conversation with a printmaker who extolled lithography because the images it produces reveal the strength and dexterity of an artist’s fingers: human marks. Poring through a company’s digital files, he has a near-seizure when he comes across a handwritten ledger: “There was something almost romantic about the curves of the numbers, elegant and swooping.”

Wyeth was born in Virginia, a state where, within living memory, Black farmhands developed cancer because they weren’t given gloves to pick the tobacco that would later poison their blood. He grew up in a trailer park with his white mother, a nursing assistant. To be working class, fatherless and from the south: this was, for him, a kind of isolation chamber. It led him to imagine that “the future and history belonged to another species of human that did not include him and his family and their distant relations”.

‘A big smile on my face’: why Everybody Wants Some!! is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their go-to comfort films is a trip back to 1980 with Richard Linklater’s charming hangout comedy

If any film can make me feel like a teenager again, it’s Everybody Wants Some!!

I first saw it when it came out in 2016 (making basically no money at the box office, which is a shame), and I’ve watched it at least once a year since.

With more older drivers on the road, states try to balance safety and mobility

The number of older drivers on the road is climbing. Safety advocates want tougher rules for relicensing, but many drivers say they shouldn't be forced to give up their mobility because of age alone.

What does a 'GLP-1 Friendly' diet look like? We asked nutritionists

Big food companies are starting to market to people on the powerful new obesity meds with labels that say "GLP-1 Friendly." Nutritionists help us decode that message.

Pilot and copilot killed in collision between jet and fire truck at LaGuardia

Two people were killed and several others badly hurt when an Air Canada regional jet struck a fire truck on a runway while landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night, officials said.

Long-awaited trial into Greece’s deadliest train crash begins

More than 30 people face charges after collision between two trains that killed 57 people in February 2023

A long-awaited trial has begun into Greece’s worst train tragedy, which killed 57 people in 2023, leaving the entire country in shock.

Thirty-six people face charges and more than 350 witnesses are due to be heard at the trial that opened in the central city of Larissa, near where a freight train and a passenger train collided on 28 February 2023.

Predatory feral ferrets removed from an island for the first time ever

Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland is ferret-free after £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI

Predatory feral ferrets have been removed from an island for the first time ever, in a boost for Northern Ireland’s largest seabird colony.

Rathlin Island is ferret-free after a £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI involving islanders, charities, volunteers and a red labrador called Woody.

‘I’m a big bear. I lumber’: showbiz superstar Richard Kind on delivering performances you can see from space

The first time Kind starred in Nazi-spoof The Producers, he lost 30lb. Is he – and the West End – ready for his return? And why is he so worried about his old flatmate George Clooney?

Richard Kind has played everything from a child’s imaginary friend in the Pixar fantasy Inside Out to a neighbour with antibiotic-resistant pinkeye in Only Murders in the Building. He was a physics savant with a sebaceous cyst in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man, Joaquin Phoenix’s final tormentor in the nightmarish Beau Is Afraid and Larry David’s insufferable cousin Andy in Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he squabbled over the correct direction of travel for a Lazy Susan and became an accessory to the murder of a swan. “Ubiquitous?” splutters Kind, his letterbox mouth agape. “I’m all over the fucking place! Nobody works more than me.”

We meet at the Garrick theatre in London, where the genial 69-year-old is beginning a seven-week stint in Mel Brooks’ bad-taste, Nazi-spoofing musical The Producers. Kind is temporarily taking over from Andy Nyman in the role of Broadway huckster Max Bialystock, who plans to swindle his backers by staging a surefire stinker called Springtime for Hitler and pocketing their investments when it closes prematurely.

Raye: This Music May Contain Hope review – a wildly ambitious epic of unbridled self-expression

(Human Re Sources)
Almost overstuffed with musical ideas, the singer’s second studio album can be self-indulgent and messy, but it’s a heartfelt and exuberant grand statement from an artist determined to go her own way

Last autumn, Raye was the subject of a lengthy profile in a major fashion magazine. In it, the singer told an anecdote that placed her in precisely the position you would expect following her successful debut album: ensconced in the studio with a very big name producer, the better to capitalise on its success. But the recording session was, she suggested, “fuckshit”: the producer simply turned up with a beat and expected her to sing over it. Raye declined to, as she put it, “do that dance … I was just thinking: ‘Get me out of here.’”

This story seems telling in light of This Music May Contain Hope, an album that very much suggests an artist determined to go her own way. It’s about an emotional breakdown occasioned by romantic woe, online criticism, a troubling call from her grandmother and, she notes, “seven negronis”. And, like Lily Allen’s West End Girl, it flies in the face of perceived wisdom about how people consume music in the streaming age, being a 17-track, 73-minute concept album divided into four sections and evidently intended to be listened to from start to finish.

iPhone 17e review: Apple upgrades its cheapest new smartphone

Mid-range handset gets chip, storage and MagSafe upgrades to offer more essential iOS features for less

The cheapest new iPhone has been upgraded for this year with a faster chip, double the storage, automatic portraits and MagSafe, providing even more of the core Apple smartphone experience for less.

The iPhone 17e is an upgraded version of the mid-range “e” line launched last year with the first iPhone 16e and is the latest member of the iPhone 17 family. It starts at £599 (€699/$599/A$999), undercutting the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 by £200 and £100 respectively to be the cheapest new iPhone sold by Apple.

Screen: 6.1in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (460ppi)

Processor: Apple A19 (4-core GPU)

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 256 or 512GB

Operating system: iOS 26

Camera: 48MP rear; 12MP front-facing

Connectivity: 5G, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, Satellite and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)

Dimensions: 146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8mm

Weight: 170g

We Know You Can Pay a Million by Anja Shortland review – the terrifying new world of ransomware

Criminals extorting money online have created huge businesses, complete with branding and HR

The birth of ransomware was a stunt that got out of hand. In 1989, an evolutionary biologist called Joseph L Popp Jr was working part time for the World Health Organisation on the Aids epidemic. He was a difficult man. When he was denied a permanent job, he decided to punish his peers while shocking them into acknowledging another kind of infection: the computer virus.

Popp wrote a questionnaire promising to help minimise the risk of contracting HIV, duplicated it on to 20,000 floppy discs, and sent them to researchers in 90 countries. Each disc contained a Trojan virus. Once it was inserted, a malware timebomb eventually made the computer unusable until the user paid a “licence fee” of $189 to a PO box in Panama. Popp’s primitive “Aids Trojan” was quickly identified and he was arrested for blackmail. Intending to make a point rather than a profit, he was mortified to learn that some of his targets had overreacted by wiping their hard drives: one Italian Aids organisation lost a decade’s worth of vital data. Popp experienced a psychological collapse and was deemed unfit to stand trial. The criminals who developed his crude innovation into a global business would not be so scrupulous.

Jane Fonda’s life goes under the microscope: best podcasts of the week

Pop culture icons and music legends are explored in a new show that has access to the BBC’s vast archive. Plus, the Guardian delivers a propulsive crime story that asks big questions of the US criminal justice system

Emmanuel Dzotsi had an all-too-brief run on internet culture podcast Reply All, so it’s great to hear him back on a smart and chatty show. He co-hosts this series alongside Kai Wright of WNYC’s Notes from America, with the pair drawing on the BBC’s vast archive to tell the stories of major pop culture figures. First up is actor and activist Jane Fonda, followed by a thoughtful profile of George Michael. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly from Monday 23 March

A new start after 60: I went on 75 first dates – and wrote a book of Kama Sutra-inspired poetry

Zack Rogow thought he was ready for love after the end of a long relationship – but not everyone agreed. How did he get over the rejections?

When Zack Rogow’s relationship ended, he joined an online dating site. Aged 66, Rogow prepared for his first date with a mixture of grief at the loss of a love he’d thought would last a lifetime, and euphoria. “I was gaga – ‘Oh, I’m single again. I can meet people!’” In the event, one match led to another and he notched up 75 first dates over 18 months.

Some dates were outdoorsy walks. Others took place in wine bars, in cafes or at the movies. He kept notes, jotting down each woman’s career and family situation so he wouldn’t put his foot in it on a second date. It must have started to feel like a job.

Ed Smith’s recipes for garlic butter chicken balls, and lemon and sage piccata

Self-saucing and served with orzo or butterflied, bashed and pan-fried – two succulent chicken breast dishes to get your juices flowing

Conjure in your mind the heady hit of warm garlic butter as it spills out of a kiev, then transport that to soft, baked chicken balls and luscious, glossy grains of orzo, which effectively double as both carb and sauce. That’s what today’s first dish is! Then, a method of cooking chicken breast that’s speedy and succulent. It will become a favourite (if it’s not one already). Sage is not typically involved in a piccata, but I like how it imparts its flavours into the cooking fats and, subsequently, the pounded, dredged chicken, too.

Trump’s video game war: AI, memes and a simplistic narrative have flattened the conflict | Nesrine Malik

What was supposed to be a quick win has become a quagmire, so it now must be reduced to a dopamine hit

The war on Iran, even as it spreads and destabilises the Middle East and the global economy, is not real. This is how it is being portrayed by the Trump administration. The war is a video game, a spectator sport, a social media festival of dunking. The architects of this war have made a virtue out of stupidity, and have been supported in that by a stupefying information ecosystem. The conflict waged by the US feels like the first of its kind in the modern age: distinctly remote and profoundly ignorant.

A week into the war, the White House uploaded a clip on its social media channels featuring montages of Top Gun, Braveheart and Breaking Bad, with the caption “Justice the American way” – itself a repurposing of a Superman motto. In another, entitled Touchdown, NFL players tackle each other and upon contact, boom, footage of a strike explosion tagged “unclassified”. SpongeBob SquarePants also makes an appearance, asking, “Wanna see me do it again?”, and then, an explosion. In another, Operation Epic Fury is rendered as a Nintendo Wii game.

‘There’s no ceasefire’: Gaza paramedic and father of two killed as civilian death toll since October passes 650

Despite the supposed end of the fighting last year, casualties in the territory continue to rise, with volunteer ambulance driver Abed Elrahman Hamdouna joining the long list of those killed by Israeli forces

Of all their seven children, Abed Elrahman Hamdouna’s parents worried about him the most during the war in Gaza. Hamdouna was a volunteer ambulance driver in northern Gaza, “risking his life to help people who were injured”, says his father, Hosny Hamdouna. They knew about the repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza’s health facilities which have claimed the lives of hundreds of healthcare workers.

So when a ceasefire was reached in October 2025, they were cautiously relieved. But that relief turned to shock after Hamdouna, a 31-year-old father of two, was killed in a reported drone strike west of Gaza City two weeks ago, as he was on his way to a family Ramadan iftar, to break fast with his brothers.

Flock and awe: inside the big changes at Henry Moore’s glorious sheep-filled Hoglands home

The great sculptor worked as a war artist in the 1940s, sketching people sheltering from bombings. Now his powerful underground drawings are opening the vast, renovated sheep barn gallery at his Arcadian home

In September 1940, Henry Moore and his wife, Irina, left London to escape wartime bombing, ending up in the bucolic hamlet of Perry Green, where Hertfordshire meets Essex. What was envisaged as a temporary refuge eventually became permanent, and the array of buildings in which Moore lived and worked is now a kind of cultural ecosystem dedicated to his genius. Part minor stately home, part sculpture park and part archive – one of the largest devoted to a single artist – it’s now overseen by his eponymous foundation, established in 1977.

Today, it comprises a constellation of studios and workspaces dispersed across an Arcadian landscape. Sheep graze in far fields and colossal sculptures loom on the horizon. Moore’s house, Hoglands, is preserved just as he left it, replete with his collections of books and artefacts – Dogon and Ashanti carvings, a narwhal tusk casually slung in a corner, a Picasso print in the kitchen – along with amply provisioned drinks trays for entertaining visitors and prospective buyers. Over the years, Moore clinked glasses with a stream of admirers, from Lauren Bacall to German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who had a large Moore situated outside his Bonn chancellery in the 1970s, remarking that it synthesised “nature with intelligence”.

‘Luxury takes time. We don’t have time’: The former top military officer on a mission to fix the Dutch housing crisis

Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan plans to simplify the housebuilding process to tackle shortage of 400,000 homes

Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan is on a mission. The new housing minister of the Netherlands is charged with building 100,000 homes a year and breaking through a planning deadlock to combat one of Europe’s worst housing crises.

The Irish-born 50-year-old is new to politics. Until a fortnight ago she was the country’s top female military officer, famous for getting flak jackets redesigned for women’s bodies and holding her own in a male-dominated sphere.

Tehran’s toxic cloud: satellite images show oily fires burned for days

Residents reported headaches, eye and skin irritation and breathing difficulties as Israeli bombings blanketed Tehran with pollutants

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Satellite images of Tehran show toxic fires caused by Israeli bombings on oil depots were still burning days after the strikes, which have caused fears of serious health complications for millions of residents in the Iranian capital.

Clouds of smoke from bombings on 7 March on multiple facilities blanketed the city with pollutants ranging from soot to oil particles to sulphur dioxide. Hours later, a passing storm showered Tehran with poisonous, oil-filled rain.

Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high

State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat

Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies, the World Meteorological Organization has warned.

The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system.

Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire elected Paris mayor, as National Rally fails to take key cities

City hall veteran beats rightwinger Rachida Dati in French capital, while far-right RN fails to win Marseille and Toulon in French local elections

The Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire has been elected mayor of Paris, beating the former rightwing minister Rachida Dati, with Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) failing to take key cities targeted in Sunday’s second round of local elections.

Grégoire took a victory bike ride with future councillors in Paris on Sunday night to show that the French capital would continue its pro-cycling and environmental policies.

New Zealand PM’s ratings dip as fragile economy fails to impress before November election, poll shows

National leader Christopher Luxon drops in preferred PM stakes with rise in people saying country heading in wrong direction

The personal ratings of New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, have dipped, polling shows, as his government’s handling of the economy fails to impress voters ahead of the November election.

The RNZ-Reid Research poll, released on Monday, also found a growing number of people felt that New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction.

Opinion: As Trump eyes Cuba, my trips there a decade ago remind me how different things were

Trump has threatened a 'friendly takeover' of Cuba after cutting it off from Venezuela's oil. CNBC's Justin Solomon reflects how different things used to be.

More than 230 rescued amid Hawaii flooding, thousands without power

Raging waters lifted homes and cars and prompted evacuation orders for 5,500 people north of Honolulu, though they were later lifted.

Artemis II back on launch pad for moon flyby mission

NASA's Artemis II rocket is back on the launch pad after repairs inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. Early next month, NASA will try, for a second time, to send a crew of four on a flyby of the moon. Mark Strassmann has more.

Hawaii hit with worst flooding in 20 years

Hawaii is under a flood watch after weeks of heavy rain triggered the worst flooding there in 20 years. Carter Evans reports and Andrew Kozak has a look at the national forecast.

Poll: Most say Iran war not going well, but don't want regime left in power

Most Republicans, especially MAGA, continue to support the US action and express a lot of confidence in Trump personally.

One Nation’s surge in South Australia is a warning – fiddling at the edges is no longer enough | Tony Barry

There is a structural realignment under way, with the Liberal party the early and obvious victim in Saturday’s state election

As the ballots are counted in South Australia, it’s now clear that while the Liberal party isn’t politically dead, it’s currently unalive.

The results so far are both simple and complex. While the headline is that Peter Malinauskas and Labor brought the hammer down on the Liberal party, there are other storylines.

Lawmakers still far apart with DHS shutdown in Day 37

The Senate was in session Sunday but there is no end in sight to the partial shutdown fight, or the blame game, with Democrats and Republicans still far apart on a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Cristian Benavides reports.

Trump says ICE agents will assist TSA at airports as delays worsen

Wait times aren't expected to improve until government funding is restored and TSA officers receive paychecks.

Officials scramble to carry out Trump's directive on ICE agents at airports

President Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will assist TSA agents at airports as delays and security staffing shortages continue to worsen.

Trump calling in ICE agents for airport security as DHS shutdown continues

The Trump administration says ICE officers will be stationed at hotspot U.S. airports starting Monday to assist with TSA screenings. They will undergo some training before then. Skyler Henry reports.

Barry Keoghan says online abuse means he ‘doesn’t want to go outside’ any more

Oscar-nominated actor says online hate has become so bad that he is ‘hiding away’, adding that ‘you don’t want to even be on screen any more’

Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan has said online abuse about his appearance is affecting his life, to the point that he now does “not want to go outside”.

The Irish actor, who is playing Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles tetralogy, told SiriusXM host Ben Harlum that though he left social media in 2024 due to online abuse, it was still so bad that he was “shying away” from the public eye – and it was making him want to retreat from acting.

Ukraine war briefing: Russia trying to ‘intensify’ attacks; US-Ukraine talks end

Russia ‘taking advantage of more favourable weather conditions’ Zelenskyy says; Witkoff says progress made during discussions in Florida. What we know on day 1,489

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the Russian army was attempting to “intensify” attacks on the front, but that Ukraine had inflicted heavy losses. “This week, we have observed attempts by the Russians to intensify their offensive efforts, taking advantage of more favourable weather conditions,” Zelenskyy said on social media after a meeting with Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky. But “the only tangible outcome for the Russian army has been an increase in their losses,” Zelenskyy said. Earlier on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of Potapivka, a small village near the Russian border in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.

Ukrainian and US delegations concluded a second day of talks in Florida on finding ways to end the four-year war with Russia. Russian representatives were not present at the talks, which opened in Florida on Saturday. They were originally expected to attend the negotiations, which were due to take place in Abu Dhabi.

Zelenskyy voiced hope on Sunday that the United States would keep up efforts to end the Russian invasion despite the US focus on attacking Iran, after envoys met in Florida. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s negotiator, reported unspecified progress during the two days of discussions, which came after the United States relaxed sanctions on Russian oil. “It’s clear that the primary focus of the American side at this time is the situation around Iran and in that region, but this war that Russia is waging against Ukraine must also be brought to an end,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address.

Zelenskyy has said he has a “very bad feeling” about the impact of the war in the Middle East on the efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine and on defending his country while it remains ongoing. The Ukrainian president also addressed the strain on the special relationship between the UK and US amid the Iran war, saying the history between the two nations is “stronger than the emotions of two or three people”. He highlighted that Russian president Vladimir Putin “will want a long war” in the Middle East as it helps weaken Ukraine.

In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal review – no one should have to live like this

This upsetting documentary goes to the town with the most terrifyingly high levels of Pfas in the UK, tests the locals and finds that nothing has been done to help them – and now it’s simply too late

Forever chemicals are not a fresh scandal that the world is only learning about now: in 2019 there was a Hollywood movie about them, based on a true story from the late 1990s. Mark Ruffalo was Rob Bilott, the crusading lawyer arguing that a West Virginia chemicals company was poisoning the locale. The film, Dark Waters, concerned per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Pfas), synthetic compounds that resist oil, water and heat, and which came into wide usage in the 1930s with the invention of Teflon. Their selling point is that they refuse to break down. The problem with them is that they refuse to break down, and once they’re in soil, groundwater, rivers, food or the air, they get into humans’ bloodstream, from where some Pfas are thought to play a role in causing cancer and other serious health conditions.

Yet it took until February this year for the British government to come up with a plan for how to deal with Pfas, and the documentary In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal suggests that, for at least one small town, it’s too late. Cameras arrive in Bentham, North Yorkshire, for what is by now the sadly familiar story of a community in northern England of a few thousand people, generations of whom have been proud and grateful to work at the medium-sized business that dominates the local economy. Years later, the people of the town wonder if the thing they helped to make might be bad for their health.

Resilient Korda stuns Alcaraz in Miami Open after almost letting advantage slip

• American beats No 1 seed 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 at Miami Open

• ‘Sebi was incredible today. Played such a great game’

An hour after his first catastrophic attempt at snuffing out the best player in the world, Sebastian Korda stepped up to the baseline to serve for his rollercoaster third-round match against Carlos Alcaraz once again.

It would have been reasonable for the American to feel his tension even more profoundly, to collapse even more dramatically, but his determination won through. In front of his home crowd in his home state, Korda kept his head and held his nerve to close out the greatest upset of the ATP season and his career, defeating the top seed Alcaraz 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in the third round of the Miami Open.

3/22/2026: Elemental Crisis; Turning the Ship Around; The Dog Aging Project

First, a report on the only active rare earth mine in the U.S. Then, collapse of U.S. shipbuilding poses national and economic security risks. And, a dog study may help pets and humans age well.

3/22: CBS Weekend News

Trump calling in ICE agents for airport security as DHS shutdown continues; Iran inflicts heavy damage on Israel in latest missile strikes.

GB strike golden treble at world indoors with Hodgkinson, Hunter Bell and Caudery

• Keely Hodgkinson caps famous night for British team

• Georgia Hunter Bell and Molly Caudery also take glory

Amid a gold rush for the ages, one image became instantly seared on the mind: Georgia Hunter Bell, Molly Caudery and Keely Hodgkinson jumping in pure delirium, before screaming in delight as they revelled in surely the greatest night for British athletics since the London 2012 Olympics.

You could hear them high in the stands in Torun. And, one hopes, even louder in homes up and down the land. For across 29 enthralling minutes they delivered echoes of Super Saturday with three brilliant world indoor championship gold medals one after another. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Savannah Guthrie renews plea for clues in mother's disappearance

"Today Show" co-host Savannah Guthrie is renewing pleas to residents of Tucson, Arizona, to jog their memories in the hopes of sparking new leads in the disappearance of her mother​, Nancy.

ICE agents will be deployed to US airports on Monday to ease long lines

Trump and border czar Tom Homan confirm plan to assist TSA agents amid partial government shutdown standoff

Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, have confirmed that the president’s administration is sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to US airports beginning on Monday to assist with security amid extremely long lines – and to help airport security agents who have been working without pay since 14 February because of a partial government shutdown.

Homan will lead the effort, Trump said on Sunday.

Arkansas police arrest Kendra Duggar on child abuse charges

Her husband, 19 Kids and Counting’s Joseph Duggar, was recently charged in separate case with lewd behavior against a child

Arkansas police have arrested Kendra Duggar, the wife of reality TV personality Joseph Duggar, on misdemeanor child abuse charges, in the latest scandal to envelop the family featured on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting.

Kendra Duggar faces four counts each of endangering the welfare of a minor and second-degree false imprisonment, according to the Washington county sheriff’s office in Arkansas. She has a hearing scheduled for Monday.

Waltz: "Never take anything off the table" on U.S. hitting Iran plants

Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said "we are seeing our allies come around as they should," as Iran threatens shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Ella Baron on Donald Trump and the Iran war – cartoon

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ICE officers set to deploy to airports as delays mount, border czar Homan confirms

Border czar Tom Homan says ICE agents will help the Transportation Security Administration "move those lines" while also enforcing immigration law.

The Guardian view on aid cuts: Britain championed development funding – its meanness is shortsighted | Editorial

The steep reductions are a grave error, both morally and pragmatically. But a better case needs to be made for spending

Progress is possible. Over two decades, global child mortality plummeted. There were many reasons for a 39% reduction in deaths in lower and middle income countries between 2001 and 2021, but a significant one was overseas development aid, which supported everything from sanitation to vaccination programmes to food security.

That shift has slowed, and – like similar advances – is likely to reverse if aid budgets continue to be slashed. Researchers warned last month that continuing cuts could result in more than 22 million avoidable deaths in the next five years, with a quarter of those among children under five.

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 prisons: sentencing reform has not eased the sense of crisis | Editorial

The increased use of tags makes sense if done right. But years of accumulated problems include a depleted probation workforce

Given the frayed and depleted state of the public sector, it is not surprising that prisons in England and Wales are struggling to escape from a sense of perpetual crisis. Recent days saw the latest in a series of urgent notifications. These put a prison in special measures, and require ministers to produce an action plan within a month. Inspectors found that Woodhill in Milton Keynes is unsafe while a report on another failing prison, Swaleside in Kent, pointed to high levels of violence, staff shortages and education cuts.

David Lammy, who was shuffled into the role of justice secretary as a result of Angela Rayner’s hasty exit from government, is busy with the alarming push to remove most defendants’ right to a jury trial. So the implementation of recent sentencing reforms, and problems inside jails, have largely been left to the prisons minister, James Timpson. While there is no doubting his personal commitment, good intentions will not be enough.

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.

Chappell Roan responds to criticism from footballer Jorginho after incident with security

Flamengo player accused singer’s security of aggressive treatment of his wife and stepdaughter at hotel in São Paulo

The singer Chappell Roan has responded after the former Chelsea footballer Jorginho posted on social media claiming her security guard made his stepdaughter cry when she encountered the singer at a hotel in Brazil.

The American musician said Jorginho’s stepdaughter “did not deserve that”, and the situation had “made her really sad”, adding that the man involved in the incident was not her personal security.

Netanyahu hopes destroying Iranian ‘axis of evil’ will rehabilitate his image

With a 7 October inquiry looming, the Israeli PM’s political career, legacy and personal freedom may all be on the line

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Over three weeks of war, Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel, and injured many more, including about 200 in overnight strikes near a nuclear facility in the country’s south, but they have not touched public support for the war.

An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls.

ICC to consider legal advice that criticises UN inquiry into Karim Khan allegations

Inquiry into sexual assault claims did not establish that chief prosecutor’s actions amounted to misconduct, judges advise

The international criminal court’s governing body is expected to meet on Monday to assess the advice of a panel of judges who have challenged the findings of an investigation into the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Last year a UN inquiry into the allegations about Khan’s behaviour is understood to have established a factual basis for claims of misconduct against him. The senior British lawyer has been accused by a complainant of sexual abuse.

How iNaturalist app users have fun while aiding science

The iNaturalist cellphone app not only helps users identify plant, animal and insect species; it also provides invaluable data to scientists studying biodiversity, species decline, and habitat loss - and, as Martha Stewart discovers, it's fun!

Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data

Exclusive: Allowing US tech firm to analyse intelligence in name of tackling fraud raises fresh concerns over privacy

• Campaign groups rail against Palantir, but the UK contracts keep coming

Palantir is to be granted access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data, in a deal that has prompted fresh concerns about the US AI company’s deepening reach into the British state, the Guardian can reveal.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a contract to investigate the watchdog’s internal intelligence data in an effort to help it tackle financial crime, which includes investigating fraud, money laundering and insider trading.

Fentanyl found inside Barbies sold at Missouri discount store, police say

Police found that five Barbie packages containing fentanyl were sold. They have all been recovered.

Trump administration says it is ready to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia

The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to dissolve her order preventing ICE from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia.

Suspected meteorite crashes into Houston home, officials say

Nasa confirms meteor after residents reported hearing thunder-like noises about the time the fireball was visible

A suspected meteorite crashed into a home in suburban Houston on Saturday night, according to local residents and officials.

Speaking to the local news outlet KHOU11 over the weekend, Spring area resident Sherrie James recalled the incident, saying: “My grandson went to check and said there was a hole in the ceiling … then I saw the rock, and I thought, ‘That looks like a meteor.’”

‘You lose yourself’: inside the mental health crisis hitting gen X women

My generation had great role models, free university and the morning-after pill. We should be running the world. Instead, two-thirds of us are facing mental health problems – and it’s not all about the menopause

Looking at the women in my own immediate friendship group, ranging in age from 50 to 63, we have lived through every flavour of chaos. Apart from the haywire hormones and feelings of invisibility, there are also the life-changing events that happen at this life stage – post-divorce relocation, caring for a parent with dementia, a breast cancer diagnosis, redundancy. Some of my friends are also supporting adult children with mental health problems, who are still living at home. When the singer and memoirist Tracey Thorn referred to this life stage as “sniper’s alley” she wasn’t kidding.

A survey by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) reported recently that almost two-thirds of women over 50 struggle with their mental health. Underlying factors included anxiety, sleep problems and bereavement, as well as the glaringly obvious: menopause. Nine out of 10 of the 2,000 women surveyed had not sought any help.

A private prayer and a Stella shouting contest: photos of the weekend

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

3/22: Face the Nation

This week in "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," amid an escalation of the Iranian war, a new CBS News poll shows the conflict and rising gas prices are fueling economic concerns in the U.S. Plus, U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte join.

Young people are longing for the low-tech 90s – and so would I, if I could only remember them

For gen Z, the pull of a time before smartphones is strong. For those of us who lived through it, the reality is somewhat different

‘People have to start going 90s,” according to the content creator Mike Sheffer. In other words: leave your phone at home. “In the 90s no one had cellphones,” Sheffer explains, helpfully, on a reel I saw on Instagram, in which he describes how he and his friends do this, using it as a challenge to be in the moment and invite serendipity. “Things just happen,” he says. “There’s a different energy.”

Ah yes, the serendipitous 90s energy of arranging to meet someone “under the clock at M&S” and hanging around for 40 minutes when they didn’t show, of trudging dangerous miles home late at night thanks to transport fails (several comments on Sheffer’s reel highlighted the safety angle), or of forgetting your keys and spending hours locked out (I think I spent most of 1990-1994 sitting, bored witless, on the doorstep).

Readers reply: Travel broadens the mind – what other sayings are patently false, or not always true?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: American football takes for ever. In which other sports do you spend most of your time not playing the game?

From what I can see, travelling in many cases has zero effect on a person’s outlook and prejudices. If that were not so, then high-flying politicians of all stripes would be among the most broad-minded people on the planet as they constantly jet from city to city. I can think of several proverbs that are extremely true, or at least seem so, such as “A stitch in time saves nine”, or “Many a mickle makes a muckle”, which it patently does – or especially the universally true, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. But what other proverbs or quotes or apparently clever soundbites are untrue, for at least some of the time? “Fine words butter no parsnips”? And how do questionable assertions become sayings in the first place? Neil Ashby, Powys

Send new questions to [email protected].

This lab that's determined to discover new drugs isn't where you might expect

A scientist from Zambia who loves — LOVES! — chemistry runs a lab in South Africa that is being hailed for "extraordinary" work.

Undercover police officer exposed by his own blunder, spycops inquiry hears

Officer said he held himself responsible for accidentally phoning activist while in secret special branch meeting

An undercover police officer has admitted he was exposed as an infiltrator by his own blunder, which has been described by activists as worthy of Inspector Clouseau, the spycops public inquiry has heard.

The officer, who used the fake name Simon Wellings, jeopardised his own covert deployment by mistakenly recording himself discussing individual campaigners with other special branch officers.

How to make the perfect cheese khachapuri – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

From the fluffy dough to the gooey filling, our resident perfectionist pulls apart the best way to create Georgia’s iconic, indulgent cheese-stuffed bread

The first time I encountered what Tiko Tuskadze describes as “perhaps the most iconic of all Georgian dishes” was in her London restaurant, Little Georgia, back in the days when it was a tiny space on Broadway Market. If “traditional cheesebread … baked to order” sounded good on the menu, the reality of khachapuri was even better: a golden round of fluffy, buttery bread spilling forth frills of hot, salty dairy on to the plate (this is the kind of thing that passes for fast food in Georgia, according to Silvena Rowe, which makes me feel as if we’ve been slightly short-changed.)

Tuskadze goes on to explain in her book Supra that there are “as many variations … as there are families in Georgia” – the boat-shaped, open adjaruili that Polina Chesnakova notes has “taken the internet by storm”, the Ossetian mashed potato variety and the Gurian take with hard-boiled eggs and a “supremely fluffy, slightly oniony, soufflé-like cheese filling”, which inspires Caroline Eden to share with readers of her book Green Mountains the glorious Georgian word shemomechama, “which loosely translates as, ‘I accidentally ate the whole thing’”. Here, however, I’m going to concentrate on what Chesnakova says is “by far the one most commonly consumed in Georgia itself”, and also the one that reminds Tuskadze most of home, namely imeruli khachapuri, originally from the west-central region of Imereti, which is “essentially a flat bread stuffed with buttery imeruli cheese curds and cooked on the stovetop”. Need I say more?

Weather extremes gripping US bear climate crisis ‘fingerprint’, experts say

There are flooding rains in Hawaii, rare snow in Alabama and a severe heatwave in the west coast

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The US is experiencing a striking mix of weather extremes this March. Flooding rains in Hawaii, rare snow in Alabama, flip-flopping temperatures in the north-east and, perhaps most concerning, a severe heatwave affecting the west coast are raising questions about how strange these patterns really are, and what role the climate crisis is playing.

Experts suggested that people around the US need to pay closer attention to the climatecrisis and do what they can to “minimize the impacts”.

Dining across the divide: ‘The restaurant had us down as a blind date!’

After a romantic booking error, would these two find anything to love in each other’s views on deplatforming Reform and right to buy?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Chris, 72, Bradford on Avon

Occupation Gardener, former teacher

‘I want my career, my children and a free supple life’: Sylvia Plath’s radical reinvention

Too often framed as a tragic icon or a victim of domesticity, the poet remade herself and her work at the start of the 60s, as a new collection will show

In February 1962, Sylvia Plath dropped in on her neighbour in Devon, Rose Key, with “a plate of absolutely indigestible Black Walnut-flavored cupcakes”. She had made them from a Betty Crocker mix palmed off on her by the bank manager’s wife. Not wanting to waste it nor feed it to her own family (she was scornful of both processed food and the British appetite for starch), Plath baked it and efficiently dispatched it next door.

There was a lot of cake-baking involved in the social life of North Tawton. Plath excelled at it – like everything else. In the early months of that year, shortly after giving birth to her second child, she was not only making her own “six-egg” sponges, she was taking Italian, German and French lessons, writing an experimental poem for the BBC Third programme (Three Women), obsessively sourcing rugs for her new house (“I have looked & looked at carpets, in Exeter, London & Plymouth, & feel now that our choice is right & sensible”), having the downstairs floors cemented (she hated dirty floors) and expressing a desire to begin woodwork classes.

Supreme Court to consider deadlines for late-arriving mail ballots

The Supreme Court will consider whether states can count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive after.