• Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
• Have any thoughts? Send them over to Yara via email

It was an interesting night for Chelsea. They are through to a European semi-final … but they got booed off the pitch as it happened. From west London, Jacob Steinberg wrote:

Losing 2-1 to Legia Warsaw on the night was embarrassing. Chelsea, who seemed intent on giving the fifth-best side in Poland hope of pulling off a comeback for the ages at a disgruntled Stamford Bridge, were shambolic and easily could have crashed out.

No wonder Maresca is not feeling the love from the crowd. Nobody celebrated Chelsea squeezing into a Conference League semi-final against Djurgården after winning 4-2 on aggregate. The defending was miserable and the attack was poor. Filip Jörgensen, Robert Sánchez’s understudy, was jittery in goal and the worries around Cole Palmer’s slump are not going away.

It was a poor performance. We had a 3-0 lead – maybe that played a part in taking our foot off the gas. Maybe we disrespected the competition today. If you don’t prepare right, you will pay. It’s going to affect the mindset. It’s going to be in the back of people’s heads. I understand the frustration. Fans come to see excitement. We were frustrating to watch.

Militant group says it will not accept deal without guarantee of end to Gaza war or full withdrawal of Israeli troops

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal, saying it will not accept a “partial” deal that does not guarantee an end to the war or a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, accused Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of putting forward an offer that “set impossible conditions for a deal that does not lead to the end of the war or full withdrawal”.

Visit by Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen comes as a federal appeals court rules against the Trump’s administration’s efforts to block return to the US

Republicans in nearly half of state legislatures have proposed bills to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote.

Conservatives in California are pushing for a voter ID ballot measure that would require citizenship verification to register to vote and photo identification to get a ballot.

Al-Masirah TV reports at least 58 dead in attack Washington says was intended to cut off source of fuel to militants

US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen have killed at least 58 people, according to the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, in what would be one of the deadliest since Washington began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.

The US has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since Donald Trump took office in January unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Hidden references and in-jokes in cinema can be an acquired taste, but here’s a festive selection of the best arch nods for aficionados to enjoy

One of Hollywood’s most durable Easter eggs debuted in Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday (1940) when Cary Grant’s character says: “The last man who said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat!” And in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) his character sits pensively in a cemetery where Archie Leach’s gravestone is to be seen. In Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called Wanda (1988), John Cleese’s character is called Archie Leach. Leach is, of course, the real name of Cary Grant – a very goofy and unglamorous sounding name compared with the sonorous “Cary Grant” – and a rare example of Hollywood alluding to the open secret of rebranding its stars and effacing the bland ordinariness of their origins. Peter Bradshaw

Paul went from talking about birdwatching to sharing videos of Tommy Robinson and embracing conspiracy theories. Who is protecting him?

• April O’Neill is the winner of the 2025 Emerging Voices award (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing

Some people should never have a smartphone – and I want to tell you about one of them. For the past couple of decades, Paul* had a classic Nokia brick-style phone. He could make calls – even send the odd text if we were lucky. But, a few years ago, he got a smartphone. At first, nothing changed much. He was reconnecting with friends, discovering emojis – there were no concerns. It has only been recently that the phone has become a problem, and that’s because he has stumbled across social media. And he is on it constantly.

What do we know about Paul? He has time on his hands and, having grown up in an era when encyclopedias were the main source of knowledge, he has little media literacy when it comes to analysing sources and figuring out which ones he should trust. I can see why he probably takes it for granted that what he reads on his phone is true.

April O’Neill is the winner of the 2025 Emerging Voices Awards (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing

*Name has been changed

Due out in 2027, Starfighter will be directed by Deadpool & Wolverine’s Shawn Levy and will be separate from the nine-film Skywalker franchise

Star Wars producer Lucasfilm has officially confirmed that a standalone film in the series, starring Ryan Gosling, will go ahead.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni announced the news at the Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo, with the film’s title revealed as Star Wars: Starfighter and a projected release date in May 2027.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty; All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman; This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen; The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie; Death and Other Occupations by Veronika Dapunt

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty (Picador, £16.99)
Award-winning short-story writer Hegarty’s debut opens with guests arriving at an Irish Airbnb country house for a murder mystery-themed birthday party. Abigail has organised the celebration for her brother Benjamin, and old friends, including his former fiancee, are invited, as well as his colleague Barbara – but the morning after the festivities, he is found dead in his locked bedroom. So far, so run-of-the-mill, but the book then splits into competing storylines, with the action oscillating between a metatextual golden age narrative, complete with butler, gardener, maid and esteemed amateur detective, and a naturalistic and sometimes heartbreaking account of grief. With plenty of in-jokes for golden age aficionados and a remarkably assured handling of the necessary tonal shifts, this engaging, ingenious Möbius strip of a book is undoubtedly the most original crime novel you’ll read all year.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman (4th Estate, £16.99)
Harman’s debut novel is set around west London private school St Angeles, where parents rich enough to be unperturbed by the imposition of VAT on fees fork out hefty sums for their little darlings’ primary education. Ageing party girl and failed singer Florence Grimes is very much the odd mum out in this glossy milieu, but when her 10-year-old son’s classmate Alfie, an entitled bully who is the heir to a frozen food empire, goes missing on a school trip and young Dylan becomes a person of interest to the police, she gets on the case. Whether you warm to this hot-mess-turns-amateur-sleuth tale rather depends on whether you find Florence enraging or endearing, with her habit of asking a neighbour to listen out for Dylan while she goes out for hook-ups, and a preternatural talent not only for self-sabotage, but also for landing other people in it up to their necks. That said, it’s funny, pacy and very readable, with the social satire absolutely on point.

With US visits down 11.6% in March compared with last year, people share their views and experiences on the US border

Last year, while Joe Biden was US president, Jenny and her husband booked a trip to Boston for June 2025.

The British couple had been to New York before and wanted to see more of the country. But after Donald Trump’s re-election in November, Jenny said a “shadow” began to fall on their travel plans.

Department of Transportation employees who provide support for Starlink and SpaceX launches safe amid job cuts

Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” and the Trump administration have spared the jobs of US Department of Transportation employees who provide support services for spacecraft launches by Musk’s companies, SpaceX and Starlink – a revelation that raises a new round of conflict of interest questions around Doge.

In its most recent buyout announcement, the transportation department did not note that the positions spared supported Musk’s and others’ space operations.

The actor, who took on the role in 2016 for box office let-down Batman v Superman, said the uncomfortable costume ‘made it difficult to make the movie’

Ben Affleck says that he “hated” the Batsuit, and that it was “horrendous to wear” and “made it difficult to make the movie”.

Speaking to GQ, Affleck said that the main issue with the elaborate costume was the heat it generated. “They don’t breathe. They’re made to look the way they want them to look. There’s no thought put into the human being. So what happens is that you just start sweating … So in that thing, you’d just be pouring water, because you have that cowl over it. Like, there’s one thing to wear the suit, but once you cover your head, I guess that’s where all your heat kind of escapes and you feel it.”

Lawsuit argues Kendrick Lamar’s half-time performance ‘further solidified’ public belief in allegations made in diss track Not Like Us, but UMG calls amendment ‘absurd’

Drake has expanded his lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us, alleging that he was defamed by Lamar’s half–time performance at the 2025 Super Bowl.

With lyrics including “Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young … certified lover boy? Certified paedophile,” Lamar’s track was one of a number of diss tracks issued by the rappers against each other in spring 2024. Not Like Us became the most commercially successful, reaching No 1 in the US and UK, and it also won Lamar five Grammy awards including record and song of the year.

Report finds over a quarter of Canadians exposed to ‘more sophisticated and more politically polarizing’ fake content

More than a quarter of Canadians have been exposed to fake political content on social media that is “more sophisticated and more politically polarizing” as the country prepares to vote in a federal election, researchers have found, warning that platforms must increase protections amid a “dramatic acceleration” of online disinformation in the final weeks of the campaign.

In a new report released on Friday, Canada’s Media Ecosystem Observatory found a growing number of Facebook ads impersonating legitimate news sources were instead promoting fraudulent investment schemes, often involving cryptocurrency.

Books include religious scriptures and scribbled jokes, giving glimpse of daily lives of early medieval Irish monks

More than 1,000 years ago, Irish monks took precious manuscripts to the European continent to protect them from Viking raids and to spread Christianity and scholarship – a glow of culture in what would be called the dark ages.

The monks did not know if the books, which included religious scriptures, linguistic analysis, scribbled jokes and a collection of tomes described as the internet of the ancient world, would survive, or ever return.

Weeks of fires amid warm and dry spell have decimated ecosystems and threatened endangered species, say experts

• Wildfires expose ‘postcode lottery’ of firefighting resources

Britain’s national parks have warned of a “catastrophic” risk from wildfires this Easter after one of the driest early spring seasons on record.

Park rangers from the South Downs to the Highlands said the prolonged warm weather and breezy conditions had left large areas extremely dry despite recent rain.

Far too many academics are repeating propaganda about a ‘free speech crisis’. It’s time for a shared strategy

Harvard is refusing the plainly illegal demands by the Trump administration. That sends an important signal: resistance is possible.

But universities must realize that the government is adopting a divide-and-rule tactic: they should collaborate on a shared litigation strategy, take a common approach in getting the public on their side, and do everything possible to have Congress push back against Trump treating money allocated by the legislature as if it were a private slush fund to be used for political blackmail. Some faculty have already begun to unite. In principle, not just progressives, but self-respecting conservatives – if any remain – should be responsive to such a three-pronged strategy.

(Sub Pop)
The TV on the Radio frontman’s sharp pop instincts kick in on a multifaceted synth-punk-funk set born out of deep personal loss

You would not know, on first listen, that this effervescent debut solo album by the sometime frontman of TV on the Radio was steeped in grief. Tunde Adebimpe’s sister died during the pandemic when these songs were taking hesitant shape in an LA studio that Adebimpe, now a successful actor, shares with multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Wilder Zoby.

Those difficult feelings – and others, about living in “a time of tenderness and rage” – became snaggle-toothed synth-punk cuts and bouncy synth-pop sounds. On Drop, there’s beat-boxing; on The Most, a Sleng Teng reggae riddim ambush; while on Somebody New, you can hear a punk-funk echo of New Order. Only ILY, a finger-picked folk song addressed to his sister, breaks character, adding “balladeer” to Adebimpe’s varied CV (former stop-motion animator, illustrator). “How’d you get so low?” asks God Knows, a perky, doo-wop-adjacent song about a flailing relationship.

Loamy soil is the holy grail, but all types can be improved by adding organic matter

I often mention my veg patch’s clay soil in this column, and that’s because soil type affects what we grow and how. Getting to know your soil is an essential part of becoming a great grower of edible plants. Soil type is determined by the size of the soil’s particles which, in turn, determine its characteristics.

Sandy soil has the largest particles, which means it is light, easy to work, lets water drain through it freely and warms up quickly in spring. This also means that sandy soil dries out easily, isn’t as water retentive as other types and tends to be low in nutrients as they wash through it.

Turmoil spreads at company over Israel’s extensive use of its AI and cloud computing services in Gaza war

For the second time in the last month, Microsoft employees disrupted high-level executives speaking at an event celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary on 4 April, in protest against the company’s role in Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza.

AI executive Mustafa Suleyman was interrupted by employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal. The two were fired within days. The Microsoft president Brad Smith and the former CEO Steve Ballmer were shouted down at Seattle’s Great Hall on 20 March by a current and former employee.

Joe Seiders in custody following search of home, vehicle and phone, after allegedly attempting to film child in California restaurant restroom

Joe Seiders, the American drummer with Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, has been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse imagery.

A statement made by the sheriff’s office of Riverside county, California, alleged that evidence has implicated Seiders in two incidents. On Monday 7 April, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man attempted to film him in a restroom of a fast food restaurant, and on Wednesday 9 April, police officers received another report from the restaurant, that a man was “entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males at the business”.

Secretary of state threatens to pull plug ‘within days’, as Kyiv says it has signed mineral deal memorandum

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The US will abandon its efforts “within days” to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs a settlement can be reached, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said, as Kyiv says it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.

Speaking in Paris on Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said Donald Trump was still interested in a deal. But he added that the US president had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on unless there were signs of progress.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Israeli woman and Italian driver of cable car also died in crash near Naples and reports say fourth victim also British

A British woman was among four people who died when a cable car crashed to the ground near Naples in southern Italy on Thursday.

Prosecutors in Torre Annunziata have opened an investigation into possible manslaughter after the accident at Monte Faito, a peak about 28 miles (45km) south-east of Naples.

New exhibition in Amherst, Massachusetts, looks at the unsung art that exists on the pages that bookend much-loved kids books

Once upon a time, endpapers – those little bits of real estate connecting the inside covers of hardcover books to the pages within – were a site of pure decoration, or maybe, as in the case of The Chronicles of Narnia, a map of a fantasy realm. More recently, illustrators have been reimagining just what endpapers can be – far from decorations or maps, they are now used to bookend and compliment the stories told in books in fascinating ways.

“The illustrator Shaun Tan described them as like quotation marks or parentheses around the story,” said Bruce Handy, a journalist and children’s book author. “In his mind it’s a way of setting the story off. Kind of like an anteroom to the story, or like a transition into the story.”

I know not everyone would agree with what I did, but Lucas was my soulmate

Getting a puppy was my husband Justin’s idea. But the second I saw this beautiful Boston terrier, who had flown from his breeder in Arkansas to our home in Miami in March 2017, I fell in love. Clever, loving and stubborn, Lucas was so much more than a dog. He became my soulmate, and I couldn’t bear for us to be apart.

When I was hospitalised with hepatitis a few months after his arrival, I missed Lucas so much that I persuaded the nursing staff to let him stay by my side. He had an extraordinary ability to sense my emotions and was a constant source of comfort. Over the years, the two of us visited more than 30 countries together. I couldn’t imagine life without him.

In an exclusive extract from Friederike Otto’s new book, she says climate disasters result from inequality as well as fossil fuel

My research as a climate scientist is in attribution science. Together with my team, I analyse extreme weather events and answer the questions of whether, and to what extent, human-induced climate change has altered their frequency, intensity and duration.

When I first began my research, most scientists claimed that these questions couldn’t be answered. There were technical reasons for this: for a long time, researchers had no weather models capable of mapping all climate-related processes in sufficient detail. But there were other reasons that had less to do with the research itself.

Thomas Graham, a journalist based in Mexico City, explains how the leftwing governing party, Morena, has promoted social justice but diluted principle with pragmatism

If you were to summarise the 2024 election year, you might say: grim for incumbents, good for the far right. Yet Mexico bucked both trends. Its governing party, Morena, not only retained the presidency but – along with its partners in the Sigamos Haciendo Historia coalition – gained a two-thirds supermajority in the chamber of deputies, the lower house, while the far right failed to even run a candidate. That a self-described leftwing party could have such success by fixing on Mexico’s chasmic inequality has drawn attention from hopeful progressives worldwide. But Morena’s programme has some not-so-progressive elements too. It is not necessarily one others could – or would want to – copy in its entirety.

Morena first notched a historic result in 2018, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an old face of the left who ran for president twice before founding the party, won a record 55% of the vote during the general elections. Mexico’s constitution limits presidents to a single term. But this time, Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of López Obrador’s, won 60% of the vote. Her victory was reminiscent of the heyday of Latin America’s “pink tide”, when leftist leaders like Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales were reelected for a second term with more votes than their initial victories.

Man behind puzzle and pigeon bags, who transformed Loewe, brings buzz to French house as creative director

Jonathan Anderson, the designer who brought success, cool and viral fame to the Spanish label Loewe during his 11-year reign, has been announced as the new creative director of Christian Dior’s menswear collection. Taking over from Kim Jones, Anderson’s first show for the brand will take place in Paris in June.

While this is confirmation of news that fashion insiders were long aware of, it will definitely bring new buzz to Christian Dior. Anderson, now 40, has become something of a unicorn in the industry, a designer with boundless energy and ideas who is able to create distinctive and original designs but also sell clothes.

Thousands go to hospital with respiratory problems after massive dust cloud blows in from Saudi Arabia

Iraq was hit by its most severe sandstorm of 2025 this week, turning skies from blue to an orange haze. Visibility dropped to less than half a mile, causing travel disruptions, with two major airports halting flights, and streets in Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, deserted. Respiratory problems sent thousands to hospital. The storm also affected Kuwait, where wind gusts exceeded 50mph, and visibility in some areas was diminished to zero.

This massive dust cloud originated in Saudi Arabia before being blown into Iraq. While dust storms are common in Iraq, the climate crisis is expected to intensify them across the region in the future, fuelled by desertification in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

From Kings v Oilers to Leafs v Bruins, the league’s divisional structure has turned once-thrilling postseason clashes into stale reruns. Is it time for a change?

“It’s the stupidest thing ever.” This was Washington Capitals’ forward Daniel Winnik’s review in 2017 of the NHL’s still (somewhat) new playoff format. Three seasons earlier, along with realigning its divisions, the NHL had abandoned it’s previous, simple playoff arrangement. For 20 years, the top eight teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs, with the first-placed team playing the eighth-placed team, the second-placed team played the seventh, and so on. “I don’t know why it’s not one to eight,” Winnik said. “I don’t know why we got away from that.” A lot of people are still asking the same question.

On Sunday, as the NHL locked in its first Western conference playoff matchup, confirming that the Dallas Stars will face the Colorado Avalanche, some fans took to online forums to both celebrate and lament. “Anybody else hate the divisional format? I truly think both of these teams are legit contenders,” one user posted to the r/hockey subreddit under a link announcing the matchup. “Pretty sure literally everyone does,” another responded. Indeed, it seems unfair that one of the top teams in the West will be eliminated so soon into the postseason. Worse, is that, thanks in part to the playoff format, fans have seen this matchup coming for ages – a predictability that is supposed to build anticipation, but has instead become annoying.

‘We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,’ Marco Rubio says

Beijing on Friday denied giving any party in the Ukraine war lethal weapons, after president Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed he had “information” that China was supplying arms to Russia.

“The Chinese side has never provided lethal weapons to any party in the conflict, and strictly controls dual-use items,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

(Phantom Limb)
The 80s label released hundreds of oddball DIY recordings. Their final compilation, now repressed, jerks from folk to punk to ambient – with moments worthy of great kids’ TV

In 1980, a group of friends in Japan started DD Records, a platform for amateur musicians to share bizarre homespun recordings across their network. The label released an impressive 222 cassettes and a handful of vinyl records in five years, then disbanded and faded into relative obscurity. Their last known release, the compilation Disk Musik – a multi-genre compilation bringing together 13 Japanese artists – is so rare that even the prolific music catalogue database Discogs bears little trace of it.

Four decades on, it’s been re-pressed – and it still sounds as mind-warping as it probably did to its small circle of listeners back in 1985. The opening track by trio Circadian Rhythm may as well be three songs in one, drifting haphazardly from stray humming vocals to wistful coda, by way of a tangle of clatter (toybox percussion, a phone ringing) in just five minutes. It sets the tone for a compilation that runs on little cohesion and maximum frenzy as it hops between folk, scrappy punk-ish jams, ambient soundscapes and pummelling noise.

Ministers are ready to be relentless over planning reform. There is a skills gap though – and they must be brave enough to fill it

Amid the shock of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) halving its growth forecast last month, one remarkable finding gets too little attention. It predicts housebuilding will rise to its highest level in 40 years, adding 0.2% growth or £6.8bn by 2029-30, potentially rising to more than 0.4% by 2034-35. The government has said that housing scores the biggest positive growth effect from a “zero-cost policy” the OBR has ever forecast.

This is especially remarkable given that 2024 saw the fewest planning permissions granted for new homes for a decade, and the worst on record, according to the Home Builders Federation (HBF). Planning applications plummeted when the last government scrapped councils’ mandatory housing targets, but since Labour reimposed a national planning policy framework, applications in the works have risen by more than 160%.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Midfielder on overcoming Premier League nerves, adapting while grieving for his mum and what shaped his work ethic

Not much fazes Carlos Baleba. The Brighton midfielder likes to spend his spare time watching horror films – “they don’t scare me; nothing has ever scared me” – or even dancing on his own to Mbolé music from his native Cameroon. “Sometimes I need to move my body,” Baleba says with a smirk.

Thanks to a strict training regime that he began at the age of 10 under the watchful eye of his father, Eugene, Baleba has developed into one of the Premier League’s most imposing figures. The 21-year-old is tipped to become the latest big-money transfer to leave Brighton after Moisés Caicedo was sold to Chelsea for a British record £115m in the summer of 2023.

Exiled from Castro’s Cuba, she became a superstar – and a trailblazer in the macho world of salsa. Fans and collaborators including Angélique Kidjo hail an icon of Black empowerment

On 13 November 1973, at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico, Celia Cruz took to the stage in a bejewelled, psychedelic blue dress and vast afro, saluting the 12,500-capacity arena with her trademark rallying cry: “Azucar!” – sugar.

The Cuban singer had been a star for more than two decades by this point, but this concert marked a rebirth. Backed by the Fania All-Stars, the in-house orquesta of the label that brought salsa to the US, Cruz performed Bemba Colorá. Devotees have variously decoded its lyric and “big red lips” metaphor as a repudiation of a neighbourhood gossip, a commentary on anti-Black racism or an anthem for female empowerment. Stretched out to a righteous 12-minute call-and-response in Puerto Rico, she recast the song as a cry of anguish over her exile from her homeland, adding lines like “Yo como el pájaro quiero / mi libertad recobrar” (“Like the bird / I want to regain my freedom”) that channelled the pain of the dispossessed.

Not since Tony Benn has a Labour minister been so assailed – and not just by the Tory press, but also by his own colleagues

Why exactly does Ed Miliband make so many people so angry? At 55, 20 years into his parliamentary career, with rare ministerial experience under both New Labour and Keir Starmer, and a reputation around Westminster and Whitehall as one of politics’ nicer, more knowledgeable characters, he could be a respected figure in a generally inexperienced government. Instead, he’s this unpopular administration’s most controversial member.

“An eco-zealot”, “a net-zero fanatic”, a “nauseating” hypocrite, “a cackling madman”, an “eco-Marxist”, “out of control”, “trashing Britain”, “a recruiting sergeant for the opposition”, the “most dangerous man in Britain” – Miliband provokes rightwing journalists and voters like no other minister. Possibly not since the onslaught in the 1970s on the socialist disruptor Tony Benn, whom Miliband later worked for as a teenager, has a Labour minister been so relentlessly targeted. Even the long-running and complex crisis in Britain’s steel industry has become an opportunity to blame him, despite him being secretary of state for energy security and net zero for fewer than 10 months.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

• Fifa is yet to secure exemption for 32 clubs taking part
• Tax rate may vary according to where games are played

Fifa is facing complex negotiations with the US authorities before the Club World Cup after failing to secure tax exemptions for the 32 competing clubs.

The world governing body announced a huge prize fund for the tournament of $1bn (£754m) in March, including up to $125.8m for the winners, but without tax agreements clubs could be left with bills of tens of millions of dollars to the US tax authorities on top of tax payable in their home countries. At least 29 clubs from outside the US, including Chelsea and Manchester City, will be competing.

The world No 1 defeated his old rival and world No 2, Hikaru Nakamura, in the final, and took the $3.75m series lead before the third Slam event in Las Vegas

Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, scored a low-key triumph on Monday when he won the Paris leg of the $3.75m Freestyle Grand Slam by defeating his old rival and world No 2, USA’s Hikaru Nakamura, by 1.5-0.5 in the final. It was patient attrition over the two games, worthy of a place in the Carlsen-David Howell book Grind like a Grandmaster.

The decisive first game had some technical errors, which the Norwegian described almost apologetically in his post-game interview. The rematch was more routine as the 34-year-old simplified to his goal of a drawn rook endgame and a move-40 handshake.

Bill knows Rita has anxiety, but thinks she was inconsiderate. Rita says he just wants to save face with his friends. Who should eat humble pie?

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

I know Rita struggles with anxiety, but she only gave us an hour’s notice that she wasn’t coming

I don’t know why Dad is obsessed with me repaying the money – he just wants to save face

Make it classy by swapping black and white for warm, earthy neutrals

This outfit looks so classy, doesn’t it? Understated, but with an indefinable air of poshness. Effortless, but elevated. But did you spot the best part? It’s in the small print. The clothes are from Uniqlo and the shoes are from Zara. The look is expensive, but the clothes aren’t.

Money isn’t everything, but some pricey clothes look cheap and some inexpensive clothes look luxurious, and I think we all know which side of that divide we’d rather be on. A great way to get it right is by picking the right colours – tonal warm neutrals are what you need for high style without high prices.