Chichester Festival theatre Natalie Dormer is exceptional in the title role with Phillip Breen’s clever production reflecting the full scope of the novel’s ambition
The stampede of actors making their way from screen to stage continues with Natalie Dormer’s return to the boards as the lead, tragic figure in Leo Tolstoy’s story of one aristocratic unhappy family.
She is exceptional in the part of Anna, inhabiting the boldness, insecurity and anger of the discontented wife seeking her freedom through romantic passion. But there is little chemistry in her relationship with Vronsky (Seamus Dillane) – the rakish military man for whom she leaves her loveless marriage, and he is a non-character, left uncoloured.
Unlike Keir Starmer and his cabinet, Reform UK’s leader actually understands and exploits the rules of engagement in our digital age
As so often happens, what Nigel Farage said on a recent visit to south Wales deserved endless pejoratives. It was ludicrous, condescending, half-baked, opportunistic and plain stupid. Even he didn’t seem to know exactly what he wanted. At a Reform UK press conference in Port Talbot, he seemed to make the case for reopening the town’s steel-making blast furnaces, before admitting that “it might be easier to build a new one”, though he also acknowledged that it would “cost in the low billions” to do so. But he had even more dizzying visions of reopened Welsh mines. “If you offer people well-paying jobs … many will take them,” said Farage, “even though you have to accept that mining is dangerous.”
The climate crisis, predictably enough, was not worth considering. He also did not offer any opinions about coal-related issues such as slag heaps, land slips, rivers that run black, and unimaginable underground disasters. When he was asked where new pits might be located, he blithely offered the opinion that it “comes down to geology”. That is true, up to a point, but he would surely also have to think about the housing developments and business parks that often sit atop all those disused coal seams.
Former French president loses country’s highest state award despite Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to move
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour, the country’s highest distinction, after his conviction for corruption was confirmed last year, according to an official decree published on Sunday.
The conservative one-term president has been beset by legal problems since leaving office in 2012. In December France’s highest court upheld his conviction for influence peddling and corruption, ordering him to wear an electronic ankle tag for 12 months.
Healthy scepticism is needed because flaw is that large language models remain prone to casually making things up
From helping consultants diagnose cancer, to aiding teachers in drawing up lesson plans – and flooding social media with derivative slop – generative artificial intelligence is being adopted across the economy at breakneck speed.
Yet a growing number of voices are starting to question how much of an asset the technology can be to the UK’s sluggish economy. Not least because there is no escaping a persistent flaw: large language models (LLMs) remain prone to casually making things up.
From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future
“There is a supernatural process going on under the surface and within the substance of all things,” says a priest in Muriel Spark’s 1965 novel The Mandelbaum Gate. Spark believed herself wired into this process. The novelist was aware from the start of “a definite ‘something beyond myself’”, an “access to knowledge that I couldn’t possibly have gained through normal channels”.
“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to her American editor Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves. If Spark wrote about blackmail, she too would be blackmailed; if she wrote about a burglary, she would then be burgled. Thirty years after toying with an idea for The Hothouse by the East River (1973), in which electrocution by lightning takes place down a telephone line, lightning struck Spark’s house in Italy, sending a current of electricity through the external wires and burning her upper lip.
Foreigners treated as enemies, judges under attack: the signs are everywhere in the US. But there are still reasons to hope
Like so many others, I watched the video of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, as she was surrounded by men dressed in black, some wearing masks. They carried guns. One grabbed her by the collar. The men surrounded her, and one handcuffed her. You can hear her short shrieks of fear.
She must have been terrified. I know I was when, as a 19-year-old student, I was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires by members of an irregular taskforce. I know what it feels like and I know what it portends.
Miriam Lewin is a leading Argentine journalist and survivor of the dictatorship. She is the author of six books, including Iosi, the Remorseful Spy forthcoming in English in July 2025 (Seven Stories Press). A seven episode podcast about Miriam Lewin’s experience as a prisoner of the state and her fight for justice is titled The Burden: Avenger
Budding scholars pursue overseas jobs amid attacks on education and research, prompting fears of an American brain drain
Eric Schuster was over the moon when he landed a lab assistant position in a coral reef biology lab at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO). The 23-year-old had recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nanoengineering from the University of California, San Diego, into a fiercely competitive job market. He felt like he’d struck gold.
Mark Lynas has spent decades pushing for action on climate emissions but now says nuclear war is even greater threat
Climate breakdown is usually held up as the biggest, most urgent threat humans pose to the future of the planet today.
But what if there was another, greater, human-made threat that could snuff out not only human civilisation, but practically the entire biosphere, in the blink of an eye?
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families waiting months for prescriptions buy it ‘off label’. But is it worth the risk?
The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of the TV. That never happens.” Jen is remembering giving her son, David, six, melatonin to help him sleep. She got them from a friend, a paediatrician who gave them to her own child. “It was sort of hilarious. She had half a tub of gummies, and her husband met my husband in a car park near a roundabout to hand them over, like some underhand black-market deal.” Her tone is light, but in fact she and her husband were becoming increasingly desperate for sleep. “They were like gold dust.”
By meeting in the car park to exchange the gummies, the husbands weren’t breaking the law, exactly, but they were stepping into a legal grey area. Melatonin is a synthetic version of the sleep hormone that occurs naturally in our bodies, rising at night in response to darkness and helping us get to sleep. It isn’t strictly illegal in the UK, but it is a prescription-only medication, and it can only be prescribed to children by a paediatrician under a specific set of circumstances, usually for children with a diagnosis of autism or ADHD. The rationale for this pathway is so that the paediatric specialist can rule out any potentially physical causes or underlying disease relating to the sleep disorder. Side-effects can include drowsiness the next day, nausea and feeling dizzy.
Protesters take to streets in a dozen cities to march against an industry they say is wrecking communities
Campaigners in at least a dozen tourist hotspots across southern Europe have taken to the streets to protest against “touristification”.
It is the most widespread joint action to date against what they see as the steady reshaping of their cities to meet the needs of tourists rather than those who live and work there.
Iran’s foreign minister has accused Israel of seeking to expand the war beyond Iran by attacking a major gas facility in Bushehr province on the Gulf coast.
Speaking to diplomats in his first public appearance since the initial Israeli strikes, Abbas Araghchi said: “Dragging the conflict into the Persian Gulf is a strategic mistake and its goal is to drag the war outside Iranian territory. Any military development in this region can affect the entire world.”
A lack of regulation over the use of expert witnesses in English courts could be leading to miscarriages of justice, senior politicians, lawyers and doctors have said.
The former attorney general Dominic Grieve and the former justice secretary Jack Straw were among those to tell the Guardian that criminal and civil trials were sometimes hanging on evidence by self-appointed “experts” who could lack relevant knowledge.
The corporate, political and tech bigwigs meeting in Sweden are worried about an ‘authoritarian axis’ – maybe AI drones will fix things?
Deep within the glittering bowels of Stockholm’s fanciest hotel, grave ruminations on the future of the world are taking place.
A heady throng of tech billionaires, ministers, corporate titans and the king of the Netherlands have convened in Sweden for the 71st Bilderberg meeting – the publicity-shy annual policy conference that has long sustained conspiracy theorists – hosted this year by the fabulously wealthy Wallenberg family.
Laila finds the 27-year age gap between her and Jeremy a turn-on. He says being in polyamorous relationships allows him to love different people in different ways
I respect Jeremy’s opinion and life experience and he makes me feel cared for
I also don’t experience jealousy. But I can feel insecure. I worry about being left for a monogamous relationship
Miccosukee Tribe partners with Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation to safeguard lands as part of ‘moral obligation’
Almost two centuries ago, Native American tribe members sought the protection of Florida’s Everglades during the Seminole wars as they hid from government forces seeking to banish them to Indian territories that later became Oklahoma.
Now, as the Trump administration continues its wholesale slashing of federal funding from conservation projects, the Miccosukee Tribe is stepping up to fulfill what it sees as a “moral obligation” to return the favor.
Ride was the first US woman in space – but a National Geographic documentary looks at how she was forced to hide her queerness to succeed
A week before Sally – a documentary about the first American woman to fly into space – landed at the Sundance film festival in January, Nasa employees received emails informing them how Donald Trump’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rollbacks would take effect.
Contracts and offices associated with DEI programs were to be terminated. Staff were given Orwellian instruction to inform the government of any attempt to disguise inclusion efforts in “coded or imprecise language”. In the weeks to follow, Nasa would take back its promise to send the first woman and person of color to the moon’s surface. Meanwhile, employees are reported to be hiding their rainbow flags and any other expressions of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, allegedly because they were instructed to do so though Nasa denies those claims.
Former curator’s comments, later withdrawn, reignite debate over attribution of Samson and Delilah painting
It is an unwelcome question, but an important one: did the National Gallery buy a £2.5m dud?
This has remained the suspicion of many experts since one of Britain’s premier cultural institutions acquired Samson and Delilah, a long-lost masterpiece by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, in 1980.
Some of the world’s most powerful firms have quietly toed the line set by the administration to avoid the president’s wrath
From vast protests and all-caps social media posts to acrimonious legislative hearings and pugnacious White House statements, Washington has perhaps never been noisier. But since Donald Trump’s return to office, one corner of civil society has been almost eerily quiet.
Those leading corporate America rapidly turned down the volume after the president’s re-election. Gone are the days of political and social interventions, highly publicized diversity initiatives and donations to important causes.
Despite its twisted characters and unremitting plotlines, the Bafta-winning sitcom has become an unlikely hot property for the BBC. The secret, says creator Kat Sadler: dealing with things in ‘the most unenlightened way possible’
Few writers take criticism well, fewer actively court it. Kat Sadler, however, has an insatiable appetite for negative feedback. When crafting her BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, the 31-year-old frequently runs the scripts past her younger sister and co-star Lizzie Davidson – but she isn’t looking for praise. Instead, “she wants you to tear it to pieces”, says Davidson. “She loves it.”
“I get off on it,” confirms Sadler, with matter-of-fact melancholy.
Marketed to ‘party people’ and touted as a faster route to hydration than water, electrolytes are in the middle of a boom
The tickets are bought, the line-ups have been announced and it’s nearly time to drag last year’s tent out of the cupboard for a wipedown – and to evict a few dead earwigs. And this summer, there’s one more festival accessory that partygoers won’t be travelling without: electrolyte tablets.
Touted as a faster route to rehydration than water, and a way to replace vital salts lost during heavy drinking and partying, the focus on festivals is the latest twist in a global boom for electrolytes, as everyone from triathletes to YouTubers sings the praises of these super-hydrating mineral supplements.
An Australian man who was detained upon arrival at Los Angeles airport and deported back to Melbourne says United States border officials told him it was due to his writing on pro-Palestine protests by university students.
Alistair Kitchen said he left Melbourne on Thursday bound for New York and was detained for 12 hours and interrogated by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials during the stopover in Los Angeles.
Surging demand for looser styles with high necklines comes amid politicians’ criticism of burqa and the hijab
Fashion influenced by Islam and other religions is expected to become “mainstream” globally, in spite of politicians singling out the burqa and the hijab, as the rise of “modest fashion” is powered by influencers, luxury brands and big tech.
Oilers’ power play falters as Florida tighten grip
Brad Marchand is making more highlights for his new team, Sam Bennett is piling up the goals again and the Florida Panthers are on the verge of hoisting the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row.
Marchand scored twice, Bennett had his playoff-leading 15th goal and the Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in Game 5 of the final on Saturday night to take a 3-2 series lead.
Devastating attacks at M&S, the Co-op and Harrods highlight risks as lenders say cybersecurity is biggest expense
It is every bank boss’s worst nightmare: a panicked phone call informs them a cyber-attack has crippled the IT system, rapidly unleashing chaos across the entire UK financial industry.
As household names in other industries, including Marks & Spencer, grapple with the fallout from such hacks, banking executives will be acutely aware that, for them, the stakes are even higher.
The radicalisation of young men can seem inevitable, but we can shape their understanding of gender in healthy ways
Nick Hewlett is chief executive of the St Dunstan’s Education Group
If you were to watch Netflix’s Adolescence, or listen to Gareth Southgate’s recent Richard Dimbleby lecture, you could easily come away with a bleak picture of British masculinity – lost, insecure and at times toxic. Contemporary culture often portrays young boys as the victims of a new social order that gives them no blueprint for how to be a man in the 21st century. At worst, we see them as disciples of misogynists such as Andrew Tate, as perpetrators of violence, or as victims of divisive, rightwing ideologies.
It can seem as though young men are inevitably bound to be radicalised. More than half of gen-Z men in the US aged between 18 and 29 voted for Donald Trump. As Southgate put it in his lecture, more of our sons than we could possibly realise are beholden to “callous toxic influencers”, including Tate.In recent research we commissioned at St Dunstan’s Education Group, the group of private schools that I lead, we found that nearly half (49%) of 18 to 25-year-old men felt there were very few strong male role models in society, while 17% of young men said that credible accusations of sexual assault would not change their perception of someone they considered a role model. More than half (59%) of young men felt that feminism had gone too far.
Nick Hewlett is chief executive of the St Dunstan’s Education Group, a network of private schools in south-east London
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The country star loves the loud guitars of Bob Seger and belts out some Dolly after a few drinks, but which song makes her feel as if she can do anything?
The first song I fell in love with
I remember my grandma playing (How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window by Patti Page when I was five years old in the back seat of the car. I could never tell if she was singing “doggie” or “dolly”, but I loved it either way.
The first record I bought
My grandma used to babysit [US country singer] Tim McGraw, 15 minutes down the road from where I lived in Louisiana, so I bought his album A Place in the Sun from Walmart and my sister and I made up a dance routine.
Pets have long been a source of comfort and companionship for humans. But are they really trying to console us when we’re distressed or do they just want their dinner?
I am lost in Morris’s eyes. They are brown, almond-shaped and fringed by impossibly long lashes. He looks back at me, softly blinking occasionally, and then reaches out his tongue and licks my cheek, just once.
I’ve been depressed lately, and while I’ve received compassion and support from many dear people, Morris, my 10-year-old terrier, has been one of the greatest sources of comfort. With that reassuring lick, that steady gaze, he’s conveying a message: “It’s OK. Everything will be all right.”
First league crown ends a drought of almost three decades that the Rec Ground faithful would have scarcely believed at the dawn of the professional era
At the 29th time of asking, Bath are champions of England once more. At five to five on a sunny afternoon here, Ben Spencer passed to Finn Russell – the married couple, as their coach, Johann van Graan, likes to call them – and Russell kicked it somewhere, anywhere but on the pitch to put an end to decades of pain out west.
In 1996, when titles were won the old-fashioned way, the notion it would take so long for Bath, who had just won their sixth in eight years – their 10th cup in 13, and their fourth double – to become champions of England again would have seemed absurd. Only a little more absurd than the notion they would win it might have seemed three years ago, when they finished bottom of the table, spared the indignity of relegation only by the very different way English rugby is organised these days.
Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating – and experts says these are tip of the iceberg
Thousands of university students in the UK have been caught misusing ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools in recent years, while traditional forms of plagiarism show a marked decline, a Guardian investigation can reveal.
A survey of academic integrity violations found almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating using AI tools in 2023-24, equivalent to 5.1 for every 1,000 students. That was up from 1.6 cases per 1,000 in 2022-23.
With World Test Championship win, the Proteas have made a strong case for Tests to gain greater prominence at home
South Africa lost their shot at winning this World Test Championship in 2022, when their board announced the team were going to play 28 games in the next four years. They lost it for a second time during the spring of last year, when they packed their reserve team off to play a series against New Zealand because their centrally contracted players had to stay back and play in a franchise tournament.
They lost it a third time when the team were bowled out for 138 on Thursday morning and they lost it a fourth when they let Australia’s tail put on 134 runs for the last four wickets, leaving them needing 282 to win. Finally, after they had just about run out of ways to lose, they won.
When Sirmione became jammed with visitors during a particularly busy May Day weekend, it proved a tipping point
In the era of overtourism, every popular holiday destination has its tipping point.
For Sirmione, a sliver of land lapped by the blue-green waters of Lake Garda, that watershed moment came during Italy’s long May Day holiday weekend, and has led the medieval Italian village to introduce “street tutors” to manage the visitor flow and ensure good behaviour.
The holidays I dreamt of as a child have had an upgrade. And who wants to cook or plan with a toddler in tow anyway?
Next week, I’m going on an all-inclusive holiday to Greece. All-inclusives have a famously bad rep for all-day boozing, and in certain quarters there is a sniffiness about their supposed chips with everything, Brits abroad vibe. For some people, the idea of being confined to a hotel, even one with a beautiful beach attached, sounds awful. But, like many parents, I’ve become a convert.
How did I get here? I think it was always on the cards. When I was small, holiday brochures were my bibles. I’d spend hours perusing them and comparing the hotels: their azure pools framed by water slides undulating in spaghetti-like nests, their private white-sand beaches with lines of striped parasols, and these things called “kids’ clubs”, which offered all kinds of fun activities and, most excitingly, a disco.
Downgrades by Treasury watchdog could force chancellor to raise taxes or cut spending at budget to meet fiscal rules
Rachel Reeves is braced for revised forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to blow a £20bn hole in her tax and spending plans before the autumn budget.
Even without changing the totals the chancellor set out in her spending review on Wednesday, a weaker forecast from the the Treasury’s independent watchdog could force her to find significantly more money at the budget to meet her “non-negotiable” fiscal rules.
The president seized on LA protests against immigration raids to deploy troops against civilians in the liberal bastion – a fight he had long been spoiling for
Hollywood. Silicon Valley. An agricultural sector that grows more than three-quarters of fruits and nuts in America. All contributed to April’s news that California had officially overtaken Japan to become the fourth biggest economy in the world, its GDP of $4.1tn trailing only the entirety of the US, China and Germany.
But two months later this superpower is locked in a bitter power struggle with Washington DC. Days of protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles prompted Donald Trump to deploy military forces against what he called “insurrectionists” despite strenuous objections from state and local leaders.
Bord na Móna, which was once a peat extraction company, has now committed to one of the largest peatland restoration projects ever undertaken, targeting 33,000 hectares in over 80 bogs with the hope of reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity. But many households still continue to cut turf, relying on it for heating as have previous generations
With cooler air, fewer crowds and lower prices, the mountains make a great alternative to the coast
All Italians race to la spiaggia in summer, leaving the hinterland marvellously empty. Tuscany gets a lot of love, but travel one region over to Umbria and Monti Sibillini national park bewitches with views of the Apennines and eyrie-like, honey-coloured hill towns such as Castelluccio, soaring above a plateau of brightly coloured poppies, cornflowers and daisies. It’s a gorgeous spot for hiking, biking and tracking down a trattoria to dig into specialities such as wild boar with locally grown lentils. You’ll find some of Italy’s finest salami in butcher shops in Norcia, as well as black truffles on the menus of restaurants such as the Michelin-starred Vespasia, which is in a 16th-century palazzo. Alternatively, you could join a tartufaio and their dog to head into the woods on a truffle-hunting tour. How to do it Organic farm Agriturismo Casale nel Parco dei Monti Sibillini (doubles from £84 B&B) has truffles and wild herbs in its grounds, and a terrific restaurant serving up local and homegrown produce.
Picklum solidifies top-three standing in World Surf League with runner-up finish
Her 9.6 point wave at Lower Trestles is the highest women’s score all season
A near-perfect ride helped Molly Picklum shake a monkey from her back at the Trestles Pro in California, where a runner-up finish firmed her top-three standing.
The Australian’s 9.6 point wave – the highest women’s score all season – in her semi-final defeat of the defending world champion Caity Simmers ensured she finally got the better of the Californian in their seventh encounter.
Many survivors believe organisation’s request for forgiveness over abuse in Women’s Protection Board centres does not go far enough
As the members of the Catholic organisation wrapped up their speech with an appeal for forgiveness, the auditorium in Madrid exploded in rage. For decades, many in the audience had grappled with the scars left by their time in Catholic-run institutions; now they were on their feet chanting: “Truth, justice and reparations” and – laying bare their rejection of any apology – “Neither forget, nor forgive”.
It was an unprecedented response to an unprecedented moment in Spain, hinting at the deep fissures that linger over one of the longest-running and least-known institutions of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship: the Catholic-run centres that incarcerated thousands of women and girls as young as eight, subjecting them to barbaric punishments, forced labour and religious indoctrination.
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