Five-time Olympic champion was ‘a functioning addict’
Wiggins, 45, has been sober for a year after therapy
Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed he became addicted to cocaine following his retirement from cycling and is “lucky to be here”. The 2012 Tour de France winner and five-time Olympic champion said his children wanted to put him in rehab amid fears the issue could prove fatal.
Wiggins, a father of two, is now 12 months sober, attends regular therapy sessions and feels “a lot more at peace” with himself.
Sullivan is believed to be UK’s longest-serving victim of a miscarriage of justice after his jailing for murder of Diane Sindall
A man who has spent 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman in 1986 has had his conviction quashed at the court of appeal.
Peter Sullivan, who was 30 when he was sentenced and is now 68, is believed to be the UK’s longest-serving victim of a miscarriage of justice after three senior judges quashed his conviction for the killing, 17 years after his first attempt to have it overturned.
Simone Harouche says she was woken by the star’s screams and feared she was being raped and they would both be killed
The night armed robbers tied up Kim Kardashian and forced her to hand over jewels worth millions of dollars left her traumatised and changed her life for ever, her best friend and fashion stylist told a Paris court.
Speaking for the first time since the 2016 attack in Paris, Simone Harouche said she thought the American TV star was being raped and that they would both die when she was woken from her sleep in the early hours by the sound of Kardashian’s terrified screams.
Just when it seemed like Jack Draper had weathered the storm in his dramatic, anxiety-filled fourth round tussle at the Italian Open, all hell broke loose. Draper had recovered well from a difficult start and he offered himself a chance to serve for the second set against Corentin Moutet and level the match. Instead, he played one of the worst service games of his life.
In the face of that adversity, like so many other times on Tuesday afternoon, Draper gave an impressive exhibition of his growing mental strength and inner belief as he regrouped and found a way into the quarter-finals in Rome with an excellent 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win.
As the UK debates AI and copyright, Trump hands a gift to Big Tech, drones proliferate along the India-Pakistan border and a robot dispenses methodrone
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Sometimes it helps me to write by thinking about how a radio broadcaster or television presenter would deliver the information, so I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. Today in tech news: questions hover over the automation of labor in the worker-strapped US healthcare system; and drones proliferate in a new conflict: India v Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons. But first, how fights over AI and copyright take very different shapes in the UK and US.
Security forces stage raids against cult-like extremist ‘Kingdom of Germany’ group, arresting alleged ringleader
The German government has outlawed a major part of an extremist movement seeking to undermine the state, in a move the new administration said signalled tough action against a subversive far-right scene.
Hundreds of security forces across seven states staged early morning raids on Tuesday against the cult-like group calling itself “Kingdom of Germany” (KRD), a large group within the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement. Four suspects were arrested including alleged ringleader Peter Fitzek, the self-proclaimed Peter I.
The Trump Organization has millions in developments in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – sites of his first state visit
On his first day back in the White House, reporters asked Donald Trump where he might go on his maiden overseas trip. The US president saw it as an opportunity to show off his deal-making prowess and expound on how he would convince Saudi Arabia to inject billions of dollars into the US economy.
While US presidents often visit Canada, Mexico or the UK as their first foreign destination, Trump upended that tradition when he traveled to Saudi Arabia in May 2017. Hours after his second inauguration, Trump dangled the possibility of a return trip to the kingdom – for a price. “I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450bn worth of our products,” he said. “If Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another $450bn or $500 – we’ll up it for all the inflation – I think I’d probably go.”
When photographer Maria Vatne died in 2019, her family had to come to terms with not just the loss of a parent but a whole lifestyle, including their home
This sad and beautiful documentary from Norwegian film-maker Silje Evensmo Jacobsen tells a painful, complicated story, more complicated than even the film itself explicitly reveals. It’s a story that the director appeared to have chanced upon through following the blog of a brilliant photographer, Maria Vatne, who recorded her idyllic wilderness existence living on a farm in Norway with her British husband Nik Payne and their three home-schooled children, Ulv, Falk, and Freja, and an elder daughter Ronja, from Maria’s previous partner. But one blogpost from October 2018, titled A New Kind of Wilderness revealed that she had cervical cancer, and she died in 2019.
The film shows us the family coming to terms with their terrible loss and grief, particularly Nik. For a start, they can no longer live on their beloved farm because without Maria’s photography income Nik cannot keep up the mortgage repayments; they must move to a much smaller place and the kids will go to regular school. (So their former existence was not, in fact, as “off-grid” as all that; Maria’s website reveals that she took photography assignments and the idyllic farm images perhaps functioned in a way as a shopwindow.) The film allows us to wonder if Nik’s emotional wretchedness is subtly complicated by feelings of self-reproach as a breadwinner. Also, he ponders taking the children home to England where his relatives have a farm, but the children would find that insupportable and it might be the ultimate disloyalty to Maria.
Landmark driving simulators are improving road safety and helping Springfield immigrants targeted by Trump officials
Slowly and carefully, Betina, who came from Haiti to Ohio in 2021, navigates a Toyota SUV between five traffic cones in a parking lot north-west of Springfield.
Betina, who works for a produce processing company, has never driven before. But now, four years into life in Springfield, she has grasped the challenge of learning to drive.
Greek billionaire criticised for Nuno pitch confrontation
Uefa will focus on financial involvement, not emotional
Evangelos Marinakis will be permitted to continue his hands-on approach to running Nottingham Forest next season despite relinquishing his shares in the club.
The Greek billionaire was strongly criticised for storming on to the pitch to confront the manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, following Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Leicester, which left Forest seventh in the table as they attempt to qualify for the Champions League for the first time.
Did you even know there is a black cardamom? And white and red ones, too? And that some are good for sweet recipes and others for curries? Our top cooks have all the spicy smarts
What’s the difference between green and black cardamom, and when should I use pods or ground?
“Cardamom is my favourite spice,” says Cynthia Shanmugalingam, chef/proprietor of Rambutan in London. “It smells like childhood puddings and sweets.” That’s not to say the papery pods filled with black seeds aren’t versatile, mind. Yes, cardamom can bring a “piney, eucalyptus-like fragrance and warmth” to desserts, Shanmugalingam adds, but it also “adds depth” to savoury dishes, meaning you can take it in multiple directions.
With its origins in southern India and a relative of ginger, cardamom pods commonly come in green and black (also known as brown) form, as well as red (used mainly in Chinese and Asian cuisines) and white, which are bleached green pods. While Roopa Gulati, author of Indian Kitchens: Treasured Family Recipes from Across the Land, often uses both black/brown and green in the same dish, she says you “have to be aware that they are totally different in flavour. You’re not going to make a lovely, aromatic rice pudding and stick some brown cardamom in it, because that will override all the other flavours.”
Academic study will analyse hormone concentrations from footballers’ blood samples in search of more answers
“I’ve had not one, two, but three ACL tears – all three have been on my period.” Those were the frank words of the double World Cup-winning former United States international Megan Rapinoe, speaking on her podcast A Touch More with Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe on 8 May, as they expressed their exasperation at how long it has taken for more in-depth research to be conducted regarded the relationship between menstrual cycles and serious knee injuries in female athletes.
Finally, though, something is happening. Trying to help address the issue, with the ultimate aim of reducing instances of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, is a new, year-long academic study at Kingston University in London, which has received funding from football’s world governing body, Fifa.
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Vesak is the most sacred day for Buddhists, commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, all traditionally believed to have occurred on the full moon day of the Vesakha month in the ancient Indian lunar calendar
Frédéric Jousset warns smaller institutions especially are lagging behind their European counterparts
Smaller UK museums are suffering from a “shortage of means” that leaves them lagging behind their European counterparts, according to a philanthropist who is funding museum trips for thousands of British schoolchildren.
Frédéric Jousset, a French philanthropist who made waves when he founded a mobile museum onboard a €32m catamaran, said British children were missing out on access to the arts because of a lack of investment.
Proposed scheme involves talent scouts offering attractive packages to tempt academics and lecturers from abroad
Ireland is to launch a scheme to poach academics and university lecturers from overseas on the basis that the Trump administration has made the US “a cold place for free thinkers and talented researchers”.
The higher education minister, James Lawless, will on Tuesday seek cabinet approval for a “global talent initiative” to entice top international academics, including those seeking to leave the US or deterred from working there.
Bioplastics, heralded for supposedly breaking down more quickly, can cause similar health problems to other plastics
Starch-based bioplastic that is said to be biodegradable and sustainable is potentially as toxic as petroleum-based plastic, and can cause similar health problems, new peer-reviewed research finds.
Bioplastics have been heralded as the future of plastic because it breaks down quicker than petroleum-based plastic, and is often made from plant-based material such as corn starch, rice starch or sugar.
MP sponsoring bill in England and Wales says she agrees with Marie Curie that end of life care must be improved
Kim Leadbeater has urged MPs to back an amendment to the assisted dying bill which would commission a new assessment on the state of palliative care, a move first proposed by the bill’s opponents.
In a gesture to MPs who are voting against the bill, the MP sponsoring it said that she understood the concern about the quality of care for terminally ill people and said she believed that improving palliative services should not be in competition with assisted dying.
Immigration plans to increase language requirement could prevent Armenian man from joining British wife
A couple fear they will be unable to be together for the birth of their first child due to Labour’s plan to increase the standard of English proficiency required before people can enter the UK.
The plans are contained in the new immigration white paper that introduces a new English language requirement across a broader range of immigration routes for both main applicants and dependants, including an assessment of improvements over time.
From an Estonian rap-dance celebrating Italian cliches to a Serbian power ballad sung by a karate-champ philologist, there’s something for everyone at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest
What would Eurovision be without sexually explicit songs? Australia’s Milkshake Man by Go-Jo is quite self-explanatory; the standout is Finland’s Erika Vikman with Ich Komme (“I am coming” in German). Set to a four-on-the-floor beat and Eurodance instrumental, the track bursts with unrestrained hands-in-the-air energy. Vikman sings of pleasure, ecstasy and a state of trance with a vigour reminiscent of Norway’s 2023 entry Queen of the Kings, by Alessandra. Vikman hails from a family of Finnish tango musicians – her mother and sister are both active in the genre – and she herself embraced it early in her career. Still, back in 2020, her breakout hit was another sex-positive, disco-inspired anthem: Cicciolina, which celebrates the boldness and self-determination of the Hungarian-born porn star Ilona Staller.
Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, known as Gheniwa, had recently been involved in disputes with rival armed groups
The killing of the head of one of Libya’s most powerful militias, which has been accused of abusing asylum seekers and faced allegations of crimes against humanity, has triggered armed clashes in Tripoli, resulting in at least six deaths.
Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, better known as Gheniwa, the commander of Support Force Apparatus SSA, one of Tripoli’s powerful armed groups, based in the densely populated Abu Salim neighbourhood, was killed on Monday night at the headquarters of the 444th Combat Brigade of the Libyan army, a source in one of the country’s security forces told Al Wasat television.
We’d like to hear from workers and business owners on the effect the government’s immigration white paper might have on them
The government published its immigration white paper on Monday which aims to reduce the number of people arriving in the UK “significantly” by introducing restriction across all forms of visas.
Changes include skilled work visa applicants requiring degree-level qualifications rather than those that are roughly equivalent to A-levels. Social care visas specifically will be affected as the government promises to end all overseas recruitment for social care work – though there will be a “transition period” until 2028.
Nissan is to close seven factories with the loss of 20,000 jobs around the world, after a tumultuous year for the Japanese carmaker.
As it slims down production, Nissan will make a further 11,000 job cuts, after 9,000 job losses announced in November, collectively reducing its workforce by 15%. The decision will affect staff and contractor jobs across manufacturing, sales and administration, as well as research and development.
The plans, first announced in a social media post on Sunday, triggered a sharp fall in drugmakers’ share prices on Monday. However, these later reversed amid growing scepticism that the shake-up would be as severe as promised.
As her tape-recorder adventures are brought to the screen by Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw, the 90-year-old remembers how she got the NY art crowd – from Peter Hujar to Chuck Close – talking about drugs, orgies and psychoanalysis
There is a series by Peter Hujar in which the photographer shot groups of friends, collaborators, lovers and other members of the New York avant garde, from the 1960s to 80s. In one image – including the artists Paul Thek and Eva Hesse – the writer Linda Rosenkrantz stands near the centre. “That was mostly people that I had gotten together, some who became very well-known,” Rosenkrantz tells me by phone from California. “Five or six of us would go ice-skating or dancing on Friday nights.”
Rosenkrantz grew up in the Bronx in the 1930s. After university she moved to Manhattan to work in the publicity and editorial department of the Parke-Bernet auction house, becoming enmeshed in the city’s art scene. “I met Hujar in 1956. We hit it off immediately,” she says. Hujar and Rosenkrantz remained close until his death from Aids-related complications in 1987.
I was recently asked to explain the media’s attitude to weight loss drugs. And the more I tried, the more sheepish I became
‘Why you might be given the ‘second-best’ weight-loss drug”, ran the i’s coverage of the most recent research findings: Mounjaro is officially more effective than Wegovy. And there are plenty of perfectly sensible reasons. Wegovy, which produces an average weight loss of 14%, might suit you fine. It’s the only drug approved for reducing the risk of a major cardiovascular event because it’s been on the market for longer. Mounjaro, reducing weight by 20%, might end up on top in the long run. The media often takes a scandalised tone about pharmacological innovation: whether it’s the NHS trying to palm you off with second best, or big pharma selling snake oil, someone is always out to get you. “This seems OK; let’s see how it goes” is a peculiarly difficult editorial line to take.
I was part of a panel discussion last week at “Ozempic Nation”, part of the British Library’s Food Season. Ozempic is the same drug as Wegovy, just with a lower concentration of the active ingredient, semaglutide, and is used to treat type 2 diabetes. The discussion felt a little paradoxical to include in a “food season”, since Ozempic is the opposite of food, the anti-food, the drug that can make you forget what you ever liked about food. And yet, the debate – which was essentially “Is this a wonder drug or a sticking plaster?” – cut to the heart of what food means for politics, for society and, I guess if you squint at it, for civilisation.
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Prosecution witness Daniel Phillip says he saw mogul throw bottle at ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and drag her by hair
The high-profile federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs enters its second day on Tuesday in lower Manhattan, where the 55-year-old music mogul faces charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Combs, who was arrested last September, has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations.
Lily Collias is outstanding as 17-year-old Sam, who goes hiking with her dad and his best buddy in India Donaldson’s feature debut
Road movie and coming-of-age are accepted genres; maybe hiking-through-the-forest deserves equal status. It’s a distinctive US indie type, coloured by the sun-dappled green foliage, flavoured by the unemphatic presence of both beauty and danger. And heading for … what? An escalating series of scary moments, or just a low-key crescendo of epiphanies or emotional confrontations? Middle-class New Yorkers can journey through the wilderness in the movies but, unlike in John Boorman’s 1972 film Deliverance, they may encounter only the inner hillbillies of their own anxiety and discontent.
This excellent film from first-time director India Donaldson is a smart, sympathetic and terrifically acted drama about 17-year-old Sam – an outstanding performance from Lily Collias – who agrees to go on a hiking trip in the Catskill mountains with her gloomy divorced dad Chris (played by James Le Gros) and his buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy), a failed actor who shares his friend’s marital status (divorced), his portly body type, his receding hairline and his habit of exhaustedly cracking wise about the awful way their lives appear to have worked out.
Lou Prevost, who shared video that repeated slur against Nancy Pelosi, says he and brother ‘disagree on some things’
The oldest brother of newly elected Pope Leo XIV has predicted that the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader will strive to be apolitical in his role – which, if that happens, would cut a stark contrast with the papal sibling’s fierce support of far-right American politics.
Facebook posts under the name of Louis Martin “Lou” Prevost, whose youngest brother, Robert Prevost,was recently picked to succeed the late Pope Francis, have come under scrutiny from journalists and social media users as the world seeks hints about what kind of relationship Leo may foster with Donald Trump.
French actor, 76, convicted of assaulting set dresser and assistant director during film shoot in Paris in 2021
Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence.
Depardieu, France’s biggest film star who has made more than 200 films and TV series, is the highest-profile figure in the French film industry to be convicted of sexual assault since the #MeToo movement. His name will be added to the sex offender register in France, the judge ruled.
Prime minister’s immigration speech was likened by MPs to rhetoric of Enoch Powell
Keir Starmer has defended his plans to curb net migration after an angry backlash from MPs, businesses and industry to a speech in which he said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tough new policies.
The rhetoric was likened by some critics to the language of Enoch Powell, and the prime minister was accused of pandering to the populist right by insisting he intended to “take back control of our borders” and end a “squalid chapter” of rising inward migration.
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
UK pub chain Marston’s has swung back to a profit in the first half of its financial year, thanks to a busy Christmas and Mother’s Day, as well as a tighter focus on costs.
The pub owner reported a pre-tax profit of £19m in the 26 weeks ended on 29 March, compared with a loss of £0.2m in the comparable period in 2024.
Their revised forecast reflects a combination of a lower effective tariff rate and the recent easing of financial conditions.
We raise our S&P 500 return and earnings forecasts to incorporate lower tariff rates, better economic growth, and less recession risk than we previously expected. Our new 3- and 12-month returns forecasts are +1% and +11%, indicating levels of 5900 and 6500 (previously 5700 and 6200).
We would like to hear from people who stopped using weight-loss jabs and what effect it had on them
With weight-loss jabs popular among people trying to lose weight and advised treatment time using drugs such as Wegovy limited to two years, we are interested in finding out more about people’s experiences after coming off weight-loss jabs.
What did you think of the results? Did the weight stay off, and did your relationship with food, or your body, change?
Portuguese coach to be given chance to rebuild squad
Matheus Cunha and Liam Delap top summer targets
Manchester United intend to retain Ruben Amorim as head coach next season even if they lose the Europa League final to Tottenham. The club have endured a horrible league campaign but the hierarchy feels the Portuguese deserves this summer transfer window to improve the squad and sign players better suited to his tactics.
United are 16th in the Premier League, having lost 17 games, their worst performance since 1973-74. Amorim replaced Erik ten Hag in November but has failed to oversee an upturn in fortunes domestically, also being eliminated by Fulham in the FA Cup and Tottenham in the League Cup.
The second season of Nathan Fielder’s singular series takes even bigger swings and while there has been criticism of his techniques, it remains an act of magic
What do couples counseling, a reality-singing competition, three cloned Yorkies, the content moderation of Paramount+ Germany and aviation safety all have in common? Virtually nothing, except the interest of television mastermind Nathan Fielder, who braids such disparate concepts together in the galaxy-brained second season of The Rehearsal.
In just four episodes, the genre-bending show of elaborate simulations – essentially, extremely realistic role-playing in the name of preparing people for uncomfortable situations – has provided some of the most compelling, bizarre and dementedly brilliant scenes on television this year: a shy commercial airline pilot on a first date, accompanied by 20 actors mirroring his every move. Fielder, sporting his series uniform laptop harness, peering into a “wrecked” cockpit through pretend flames. The sight of the Lizard Lounge – an exact replica of Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge, where Fielder was tending bar just last month – inside an exact replica of a section of Houston’s George Bush airport. And in a scene that was shockingly transgressive even for a docu-comedy auteur who has built a career on stretching the outer boundaries of reality television, the sight of Fielder, shaven, rubber-capped and diapered, suckling from the papier-mache teat of a puppet 50s housewife as part of a canonically insane, deeply sincere attempt to relive the life – and thus absorb the wisdom – of Captain Sully Sullenberger (of Tom Hanks biopic, crashing into the Hudson fame).
State media editorial says talks mark ‘step toward resolving differences’ but Xi again criticises US ‘bullying’
A 90-day pause in the US-China tariff war has been cautiously welcomed in China but tensions remain high, with Xi Jinping again accusing the US of “bullying”.
After two days of talks between officials in Geneva over the weekend, China and the US agreed to substantially lower for the next 90 days the high tariffs each had imposed on the other in a tit-for-tat trade war.
Missing peace talks would show Russia ‘does not want to end this war’, senior Ukraine official says
Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021.
Depardieu, France’s biggest film star, who has made more than 200 films and TV series, is the highest-profile figure in the French film industry to be convicted of sexual assault since the #MeToo movement.
Dougher spent 20 years drinking, smoking and sniffing anything he could get hold of. At his lowest, he spent a month sleeping on a park bench. How did he bounce back?
All stories of addiction are grim and harrowing, but Patrick Dougher’s memoir reads like a picaresque comedy at times – albeit one laced with trauma and tragedy. There are hilarious tales of eccentric characters, like the great-aunt with enormous buttocks who killed his kitten by sitting on it: “That booty made all the decisions, and Aunt Cat, she just followed obediently.” And there are almost unbelievable episodes from Dougher’s life: his near-death experience in a crashing elevator, playing drums in Sade’s band, being stalked by a serial killer, finding a kilo of cocaine hidden inside a stolen table football machine. It almost sounds fun. And yet Dougher’s life is also a story of emotional damage, homelessness, self-destruction, loss and regret.
“The life of an addict, or at least my life, it is the full spectrum, it’s the polarities,” he says. “You can have incredible moments of exhilaration and joy and excitement, and it puts you in situations where you’re surrounded by unique characters, and then obviously the downside, which is pain and suffering and all of that stuff.” And yet, somehow, Dougher made it out the other side. “I would say I had a charmed life,” he says.
The Welsh club’s third successive promotion was powered by a hit docuseries, not the other way around
The filming started before the bid to buy Wrexham from its supporters’ trust was even formalized. Which means that Welcome to Wrexham, the docuseries tracing the stunning rise of a fifth-tier Welsh club under the ownership of a pair of Hollywood celebrities, existed as a show before it was actually a sporting project.
Young men and women are pulling apart ideologically – in the US, UK, South Korea, France, Germany and elsewhere, young women now take far more liberal positions on immigration and racial justice than young men, while older age groups remain evenly matched. At the same time, as Reform UK polls neck and neck with Labour, a new group of voters referred to as ‘radical young men’ make up one of Reform's largest voting blocks, mirroring the Trump campaign’s focus on the ‘manosphere’ during the US election. The Guardian's Damien Gayle goes in search of these young men to ask why they are turning to the right
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