The comedian reflects on mortality and the new course his life has now taken in this warm account of his cancer diagnosis and treatment
There are enough cancer memoirs to fill a small bookshop, with bookcases for all the affected body parts. It can feel churlish to apply critical faculties to this of all subjects, but if there is a high bar for the genre, then it’s one Mark Steel clears like Dick Fosbury on a good day.
Sporting metaphors are a feature of The Leopard in My House, a new entry in the “throat” section by the comedian, broadcaster and campaigner. While waiting for a radiotherapy appointment in the basement of a London hospital, Steel meets Jules, an army general. As the treatment weakens them, they resolve to take the stairs rather than lift back up to ground level. “We’d describe the previous day’s climb as ‘set off at a good pace but only the first stage of the Tour de France. By the third week it was ‘two sets and a break down with a heavily bandaged ankle, but determined to finish the match’.”
Vance snaked his way in first to the row between Trump and Zelenskyy, his second intrusion this month after Munich
JD Vance was supposed to be the inconsequential vice-president.
But his starring role in Friday’s blowup between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy – where he played a cross between Trump’s bulldog and tech bro Iago – may mark the moment that the postwar alliance between Europe and America finally collapsed.
She is the Sex Education star now stealing the show in Mike White’s hit series and about to appear in a gritty new Netflix drama. It’s all she ever wanted – but somehow, this ‘sad and shy’ actor finds folding the washing more rewarding than fame
Aimee Lou Wood has a peculiar habit of losing herself. She is known among her fellow cast members for capsizing so completely into a role that they can’t tell who they’re talking to: Wood or her character. (This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that her standout debut role in Sex Education was also called Aimee.) Suranne Jones, who plays alongside her in forthcoming dramedy Film Club, even bought her a bag with a big A on it: “And she said to me,” Wood says, “‘You can put things in there, and that’s Aimee’s bag, so you don’t lose who you are.’ My imagination and my reality can get scarily blurred.”
Wood has been searching for more clarity recently. “I’ve noticed more and more that I’m thinking: what do I actually want? Where can I be the driver and not the passenger?” I meet the 30-year-old in a kind of yoga-adjacent cafe in London. She’s got a Shelley Duvall thing going on, where you can’t tell whether her face – wide open eyes like a Disney fawn, tentative smile – is what makes her seem honest yet mysterious, or whether those qualities created her face. Either way, she looks both very film star, in leather blazer, Dr Martens and miniskirt, yet also not out of place in this hippyish restaurant.
Out of season, the island is more about natural charms than techno, but the sun still shines and the resident community keeps its unique spirit alive
Ibiza in the off-season. The big resort hotels are shuttered, the beach bars sealed up, the superclubs powered down until their showy reopening parties get the summer started again in late April. By July, the ratio will be back to 20 visitors to every one resident, but for now the island is as empty as it gets.
The sun is shining though, the air bright and warm, the sky a salted Balearic blue. And crowds still gather, here and there. At the Trotting Races, for example, in the Sant Rafael hippodrome in the centre of the island. A peculiar island tradition that supposedly began with charioteers during Ibiza’s Roman occupation, the sport requires jockeys to ride on little wheeled carts harnessed to horses that keep a briskish, semi-hurried pace, as if slightly late for an appointment. Kids and old boys seem to love it, the latter laying small bets on the races and dropping shots of brandy in their coffee. My horse, Maldiva des Puig, comes a distant third.
The Oz-set blockbuster, plus the Inside Out and Dune sequels, packed out cinemas but won’t win best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards
Box-office success is a strong indicator of Oscars failure at this year’s Academy Awards, with the two highest-grossing best picture nominees among those titles least likely to win.
Wicked and Dune: Part Two have both made more than $700m globally, but neither is tipped – by anyone – to pick up the top prize on Sunday in Hollywood. Wicked, Jon M Chu’s first half of his adaptation of the Broadway musical, is currently on $728m, from an estimated $150m production budget.
From ammunition and culprit to ptarmigan and syllabus, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which sleuth’s middle name was Death? 2 What game is played on a Riley Aristocrat? 3 Who declared, “You like me!” in her 1985 Oscar acceptance speech? 4 Lancashire Blues is which TV programme’s theme tune? 5 Which marine mammal can grow a tusk up to 10 feet long? 6 The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda are the main sources for which mythology? 7 Which giants of science and politics were born on 12 February 1809? 8 Which football club’s badge is based on a Royal Mile mosaic? What links:
9 Genius; Magnificent; Impressive; Splendid; Great; Phew? 10 Cardiac; skeletal; smooth? 11 Albatross; Baltimore Bullet; Frog King; Iron Lady; Madame Butterfly; Thorpedo? 12 R38; Dixmude; R101; Akron; Hindenburg? 13 Donald III; Ethelred the Unready; Henry VI; Edward IV? 14 Adele Bloch-Bauer; Emilie Flöge; Hermine Gallia; Fritza Riedler? 15 Ammunition; culprit; ginkgo; Imogen; ptarmigan; syllabus?
New Mexico town shocked by deaths of actor, wife and dog – but answers to critical questions may take time to emerge
As New Mexico authorities investigate the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, their adopted home town of Santa Fe is grappling with the mystery of what happened to the couple.
Hackman, a Hollywood legend with two Academy Awards picked up over a 60-year career, and Arakawa, a classical pianist, had lived in the area for decades and had embraced the close-knit community that is New Mexico’s capital city.
The former French PM says the US is no longer an ally of Europe – but has joined Russia and China as an ‘illiberal superpower’
Dominique de Villepin made his name with a memorable speech to the UN security council in February 2003, just before the US-led invasion of Iraq. De Villepin, the then French foreign minister, in effect signalled France’s intention to veto aUN resolution authorising the war, forcing the US and UK to act unilaterally. He warned that Washington’s strategy would lead to chaos in the Middle East and undermine international institutions. The prophetic plea was met with applause, a rare event in the security council chamber. It led to the career diplomat’s inclusion as a character in David Hare’s 2004 anti-war play, Stuff Happens.
Now the veteran statesman, who warned about the risks of Europe’s over-reliance on the US many years before it became a mainstream opinion in Paris or Berlin, is back with advice on how to respond to the most serious breakdown in Europe’s relationship with the US in 80 years.
Though scientist was not thought to be a great drinker, he may have used beer as an ingredient in the homemade ink in which he wrote his greatest work
Issac Newton has long been a familiar figure in museums around the world. Now, one of the famed scientist’s most prized possessions is due to go on display for the first time in 160 years: his beer mug.
The wooden mug will be on public display at the Royal Society, in central London, from 4 March, alongside items including Newton’s greatest work, the Principia, and the scientist’s death mask, which was prepared shortly after his death to serve as a likeness for sculptures.
The sound the toys make mimic the plaintive cries of wounded creatures, exposing our pooch’s uncontrollable sadism
My wife derives grim satisfaction from buying dog toys that advertise their indestructibility, and then watching as the dog destroys them, often within hours of their purchase.
“That came with a one-year guarantee,” she says, pointing to the fragments littering the rug.
If chefs were footballers, Nord’s Daniel Heffy would be in a league of his own
Nord, 100 Old Hall St, Liverpool L3 9QJ. Snacks £6.50-£11; small plates 315.50-£27, large plates £20-£36, desserts £11-£16, wines from £32
A midweek night and the restaurant is completely empty. Music thrums and staff drift about looking purposeful, despite being a little short on purpose until we show up. This has nothing to do with Nord and everything to do with football. At the exact time of our booking, Everton are kicking off against Liverpool, two miles away at Goodison Park, for what has been described to me as not just a game, but the game. As well as being a local derby, it’s also the last ever match to be played between the two at the stadium before Everton move to their new home at Bramley-Moore Dock. Even a blithering football ignoramus like me can recognise the significance of such a game to a city like Liverpool and why that might suppress bookings.
Yukari, 29, a freelance motion designer, meets John, 31, a furniture sales manager
What were you hoping for?
Dating in a big city can be such a slog, so I was really just hoping for a connection. It’s always exciting to be set up on a date in a different way.
Don’t discard the rendered fat from a roast – it has unbeatable crisping qualities, and makes this traditional British dried fruit cake sing
There was never any sourdough at the village bakery in Maiden Newton, Dorset; just traditional, no-frills British products such as white tin loaves, pasties, doughnuts, rock cakes and the most incredible lardy cake. Sadly, it’s closed now, but the memory of that lardy cake lives on.
Government targets party’s ‘softness on standing up to Putin’ to show Reform is out of step with UK public
Labour is setting out to increase its attacks on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK over its stance on Russia, as polling and focus groups show the public are firmly pro-Ukraine and against Vladimir Putin.
One cabinet source said Labour was planning to “take the fight” to Reform on the issues of the Ukraine war and the NHS after “waking up” to the party’s “softness on standing up to Putin”.
Olympic champion clears 6.27m at meet in Clermont-Ferrand
Swede releases first song Bop under nickname ‘Mondo’ on same day
Sweden’s Armand Duplantis soared 6.27 metres to shatter the world pole vault record for a staggering 11th time at the All Star Perche meet in Clermont-Ferrand, France after releasing his debut song earlier the same day.
The two-time Olympic and world champion cleared the record height on his first attempt on Friday to break his previous global mark of 6.26 set in Silesia in August, sparking track-side fireworks that lit up the arena.
Two children a week are killed in the West Bank. Two cameras recorded the circumstances of one such death
The last time Nassar al-Hammouni talked to his son, Ayman, it was by telephone and the 12-year-old was overflowing with plans for the coming weekend, and for the rest of his life. He had joined a local football team and planned to register at a karate club that weekend. When he grew up, he told Nassar, he was going to become a doctor, or better still an engineer to help his father in the construction job that took him away from their home in Hebron every week.
None of that – the football, the karate or his imagined future career – will happen now. Last Friday, two days after the call to his father, Ayman was killed, shot by Israeli fire, video footage seen by the Guardian suggests.
With the mothers of Elon’s kids begging for his attention on social media, he makes much of ‘pronatalism’ – but is that just a fancy word for bad parenting? ‘I don’t know whether I’d describe it as fun,’ says Aimee Lou Wood on the intensity of making The White Lotus. And are ordinary life experiences, bodily imperfections and normal differences being unnecessarily pathologised? Neurologist and author Suzanne O’Sullivan argues just that
It’s a cliche as regular as clockwork in the aftermath of an inexplicable tragedy: “That was the day we lost our innocence”. But do we really start from a place of innocence or are we always somehow complicit in acts of violence? Do perpetrators attack from without, or are they an expression of something abominable within the community, its monstrous id? These questions haunt the halls of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s extraordinary contemporary opera as surely as they’ll disturb the dreams of its audience.
Innocence opens with a deeply ominous series of chords from the lowest keys on the piano, as swirling strings and smirking bassoons mix with the trills and runs from the higher woodwinds, punctuated by the occasional crash of percussion. Atmospheric doesn’t begin to cover it. The music has shades of Bartók and Górecki, with more than a little of that master of dread, György Ligeti. The singers slink on as the curtain rises, explaining that they “can’t go to work any more”, that they “can’t have my back to the door”. Trauma animates every flinch; these people have clearly been exposed to unspeakable horror.
The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said ‘the free world needs a new leader’ and that it was up to Europeans to take this challenge
The EU foreign policy chief has declared that “the free world needs a new leader”, as European leaders threw their support behind Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after the stunning White House confrontation between him and Donald Trump.
Leaders from across Europe expressed their solidarity with the Ukrainian leader after the fractious exchange with JD Vance, the US vice-president, and Trump, who claimed he was not “ready for peace” and accused him of “gambling with world war three”.
After an extraordinary exchange with US president Donald Trump at the White House, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an appearance on Fox News in which he said the public row was “not good for both sides.” But Zelenskyy said Trump – who insists Putin is ready to end the three-year grinding war – needs to understand that Ukraine can’t change its attitudes toward Russia on a dime. Zelenskyy added that Ukraine won’t enter peace talks with Russia until it has security guarantees against another offensive. “It’s so sensitive for our people,” Zelenskyy said. “And they just want to hear that America (is) on our side, that America will stay with us. Not with Russia, with us. That’s it.”
After the tense exchange and shortly before departing for his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida for the weekend, Trump told reporters that he wanted an “immediate ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, but expressed doubt that Zelenskyy was ready to make peace. Trump also posted on his social media site that he had “determined” that Zelenskyy “is not ready for Peace.” “He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace,” Trump wrote. US military support for Ukraine now appears to be hanging in the balance, while talks over a minerals deal have collapsed.
On CNN US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for Zelenskyy to “apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.”
European leaders have rushed to defend Zelenskyy, after the clash with US president Donald Trump played out in front of the global media. German chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “No one wants peace more than the citizens of Ukraine! That is why we are jointly seeking the path to a lasting and just peace. Ukraine can rely on Germany – and on Europe.” French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is the aggressed people,” while Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, declared that “the free world needs a new leader”.
Ukrainians have also rallied around Zelenskyy as a defender of his country’s interests. The meeting is likely to have delighted officials in Moscow, the Associated Press reports, but many Ukrainians seemed unfazed, instead expressing a sense that the Ukrainian leader had stood up for their country’s dignity and interests. Nataliia Serhiienko, 67, a retiree in Kyiv, said she thinks Ukrainians approve of their president’s performance in Washington, “because Zelenskyy fought like a lion.”
UK prime minister Keir Starmer has invited more than a dozen European and EU leaders to a Sunday summit to “drive forward” action on Ukraine and security, his office said. Ahead of the main summit, Starmer will chair a morning call with Baltic nations, before welcoming Zelenskyy to Downing Street to discuss the war with Russia, it said on Friday. Leaders from around continental Europe including France, Germany, Denmark and Italy as well as Turkey, Nato and the European Union have been invited to the summit.
Two Russian drone strikes hit a medical facility and other targets in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, injuring at least five people late on Friday, local officials said, according to Reuters. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Russian drones had hit civilian areas in three central districts of the city, a frequent target of Russian attacks. Syniehubov said five people were hurt, while Mayor Ihor Terekhov put the injury toll at seven. In the Black Sea port of Odesa, another frequent Russian target in southern Ukraine, a drone attack triggered fires in a private home and a business, killing one person and injuring another.
Moscow is using infantry to storm the Ukrainian border from the Russian region of Kursk, which is partially controlled by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv said on Friday. Ukraine launched a surprise offensive into the Kursk region in August last year hoping the territory it captured could eventually be swapped for Ukrainian territory under Russian control. The Kremlin has deployed a significant force including North Korean forces to try to dislodge Ukrainian troops holding on to stretches of the territory, including the town of Sudzha.
Two Australian men have been charged during a global operation into a criminal group distributing artificial intelligence-generated child abuse images.
A 38-year-old NSW man and 31-year-old Queensland man have been arrested alongside a total of 25 linked to the investigation into child sexual exploitation.
A tense and angry exchange between Trump and Zelenskyy played out with the media in the front row – key US politics stories from Friday at a glance
An extraordinary day in Washington with US military support for Ukraine now hanging in the balance and talks over a minerals deal collapsing following a disastrous White House summit.
US president Donald Trump received the Ukrainian president on Friday to discuss a controversial mineral resources deal that Trump had said was the first step toward a ceasefire agreement that he is seeking to broker between Russia and Ukraine.
US military support for Ukraine hangs in the balance and talks over a minerals deal have collapsed following a disastrous White House summit in which Donald Trump warned Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was “gambling with world war three” and told the Ukrainian president to come back “when he is ready for peace”.
Zelenskyy left the White House early, and a press conference to announce the minerals deal was cancelled, after Trump gave Zelenskyy a dressing-down that followed an ambush led by vice-president JD Vance to shatter the fragile relationship between the two leaders.
The Northern Territory chief minister made a deliberate omission at an event last month commemorating the 1942 bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces. In her opening remarks, Lia Finocchiaro acknowledged veterans and the families of those who survived – but not the Larrakia people, on whose land the event was held.
She later told local radio that such gestures, widely made at public gatherings to show respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, had become “tokenistic” and “divisive”.
For the Ukrainian leader, there’s no coming back from the debacle. His country’s best hope now lies with Europe
No matter their position on the Russia-Ukraine war, people who view the televised encounter between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office will likely be shocked. It didn’t morph into a full-on screaming match, but it came close.
The meeting might have gone sideways anyway, but JD Vance’s presence ensured that it became ugly – and quickly. The vice-president spoke over Zelenskyy, accused him of ingratitude for the assistance provided by the United States (“Have you ever said thank you?”) and of disrespecting Trump, his host, and, for good measure, scolded him for litigating his country’s case in public. That raised the temperature – a lot.
Giants reportedly shift interest after Stafford rejection
Rodgers, 41, looks for new home after two years with Jets
Big Blue pick third in draft after disastrous 3-14 season
Aaron Rodgers’ goal of playing in New York a few more years might still be attainable.
According to reports, the New York Giants are pursuing the 41-year-old quarterback who will no longer suit up for the Jets under new coach Aaron Glenn.
Anthony Albanese has reiterated Australia’s support for Ukraine after a fiery meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But even as Sydney’s Ukrainian community rallied in protest, the prime minister declined to comment directly on how the confrontation might affect Australia’s relationship with the US.
US military support for Ukraine hangs in the balance and talks over a minerals deal deteriorated after a disastrous interchange at the White House that also included the US vice-president, JD Vance. The US president claimed his Ukraine counterpart was not “ready for peace” and accused him of “gambling with world war three”, before Zelenskyy left the White House early.
The country’s best will showcase New Zealand’s unique water diving obsession at the Z Manu World Champs in Auckland on Saturday. A manu is a diving technique similar to a bomb, developed by Māori and Pasifika communities, which has become a national pastime. Jumpers launch into the air, then twist themselves into a v-shape before they hit the surface, forcing water upwards in a huge splash. The aim of a manu is to create the highest splash
Up to 90% of young people in Taiwan have myopia but eye experts say the growing global trend can be reversed
In the final days of their eight-week bootcamp, dozens of young Taiwanese conscripts are being tested on an obstacle course. The men in full combat kit are crawling underneath rows of razor wire and through bunkers as controlled explosions blast columns of dirt into the air. Pink and green smoke blooms in a simulated gas attack, requiring the conscripts to quickly don gas masks so they can rush the zone. But it’s here where many of them pause, stopping the assault drill to spend precious seconds removing their glasses so the masks will fit.
The conscripts mostly look to be in their early 20s. Statistics suggest that means anywhere up to 90% of them have some degree of myopia, otherwise known as shortsightedness.
Kay Ivey says Robin ‘Rocky’ Myers, who maintains he was innocent, will serve life in prison without parole
The Alabama governor, Kay Ivey, on Friday commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison after noting questions about his case.
Ivey said Myers, who was facing execution this spring, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. She noted that was the sentence jurors at his 1994 trial had recommended. A judge overruled that recommendation and imposed a death sentence, a maneuver that has since been outlawed in Alabama, according to the human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International.
Martinis are more versatile than you might think. Here bartenders share tips on how to order your first, why a small tweak can radically change it, and a recipe for your freezer
The martini is a huge drink in a tiny glass – and not simply because it packs two standards into about 70ml. Wet, dry, dirty or clean, the classic cocktail has long been associated with suave, retro characters such as James Bond and Mad Men’s Roger Sterling (though Sterling’s is a Gibson – a martini garnished with pickled onions). In recent years the drink has returned to the top of cocktail menus, driven by bartenders’ experimentations and appreciation of its versatility.
When the martini-dedicated Bar Planet opened in Sydney’s Newtown nearly three years ago, Jeremy Blackmore, the creative director of Mucho Group, the company behind the venue, says the cocktail’s image was: “Still a bit stodgy … a grandma’s drink. I think the Queen would drink one at lunch.
New research has identified four types of romantic lover, including one that has sex up to 20 times a week.
The research, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, categorised lovers as mild romantic, moderate romantic, intense romantic, and libidinous romantic.
Mild: About one in five – 20.02% – fell into this cluster, characterised by “the lowest intensity, lowest obsessive thinking, lowest commitment, and lowest frequency of sex”. This group also had the lowest proportion of people who thought their partner was “definitely” in love with them – just 25.31% – and the lowest proportion having sex, at 82.72%.
Moderate: About four in 10 – 40.91% – landed in this category, which Bode described as “fairly stock-standard” – or in the words of the journal article, “entirely unremarkable”. Those in this category were more likely to be male, and less likely to have children. This group had “relatively low intensity, relatively low obsessive thinking, relatively high commitment, and relatively moderate frequency of sex”.
Intense: This category described about one in three – 29.42% – of survey respondents, who Bode described as “crazy in-love” types. They were characterised by “the highest intensity, highest obsessive thinking, highest commitment, and relatively high frequency of sex”. About six in 10 people in this group were female.
Libidinous: About one in 10 – 9.64% – were libidinous romantic lovers, who had sex an average of 10 times a week and up to 20 times. They were characterised as “relatively high intensity, relatively high obsessive thinking, relatively high commitment, and exceptionally high frequency of sex”. This group were slightly more likely to be male, and had the highest proportion of people in a committed relationship but not living together.
Donatella’s references to brother Gianni’s last collection in her latest show fuel rumours of possible departure
It is not just the dresses on the Versace catwalk that are for sale this Milan fashion week, but Versace itself. One of the most glamorous names in fashion is up for grabs, with Prada, its longtime rival for Milan bragging rights, thought to be close to purchasing the company. The prospect of a sale raises the question of whether Donatella, designer since the death of her brother in 1997, will remain as creative lead.
Versace without Donatella is hard to imagine. She remains a hands-on designer, and the lightning rod through which Versace’s energy is conducted. “Everyone should have a little Versace attitude,” she said before this show, held under the iron shelter of a historic tram depot in Milan where, as a concession to guest’s skimpy outfits, the benches were heated.
Aston Villa continue to blow hot and cold but, with Marco Asensio scoring another two goals, they progressed to the last eight of the FA Cup for the first time since they went on to reach the final in 2015, with some comfort.
Unai Emery’s team can go from beating Chelsea 3-1, when Asensio scored his other pair of Villa goals last Saturday, to losing 4-1 at Crystal Palace on Tuesday. But, four points off fifth place in the Premier League and with a last-16 tie with Club Brugge to relish on Tuesday, all feasible targets remain on the table.
Sixers star to focus on treatment and rehab of injury
Philadelphia (20-38) sit in 12th in Eastern Conference
Joel Embiid will miss the rest of the season, with the Philadelphia 76ers saying Friday he is “medically unable to play” and will focus on treatment and rehabilitation of his left knee.
Embiid was already set to miss his 40th game of the season Saturday when the 76ers host Golden State. But the 76ers said there will be no more games for the star center in 2024-25.
Rafael Caro Quintero arraigned in New York over federal agent’s death after years as one of US’s most wanted men
After years as one of US authorities’ most wanted men, the Mexican drug cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero was brought into a New York courtroom on Friday to answer charges that include orchestrating the 1985 killing of a US federal agent.
Caro Quintero pleaded not guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise. Separately, so did Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of another cartel. Carrillo is accused of arranging kidnappings and killings in Mexico but not accused of involvement in the death of the DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
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