The politics of aid may be toxic, but the UK must realise that supporting the world’s poorest people is both a moral and pragmatic thing to do

• David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee

In more than 10 years working in the aid sector, I have seen extraordinary innovations, from childhood education programmes for refugee children, to AI-driven flood warnings that alert farmers in some of the most vulnerable places on earth. Many of the initiatives I’ve seen are remarkably impactful and deliver serious value for money: it costs the International Rescue Committee (IRC) just £3 ($4) to deliver a life-saving vaccine dose in the midst of a conflict in east Africa, for example.

The politics surrounding international aid, however, are increasingly toxic. The UK’s Department for International Development and now the US equivalent, USAID, have been dismantled, despite the British public being more than twice as likely to say that aid has a positive rather than negative impact. Denmark has stuck to the UN target of spending 0.7% of its national income on overseas development, yet it is an exception rather than a norm among European nations. The UK government now needs to answer a number of hard questions about aid: what is it for, how should it be delivered, and who should pay for it?

David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee

Director Nisha Ganatra said she felt they ‘owed audiences to make it right’ in the new film

The director and leading cast member of Freakier Friday, the soon-to-be-released sequel to Disney’s 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, have criticised the “hurtful” Asian stereotypes of the older film and said they “owed audiences to make it right”.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Nisha Ganatra, a Canadian whose parents were first generation immigrants from India, said of the 2003 film: “I remember watching it and feeling torn, mostly about the Asian representation … It was something I brought up right away when I had my first meetings with the producers. I had a moment of the presentation that was like, ‘problematic Asian representation!’”

News comes as artists including Pulp, Paul Weller and Primal Scream defend Irish rap trio from criticism

Counter-terrorism police are investigating footage that appears to show Kneecap calling for politicians to be killed, and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”, while dozens of artists – including Pulp, Paul Weller and Primal Scream – have defended the Irish rap trio from staunch criticism from politicians on both sides of the Commons benches.

On Thursday, detectives said videos of the two incidents had been brought to their attention in late April, and had been referred for assessment by specialist counter-terrorism officers. They had “determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos”, officers said.

The once unsinkable ship of US higher education has hit an unthinkable iceberg

American higher education is living its RMS Titanic moment. The multi-trillion-dollar United States academic-scientific complex, led by the richest and most highly coveted universities in history, remains the envy of the world. “American University Inc” is one of the US’s top exports and among its most valuable stocks. Brands such as Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and so many others are revered worldwide as symbols of academic excellence, independent thinking, breakthrough innovation and prestige. No other university system in the world comes close to amassing as much capital – financial, human, cultural and social – as the mighty American one.

Until now.

Tens of thousands expected at protests to take place in nearly 1,000 cities against Trump and his administration

Protesters are expected to rally nationwide on 1 May with a focus on workers’ and immigrants’ rights in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.

May Day, commemorated as international workers’ day, comes after two massive days of protests in April – 5 April’s hands off rallies and 19 April’s day of action – drew millions to the streets across the country.

Pittsburgh residents, workers and business owners react to the increasingly fraught trading reality now upending supply chains and hitting prices

“In a lot of ways it feels like Covid 2.0. So many things are getting disrupted so quickly.” Like so many businesses across Donald Trump’s America, Matt Katase’s craft brewery, Brew Gentleman, is having to contend with a bafflingly uncertain trading environment.

The brewery’s chief operating officer, Alaina Webber, says: “For the first time, as a company in operation going on 15 years, we’ve started to get explicit emails that say: ‘On this existing order, you are now going to see a 30%, then to a 130% increase.’”

The death of Virginia Giuffre - who accused the Duke of York of sexual assault - surely makes his desire to resume royal duties out of the question

Everyone talks about Prince Andrew’s “fall from grace” but that raises an awkward question. When exactly was his grace period? Admittedly, even the most cynical among us aren’t immune to royal wedding fever, and when he married Fergie the nation was still high on the fumes from Charles and Diana’s nuptials, so perhaps he was briefly popular in 1986. But other than that? Pretty confident recollections wouldn’t vary here. Nada.

So technically we can’t call the events that have transpired since that brief moment in the sun a fall from grace. It’s more accurate to classify them as many falls from “meh”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Guardian reporters map out how Trump is eviscerating efforts to protect the natural world – from ‘drill, baby, drill’ to mass firings

• 100 days of Trump: inside Trump’s whirlwind start to his second term

Donald Trump has never been mistaken for an environmentalist, having long called the climate crisis a “giant hoax” and repeatedly lauding the supposed virtues of fossil fuels.

But the US president’s onslaught upon the natural world in this administration’s first 100 days has surprised even those who closely charted his first term, in which he rolled back environmental rules and tore the US from the Paris climate agreement.

Taken more than 140 actions to roll back environmental rules and push for greater use of fossil fuels.

Set about rewriting regulations that limit pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.

Officially reconsidering whether greenhouse gases actually cause harm to public health.

Legally targeted states that have their own laws on tackling the climate crisis.

Speeded up environmental reviews of drilling projects, from years to just a few weeks.

Winding back water efficiency standards for showers and toilets and halting a phase-out of plastic straws

From a very-not-safe-for-work cartoon to a drag queen fever dream and a puppet show that’s like Horrible Histories for grownups – networks wouldn’t dare air these online hits

Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, made by the same team, are as funny as anything on mainstream TV. Despite being animated, Hazbin Hotel is very much a show for adults, with both the comedy and plot lines often very not-safe-for-work. It has queer-friendly, gut-busting laughs, with surprisingly moving storylines and songs Lin Manuel-Miranda would be jealous of. The great strength of this being a YouTube show is that it would be extremely hard to pitch to a network. As they control their own content, creators can push the humour and actually build story around compelling (but risque) issues around sex, gender and identity. The show is essentially set in a version of hell. Hazbin Hotel focuses on the daughter of Satan trying to run a hotel for demons with the aim of rehabilitating them so they can get to heaven. It’s extremely irreverent, silly and subtle – a rousing story of someone coming into their own. Will Green, 35, London

• Decision by FA comes after supreme court ruling
• Ruling comes into force from 1 June

The Football Association has announced that it will ban transgender women from playing in women’s football from 1 June. It follows the ruling from the supreme court that the term “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman.

The decision comes barely a month after the FA ruled that transgender women could continue to play in the women’s game as long as they kept their testosterone levels below 5 nmol/L for at least 12 months.

The late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died on set, shows herself to be the saving grace of an otherwise poorly acted and overly long mess

Let’s put this upfront: the cinematography by the late Halyna Hutchins is gorgeous. Hutchins died in a horrific accident on the set of the movie Rust, when a prop gun, improperly checked before it was given to star and producer Alec Baldwin, shot a real bullet – prompting the reasonable question of whether the movie itself should ever be finished and see the light of day. Regardless of the moral quandary, the movie is here, primarily showcasing how good Hutchins was at her job. The first few minutes of Rust quickly accumulates half a dozen gorgeous images in establishing shots, and remains great-looking throughout – visually worthy, at least, of moments that imitate famous shots from classics of the genre like The Searchers and the True Grit remake. (If Hutchins worked on about half of the movie, it seems to have been finished following her visual lead.)

It’s not unusual for a contemporary-made western to work primarily in dusty browns, beiges and blacks in depicting the past (in this case, the Wyoming of 1882), but this movie’s dark tones have impressive richness; much of the imagery looks as if it’s been painted in deep-black shadows. It’s not just silhouettes on magic-hour landscapes that show off Hutchins’ obvious talent, either; in an early prison-break scene, a rescuer emerges from darkness, and the camera slowly pans over to the dead body of a lawman, as if in fearful apprehension.

ChatGPT’s embarrassing rollback of a user update was a warning about the dangers of humans placing emotional trust in AI

Nobody likes a suck-up. Too much deference and praise puts off all of us (with one notable presidential exception). We quickly learn as children that hard, honest truths can build respect among our peers. It’s a cornerstone of human interaction and of our emotional intelligence, something we swiftly understand and put into action.

ChatGPT, though, hasn’t been so sure lately. The updated model that underpins the AI chatbot and helps inform its answers was rolled out this week – and has quickly been rolled back after users questioned why the interactions were so obsequious. The chatbot was cheering on and validating people even as they suggested they expressed hatred for others. “Seriously, good for you for standing up for yourself and taking control of your own life,” it reportedly said, in response to one user who claimed they had stopped taking their medication and had left their family, who they said were responsible for radio signals coming through the walls.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

Huge crowds turned out to watch Michael Holding play at Blackburn Road in 1981 – and to enjoy the club’s late bar

By Scott Oliver from his book Sticky Dogs and Stardust 2

To paraphrase Bishop Berkeley’s famous empiricist thought-experiment: if a legendary over is bowled in a game that isn’t televised, did it really happen? The answer is: yes, Bish, it happened. In fact, Geoffrey Boycott still remembers punching a 150kph throat ball toward Joel Garner in the gully. But, unless you happened to have been watching Tony Francis’ two-minute despatch on News at Ten on Saturday 14 March 1981, it would have slipped past your attention that Rishton’s new pro, Michael Holding, had relocated Geoffrey’s off stump 20 yards nearer the press box. Which, if you were one of the Lancashire League’s top-order batters, might not be a bad thing to have slipped your attention.

Nevertheless, if they hadn’t seen the recent Barbados bombardment, they will have had vivid memories of Andy Roberts’ and especially Mikey’s Old Trafford brutalism from five years earlier: Holding roaring in off the boundary, the 45-year-old Brian Close now jerking his combover away at the last second from the hard red missile, like a stuntman avoiding a punch, now chesting it away to point like Niall Quinn playing in Kevin Phillips after a long diagonal from full-back, eventually walking off with a torso resembling a Rorschach Test – heavily bruised, yes, but not out.

In an extract from his new book, Jared Beasley introduces the eccentric figure behind the Barkley Marathons, where runners are terrified and tested in equal measure

For over a century, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary was the end of the line. Built in the shape of a Greek cross, the pale limestone structure had housed the worst of the worst – murderers, madmen, monsters – its bulk hunched beneath a crown of scarred mountains the guards called the fifth wall.

Now it sits empty – cracking and molding and dying. But each spring around April Fool’s, on a cold, crisp day like today, a retired accountant appears at its gate. He carries a book with an ominous title and plants it against the back wall. Then sometime between midnight and noon the next day, he lights a cigarette, and the world’s most grueling footrace begins.

British government’s push for tournament to be at Trump-owned venue in Scotland is likely to seek favor with US

The British government’s attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump by nudging golf executives to host one of the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments at a Scottish venue owned by the US president could ultimately lead to a violation of the US constitution, ethics experts have warned.

The Guardian reported this week that officials in British prime minister Keir Starmer’s government have asked senior executives at R&A, which organizes the Open championship, whether they would host the golf championship at the Turnberry golf resort in 2028.

Young Kenyans have aired their disappointment in President Ruto by posting satirical images of him on X – leading to some being abducted, beaten and tortured

Billy Mwangi is a 24-year-old student who lives in Embu, 125km north-east of Nairobi. He loves watching football with his dad, likes to hang out with his friends and enjoys playing video games with his brother. He also ran a popular account on X which he used to post about politics from time to time. “I like to defend people” he says. “When Kenyans are not happy I always wanted to voice my concern, because I’ve had political ambitions for a while now.”

On 22 December 2024, as Kenyans prepared for the festive season, Mwangi had gone to get a haircut, before heading to church.

Get on a plane on either side of the Atlantic and you’re vastly more likely to find a man at the controls. Is it because of prejudice, the problems the job poses for family life – or something else?

Sometimes passengers congratulate Maria Pernia-Digings, 61, on her parking. When she tells me this, she tries to laugh it off as a tiny slight, barely worth commenting on. Others don’t bother to hide their shock, and greet her as they leave the plane with blunt amazement: “Oh, you’re a woman!”

“It’s lovely. People are very supportive,” she says, before conceding she finds some of the feedback extremely trying. Remembering the last male passenger to compliment her on her parking, she says: “It is a bit sad, isn’t it, if he thinks that because I’m a woman, I can’t park?”

Millie Bright and Aggie Beever-Jones have been among the stars, though it has not been a smooth season for all

Hannah Hampton The 24-year-old has made the No 1 shirt her own this season. Ever present in goal, she is second for clean sheets in the league and her distribution is a key asset. She might not always be the busiest given the team in front of her but, more often than not, she has stepped up in the big moments with memorable saves to ensure her side maintain their unbeaten run. 8

Seven children returning from school injured in suspected deliberate attack in Osaka, according to local media

A man has been arrested in the Japanese city of Osaka after allegedly driving his car into seven schoolchildren in a suspected deliberate attack, local media said.

The children, who were on their way home from school, were injured and taken to hospital but all seven remained conscious, according to the public broadcaster NHK and other outlets.

Exclusive: British Caribbean artist Winston Branch was distraught at loss of paintings – taken because he could not pay rent

Twenty paintings by the Caribbean British abstract painter Winston Branch have been recovered after they disappeared without trace nearly five decades ago.

“Those works were stolen from his studio because he wasn’t able to pay the rent back in the 1970s,” his agent, Varvara Roza, told the Guardian. “This is shocking, isn’t it?”

After a grounding with genre greats, he fused jazz with rock to outrageously funky effect. Ahead of UK dates, he explains why two prosthetic hips aren’t slowing him down

Billy Cobham speaks the way he plays drums. Words pour out of him in a great, rhythmic rush, every sentence alive with energy and ideas – and so interviewing him can be as overwhelming as his music sounds. I ask about a recent sojourn to his birth nation of Panama and he’s still answering 15 minutes later, although the topic now is a huge 1973 concert at Yankee Stadium in New York where he played alongside salsa legends Fania All-Stars to 40,000 fans: “All the nations had their flags – and all the gangs were there too!” Cobham describes watching in awe as the greatest congueros alive all played in unison before the frenzied crowd invaded the stage. It’s fascinating, though I begin to fear our allotted time will be taken up by this single sprawling anecdote. “Don’t get me started,” he says, and laughs, kicking back in his book-lined office in Berne, Switzerland.

William Cobham Jr is one of history’s greatest drummers, who, alongside Miles Davis and John McLaughlin helped fuse jazz with rock and funk (he co-founded Mahavishnu Orchestra with the latter). Cobham became an influence on everything from Prince to prog, and has also backed icons across a huge spectrum of music – jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins but also James Brown, Roberta Flack, Peter Gabriel and more. At 80, he’s just been given a lifetime achievement award at the Jazz FM awards but is still a dynamic, muscular bandleader, with UK gigs coming up at Cheltenham jazz festival and Ronnie Scott’s. “The first time I came to Great Britain was in 1968 with Horace Silver,” he says, “and you know where we played? Ronnie Scott’s!”

Move seals a deal to create a fund the Trump administration says will begin to repay roughly $175bn provided to Ukraine

The US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share profits and royalties from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.

The minerals deal, which has been the subject of tense negotiations for months and nearly fell through hours before it was signed, will establish a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund that the Trump administration has said will begin to repay an estimated $175bn in aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.

All the facts and figures as Tottenham host Bodø/Glimt and Manchester United travel to Bilbao to face Athletic Club

By WhoScored

Manchester United travel to the Basque Country for the second time this season. They can expect a tougher test in the semi-finals than they had against Real Sociedad in the last-16. United won that tie 5-2 on aggregate, Bruno Fernandes scoring a fine hat-trick at Old Trafford in one of their best performances of the season. In a season of many lows, the Europa League has given United some solace – and an opportunity to qualify for Europe next season.

The celebrated presenter warns of ‘modern day colonialism at sea’ as he highlights the destruction caused by overfishing and bottom trawling

When David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II documentary aired eight years ago, its impact was so strong it was credited with bringing about a revolution in the way people use plastics. Now film-makers are hoping he can do the same for other destructive environmental practices that the world’s best-known living naturalist describes as “draining the life from our oceans”.

The industrial fishing method of bottom trawling is the focus of a large part of Attenborough’s latest film, Ocean, which airs in cinemas from 8 May, the naturalist’s 99th birthday. In a remarkably no-holds-barred narrative, he says these vessels tear the seabed with such force “the trails of destruction can be seen from space”. He also condemns what he calls “modern day colonialism at sea”, where huge trawlers, operating off the coasts of countries reliant on fish for food and livelihoods, are blamed for dwindling local catches.

Focus on overuse contributes to antibiotics reaching less than 7% of people with drug-resistant infections in poorer countries, say researchers

Less than 7% of people with severe drug-resistant infections in poorer countries get the antibiotics they need, a new study suggests, with researchers warning that not only is this causing suffering and deaths, but is also likely to be driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

With AMR forecast to cause 1.9m deaths a year by 2050, they are calling for urgent action, akin to the fight earlier this century to get HIV drugs to Africa’s virus hotspots.

We would like to hear from US Social Security benefit recipients and agency workers about their experiences under the Trump administration

The Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to cut 7000 jobs, about 12% of its workforce as part of the Department of Government Efficiency review of the federal work force.

Nearly 69 million Americans on average per month are set to receive Social Security benefits in 2025, consisting of retired workers, disabled workers, survivors and dependents. These benefits represent 31 percent of income for people over the age of 65 in the US.

Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as UK manufacturers report falling export orders and China signals openness to US trade talks

Fhaheen Khan, senior economist at Make UK, a lobby group for British manufacturing, said:

UK manufacturers are caught in the eye of a perfect storm, with rising costs and international trade uncertainty undermining growth prospects. While actual changes in trade have been limited, the unpredictability, particularly around US tariff policy, is doing significant damage and paralysing decision makers. Many firms are delaying major investment decisions until greater clarity emerges, while being forced in the meantime to cut costs through redundancies while pushing through price increases.

This has left manufacturing experiencing its most severe slowdown in years, with the UK at a competitive disadvantage compared to our European peers who are weathering current challenges relatively better. As a result, it is now vital that government delivers on its promise to bring forward a bold, ambitious and fully funded industrial strategy. This will be critical for businesses seeking an end to crippling uncertainty.

The start of the second quarter saw UK manufacturing buffeted by adverse global market conditions, rising cost pressures, deteriorating supply chains and increased trade uncertainty. April saw further contractions in output, new orders and exports, as well as a slump in business confidence to its lowest ebb since November 2022.

Although domestic demand remains soft, overseas demand is especially weak. New export business fell at the quickest pace for nearly five years, with demand from clients in the US, Europe and mainland China all declining. Surveyed manufacturers noted that US tariff announcements were having a noticeable impact on global markets as trading partners adapt to increased trade volatility.

Ukraine to retain ‘full control over resources and infrastructure’ under agreement, says Denys Shmyhal

• Full report: US and Ukraine sign minerals deal that solidifies investment in Kyiv’s defense against Russia

Ukraine and the US signed a long-awaited minerals deal last night, signaling a major step forward in bilateral relations. But the full text of the agreement, including key details on the contentious small print issues that dragged out negotiations, has yet to be made public.

Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal suggested yesterday that the process of ratifying the agreement could start today, with party consultations. Expect more details to emerge.

Wall Street Journal article saying headhunters were contacted is ‘absolutely false’, says company chair

Tesla has denied a report that its board sought to replace Elon Musk as its chief executive amid a backlash against his rightwing politics and declining car sales.

Robyn Denholm, the chair of the board at the electric carmaker, said in a statement on Tesla’s social media account on X: “Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company.

• Boxer spent two nights in hospital after points victory
• Potential fight with Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez mentioned

Chris Eubank Jr says he underwent surgery after his gruelling points victory over bitter rival Conor Benn after being “headbutted”.

Eubank Jr spent two nights in hospital after his victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday evening, with his promoter Ben Shalom rejecting Benn’s claims the 35-year-old had suffered a broken jaw. Shalom said Eubank Jr had gone to hospital for “precautionary checks”, but the fighter has now revealed he had surgery on a damaged eye.

Murder accused urged Simon Patterson to change his mind about not attending ‘special meal’, Victorian court hears

• Erin Patterson trial – live updates

Erin Patterson said she spent a “small fortune” on buying eye fillet steak for her “special meal” of beef wellingtons, and was really disappointed that her estranged husband cancelled the night before the lunch, a Victorian court has heard.

Simon Patterson has started his evidence in Patterson’s murder trial in the supreme court, detailing the deterioration in their relationship about the paying of child support.

Ruby gave Elodie and Max a bowl that wasn’t their style. He exchanged it, but Elodie lied and said he’d smashed it. Should they tell Ruby the truth? You decide
Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

The present was a caring gesture whether we liked it or not. Returning it was rude – Max should fess up

We both hated it, so why should we feel obliged to keep an ugly gift? I wasn’t ungrateful – just practical

The Ghana international on how recent successes and his club’s feeling and culture fuel hope for their semi-final with Manchester United

Iñaki Williams, the fastest footballer in town, is accelerating again. The more the images come, the quicker he goes, flying through faces, flashbacks and feelings, everything they did and can still do. “It’s madness,” he says, eyes sparkling, the words chasing each other out, emotion building. And then the Athletic Bilbao winger pauses and laughs. “The other day they came to do tests. The cardiologist started to talk about it. He says: ‘That was wonderful; wow, the gabarra …’ And just him mentioning it, on the screen you saw my heart beating faster.”

The gabarra is a barge. Only that’s not all: there is something almost mythical about it, like a legend passed through generations. In an expression of Athletic’s identity, another idiosyncrasy of a unique club, the club’s trophies are celebrated by pulling the gabarra up the Nervión river with the players on board, or so they had been endlessly told, black and white pictures adorning the walls of seemingly every bar. Then, last April, they finally saw it for themselves, Williams leading them on board holding the Copa del Rey. It was the first time in 40 years. More than a million fans lined the river to see it: there were more people with them in Bilbao than live there.

A warming tundra has seen unexpected shifts, raising the alarm about fragile ecosystems and those who rely on them

Scientists studying Arctic plants say the ecosystems that host life in some of the most inhospitable reaches of the planet are changing in unexpected ways in an “early warning sign” for a region upended by climate change.

In four decades, 54 researchers tracked more than 2,000 plant communities across 45 sites from the Canadian high Arctic to Alaska and Scandinavia. They discovered dramatic shifts in temperatures and growing seasons produced no clear winners or losers. Some regions witnessed large increases in shrubs and grasses and declines in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shade created by taller plants.

A restoration project at Sharpham near Totnes aims to tackle the loss of the natural world while helping people build mental resilience

Two landscapes separated by a wide sweep of river tell a story of change. On one side is traditional farmland, close-cropped grazing, uniform grasses, neatly tended hedges and a sparsity of trees, a farmscape ubiquitous across England. On the riverbank opposite, rougher, less uniform grasses grow unevenly between trees, thistle and brambles, in a chaos of natural disorder swaying in the breeze towards the reedbeds below.

The land on the Sharpham estate side of the River Dart used to be a mirror of the traditional farmscape on the opposite bank. It hosted a non-organic dairy farm and a vineyard, within a tightly controlled 18th-century heritage landscape of deforested parkland.

This fantasia on the life of Lambert Simnel, who finds himself a claimant to the English throne, is a romp through late-medieval identity and historical uncertainty

One day in 1484, strange men arrive at the Oxfordshire farm where 10-year-old John Collan lives. They’ve come to carry him away to a new life, for he is not, after all, the farmer’s son; in fact, he’s Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, spirited away in infancy to keep him safe ahead of the day he might return to claim the throne of England. That day is now in sight. He can’t call himself John any more, but he can’t yet be announced as Edward, Earl of Warwick. In the meantime he’ll be given a third name: Lambert Simnel.

Over the course of this fantastically accomplished novel, the many-named boy will travel from Oxford to Burgundy then Ireland, and at last into the paranoid and double-crossing heart of Henry VII’s court. The tail end of the Wars of the Roses – with Richard III’s crown snatched from the mud of Bosworth by Henry Tudor – is a foment of plot and counter-plot, and our hero spends his adolescence being passed around scheming factions who go so far as to hold a coronation for him. What a painful life this is for a boy “so grateful for any amount of love” as he falls in and out of favour, uncertain of his own parentage, gaining and losing relatives as their interest turns to other plots and other pretenders.

A renovated lighthouse on the Bay of Biscay is the perfect base for exploring Asturias’s maritime delights

I have always longed to be a lighthouse keeper and now, at last, I am one. If only for the weekend. Look at my chunky-knit jumper! Feel the waterproof weave of my Donegal tweed cap! Truth be told, I am way too toasty in this quasi-nautical ensemble, having hoped and dressed for ominous fog, murderous gales and oceanic rainstorms. Instead, it is bright, calm and warm on an early spring afternoon in the famously pretty fishing village of Cudillero in Asturias, where the Costa Verde of northern Spain drops away into the deep blue Bay of Biscay.

Built in 1858, the local lighthouse – the Faro de Cudillero – stands on a shelf of rock just beyond the harbour, a short walk up stone steps and along a narrow cliff side service path. Its hexagonal beacon tower has been remodelled a few times over the years. The signal lamp inside was first fuelled by olive oil, then paraffin and petrol, before being electrified and eventually automated. With no further need for a human operator, its sturdy keeper’s cottage was left derelict decades ago. It’s sad to contemplate that absence, and the general obsolescence of the role itself. But if I can’t man the light, I can at least occupy the lighthouse.

From daredevil swimmers in Tunisia to a rope-tricking Mexican horseman and a family get-together at a Californian river bar, the magic of the everyday is celebrated in LensCulture’s New Visions awards

Latest satellite-free Sky TV is ready for primetime with better picture, sound and much-improved service

The latest version of Sky’s Glass smart TV is faster and looks better than its predecessor and offers a level of all-in-one convenience that makes the satellite-free pay TV one of the best on the market.

Sky Glass gen 2 is a straight replacement for the original model from 2021, which introduced Sky’s TV-over-broadband service that ditched the need for a satellite dish. The new TV comes in three sizes and you can buy the smallest 43in version for a one-off payment of £699 or £14 a month spread over four years, after which you own it.

As the trial over the deadly 2023 beef wellington lunch continues in the Victorian supreme court, here’s what you need to know about the people involved

• Erin Patterson trial – live updates

A fatal family lunch in regional Victoria is at the centre of a high-profile murder trial that is under way in the state’s supreme court.

Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister and Simon’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson, by feeding them a meal of beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms in July 2023.