4th over: England 26-0 (Beaumont 10, Jones 15) A sharp delivery from Fraser almost gets through Jones, who is able to deflect it onto the pad. When Fraser gets it right she looks a proper bowler; her problem at this stage is consistency. That’s a good second over, with just one run off the bat – and that came from a misfield.
3rd over: England 24-0 (Beaumont 10, Jones 14) Another boundary for Amy Jones, clipped crisply through midwicket off James. England are off to a flyer.
German and Portuguese officers work in countryside near resort where toddler went missing
Searches for Madeleine McCann have resumed in Portugal with police using a digger to clear debris around an abandoned building a few miles from where the British toddler was last seen in 2007.
On Wednesday, Portuguese and German authorities continued focusing on derelict structures in countryside a few miles from the resort of Praia da Luz.
The fresh searches for Madeleine began on Tuesday, 18 years after the three-year-old disappeared from Praia da Luz while her parents were out having dinner, leaving her sleeping in a nearby room with her toddler twin siblings.
The sounds of chainsaws and strimmers could be heard as investigators appeared to continue clearing areas of scrubland in Atalaia, on the outskirts of Praia da Luz.
Police used a JCB to clear rubble around one building and also appeared to have emptied another nearby disused structure of debris. Bricks and rocks could be seen piled outside the graffitied structure.
Personnel wore protective gear including as hard hats and face masks as they cleared vegetation around the structures.
Officers stopped journalists from getting close to the search areas, which were cordoned off with police tape.
The search is being carried out at the request of the German federal police, as they look for evidence that could implicate prime suspect Christian Brückner, who is in prison for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s parents, are not commenting during the “active police investigation”, staff at the Find Madeleine campaign said.
Brückner is due to be released from jail in September if no further charges are brought.
In October last year, Brückner was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences, alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
About 30 German police, including forensic experts, are expected to take part in the search, which is expected to last until Friday, along with Portuguese officers.
The Metropolitan police said they were aware of the operation but that British officers would not be present.
Facing electricity blackouts and rampant inflation, Nigerians are turning to what is also called ‘trenches music’ to vent their frustrations and find joy and hope in life
The air conditioning sputters to a halt. The TV clicks off. The steady hum of electricity gives way to silence, swallowed by the creeping Lagos heat and the lingering scent of lavender from a diffuser. Everyone in the room sighs.
We’re in the flat of 23-year-old musician M3lon in the suburb of Lekki, talking about Nigeria’s Afro-Adura, also known as trenches music (trench being a slang term for a ghetto or impoverished area). This is raw songcraft drawing together gospel, trap and the energetic Nigerian pop style of fuji, leaning heavily on Yoruba proverbs, idioms and faith – adura translates to prayer.
Slovenia’s children are less likely to know deprivation than any other European nation’s. Is that because of what the country is doing now – or its socialist past?
Much of the world doesn’t have a clue what to do about child poverty, or even when to do it. In the UK the Labour government recently delayed its flagship policy on tackling the issue until the autumn. But if you’re looking for inspiration, it might be worth asking what Slovenia has been getting right. The country has the lowest rates of child poverty in Europe.
Why? The glaringly obvious reason is that Slovenia is a very economically equal country. “The heritage of the social state, from communist times, is still here,” says Marta Gregorčič, a professor at the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development, which addresses household distress and poverty.
Sonia ‘Sunny’ Jacobs was exonerated of murder after 17 years and later married an Irish man
After enduring hellish years on America’s death row for a crime she did not commit, Sonia “Sunny” Jacobs found an idyll, and healing, in rural Ireland. But in a final, cruel twist, her sanctuary claimed her life.
Jacobs, 78, and her carer, Kevin Kelly, were found dead on Tuesday after a fire at her cottage near the village of Casla, in County Galway.
Dutch far-right leader’s withdrawal from ruling coalition has upset allies and misjudged changed political landscape
It is a gamble that Geert Wilders may live to regret. Increasingly frustrated by his coalition partners’ unwillingness to embrace his promised “strictest asylum policy in Europe”, the Dutch far-right leader brought down the government.
Wilders’ calculation, if it is more than a fit of political pique, appears simple: if he can turn this autumn’s snap elections into a referendum on immigration and asylum, his Freedom party (PVV) can win it – and he might even become the Netherlands’ prime minister.
The veteran punk painter’s twisted cherubs are a far cry from the tasteful, beautiful Japanese art that usually appears in western galleries. The retrospective about to open in the UK should be electrifying
In 2019, Sotheby’s sold a painting of a little girl with a conservative side parting, a Peter Pan collar and the most unflinching green eyes – which stare down the viewer. It went for $25m, which makes it Japan’s most expensive painting. And it is a knife crime waiting to happen. The girls gaze is as withering as those in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Her eyes follow you as inescapably as Lord Kitchener’s in the first world war recruitment poster. But Nara’s’s painting, Knife Behind Back (2000), is more upsetting than either of those. Most chilling is what we don’t see; it’s all about the power of titular suggestion.
This nameless girl is a variation on a theme that Nara has been developing in his paintings since art school in the 1990s. Inspired by both Japanese kawaii (cute) and Disney twee, his cherubic, cartoonish figures with oversized heads resemble psychotic Kewpie dolls. “People refer to them as portraits of girls or children,” says curator Mika Yoshitake. “But they’re really all, I think, self-portraits.” In an interview for the Hayward’s exhibition catalogue, Nara confirms this. “When I paint I always think the canvas is like a mirror.” Not just a mirror on society, but a mirror on the artist. These little girls with big heads and bug eyes are a sexagenarian male working out his demons.
Isolated from the rest of the US, Point Roberts businesses say a drop in Canadian tourism is economically devastating
Point Roberts, Washington, is about as Canadian as a US town can get. Littered with streets named after Canada’s provinces, its gas stations sell by the litre and about half of its 1,000 residents hold dual citizenship. Its sole grocery store, the aptly named International Marketplace, keeps both American and Canadian dollars stocked in its till.
That till hasn’t been getting much use in recent months. Ali Hayton, the International Marketplace’s owner, estimates business is down by 30% amid an unprecedented dip in Canadian visitors. “We’re hanging on by a thread,” she said.
Make the most of those mango scraps by turning them into a smooth, fruity sauce to stir into sundowners, drizzle over desserts or spoon on to porridge
Saving food from being wasted can range from just composting food scraps to cooking with the whole ingredient, which means the leaves, stems, skin and everything in between. It’s often argued that it’s not really worth saving food from the waste bin if energy or other ingredients are required, but I believe that all food is worth saving.
We obviously need to cook and eat food every day, so why not reinvent dishes to include these otherwise unwanted ingredients? Zero waste at its simplest can also mean basic, innovative recipes and solutions for byproducts, such as today’s mango pit and skin coulis. Such recipes are an easier sell, because they simplify the concept and create a valuable product out of very little.
Authorities seek to increase number of births amid fear ageing society could threaten economic growth plans
Vietnam has scrapped a longstanding policy limiting families to two children, as the communist-run country grapples with a declining birthrate.
State media announced on Wednesday that couples could make their own decisions about how many children to have, and how much time to wait between births, reversing a decades-old preference for one- or two-child families.
The long-trailed console offers sturdier hardware, improved graphics and seamless online functionality. But it’s more of an update than a revolution
Launch week is finally here, and though I would love to be bringing you a proper review of the Nintendo Switch 2 in this week’s newsletter, I still don’t have one at the time of writing. In its wisdom, Nintendo has decided not to send review units out until the day before release, so as you read this I will be standing impatiently by the door like a dog anxiously awaiting its owner.
I have played the console, though, for a whole day at Nintendo’s offices, so I can give you some first impressions. Hardware-wise, it is the upgrade of my dreams: sturdier JoyCons, a beautiful screen, the graphical muscle to make games look as good as I want them to in 2025 (though still not comparable to the high-end PlayStation 5 Pro or a modern gaming PC). I like the understated pops of colour on the controllers, the refined menu with its soothing chimes and blips. Game sharing, online functionality and other basic stuff is frictionless now. I love that Nintendo Switch Online is so reasonably priced, at £18 a year, as opposed to about the same per month for comparable gaming services, and it gives me access to a treasure trove of Nintendo games from decades past.
A word of advice to Trump: dozens of judges keep ruling against you because you’ve flouted the law more than any previous president
It’s hard to keep track of all the temper tantrums that Donald Trump has had because he’s so ticked off that one judge after another has ruled against his flood of illegal actions. In seeking to put their fingers in the dike to stop the US president’s lawlessness, federal judges have issued a startling high number of rulings, more than 185, to block or temporarily pause moves by the Trump administration.
Livid about all this, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has railed against “judicial activism”, while Trump adviser Stephen Miller carps about a “judicial coup”. As for Trump, the grievance-is-me president has gone into full conniption-mode, moaning about anti-Trump rulings and denouncing “USA-hating judges”. On Truth Social, he said: “How is it possible for [judges] to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’? What other reason could it be?”
Patricia Krenwinkel, in prison over Tate-LaBianca killings, recommended for parole but faces uphill battle to be freed
Patricia Krenwinkel, a former Charles Manson follower who has been imprisoned for 56 years over her role in the Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles, could go free after being recommended for parole last week.
The decision marked a major victory for the aging incarcerated woman after 16 parole hearings. Krenwinkel, now 77, was 21 at the time of the 1969 killings and has been imprisoned longer than any other woman in California.
A new biography digs into the life of William F Buckley Jr. Its author thinks the rightwing intellectual has some lessons for the left
Back when the “public intellectual” was still a thriving species in America, the conservative writer William F Buckley Jr was one of the most famous – of any political stripe.
On the PBS television show Firing Line, which he hosted weekly until 1999, he debated or interviewed people ranging from ardent rightwingers to black nationalists. In between, he edited the magazine National Review, wrote three columns a week, wrote or dictated hundreds of letters a month, and was known to dash off a book while on vacation. He was photographed working at a typewriter in the back of a limousine as a dog looked on. In Aladdin (1992), Robin Williams’s genie does Buckley as one of his impressions.
‘This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make’
Earps and Kirby have also retired in past eight days
The England vice-captain Millie Bright has withdrawn from next month’s Euros in Switzerland, saying it “is the right thing for my health and my future”. The decision is a setback for Sarina Wiegman before the defence of the title the Lionesses won three years ago.
“This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but after careful thought and discussions with my team, I have decided to withdraw from selection for the England squad ahead of Euro 2025,” Bright said on Instagram. “Football has given me so much and representing my country has always been my greatest honour. My pride and ego tells me to go but I think the team and the fans deserve more. Right now I’m not able to give 100% mentally or physically.
Wealth of Big Three is skewing Test cricket and a big win for Australia at Lord’s would only emphasise this gulf
On a recent episode of The Grade Cricketer podcast, the hosts, Sam Perry and Ian Higgins, tore lumps out of South Africa in a foul-mouthed tirade about the World Test Championship final against Australia. Perry predicted a finish “inside three days” and Higgins, practically thumping the table, said: “If I don’t look at a scorecard and South Africa are three for spit my TV is going through the window.” Cue big alpha chuckles and main-character knee slaps.
I know they were joking, skewering Australian arrogance as much as South African frailty, and that they have built a formidable brand that runs on side-mouthed jibes and hyperbolic bluster. Still, the lizard part of my brain lit up in protest. How dare they dismiss my countrymen? I wasn’t alone in taking offence.
*Keys 4-2 Gauff Gauff’s forehand will always be a weakness but it’s giving her almost nothing today; another error means 15-0, and she’s hitting so many more unforceds than winners that it’s almost impossible for her to win games. Keys, on the other hand, has settled. She believes in her game now, so isn’t discouraged by adversity – though, as I type, a second serve sits up and begs to be punished; Gauff doesn’t miss out, making 40-30, and we’re soon at deuce. If she can prolong the rallies, testing Keys’ patience, she’s got a good chance, and when she makes advantage, she’s offered a second serve to attack. And, though, she can’t unleash a definitive return, Gauff plays a fine point, her forehand finally giving her something, she finishes the game with an overhead, and might Keys regret the three consecutive errors 40-15 into a first break back? We shall see, but even if it’s too late for this set, we can hope that both players are now relaxing into things.
Keys 4-1 Gauff* Keys is warming up here, moving Gauff laterally to open up space for the winner; 0-15. And when a double follows, then a netted forehand, you fear for the world no 2, who just hasn’t got going yet; shonuff a second double of the game means Keys has the double break and the first set is almost hers.
Reijnders scored 15 goals in Milan’s disappointing season
Dutchman would be City’s first major summer signing
Manchester City’s promise of quick summer spending has begun with the agreement of a fee with Milan for the Netherlands midfielder Tijjani Reijnders. The 26-year-old will cost €55m (£46.3m) and has agreed personal terms for a five-year contract.
He will become the first of a number of signings the club chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, pledged before City take part in the Club World Cup. A special transfer window has been opened for Fifa’s new competition.
Mark Rutte comments on absence of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth from meeting about defence of Ukraine
Opening, Nato’s Rutte reiterates the aim of achieving a “durable and lasting peace” in Ukraine as he praises president Trump’s “effort to get there."
“Let’s pray that we will get there as soon as possible, but in the meantime, [it’s about] making sure that you have what you need to stay in the fight and to make sure that whenever it ends, Putin will know that he should never, ever again, try to attack Ukraine so again,” he said.
Midfielder told to expect decision in four to eight weeks
Club will have another transfer window disrupted
Lucas Paquetá’s spot-fixing trial has concluded but the West Ham midfielder has been told he must wait four to eight weeks for a verdict. The Brazil international faces a possible life ban after being charged by the Football Association with four counts of being deliberately booked to influence betting markets and two of failing to cooperate with its investigation.
The matter cost Paquetá an £80m transfer to Manchester City two years ago when the FA opened an investigation after receiving information regarding suspicious betting patterns on bookings he had got in four Premier League matches.
Who needs boring old facts and figures? According to a host of entirely authoritative influencers, changing tastes in manicures can tell us all we need to know about the economy
Is there going to be a recession this year? Economists have been umm-ing and ahh-ing and crunching the numbers, but the answer could be at the tip of your fingers. According to various expert sources (influencers on TikTok), a wobbly economy means people are ditching elaborate and expensive manicures for more understated styles. Cue numerous headlines about “recession nails”.
When I first saw these headlines, I felt pretty smug. An inadvertent trendsetter, I have been rocking recession nails for the past decade now. Except I have been calling them “freelance lesbian nails”. Or, alternatively, “harried parent nails”. Then I read past the headlines and was no longer quite so smug. Turns out that the trend doesn’t mean frantically cutting your nails with a cheap clipper while yelling “BE THERE IN A MINUTE!” to your four-year-old who has discovered that there is leftover cake in the freezer. It means, from what I can gather, a neutral pink shade on manicured squoval (square-oval) nails that aren’t super-long but are still very polished.
Congressional Integrity Project calls Wednesday hearing led by Greene ‘political theater’ and exercise in hypocrisy
The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has assembled a “rogues’ gallery of extremists, conspiracy theorists and C-team political operatives” to promote Donald Trump’s crackdown on non-government organisations (NGOs), a congressional watchdog has claimed.
The House of Representatives’ Delivering on Government Efficiency (Doge) subcommittee, chaired by Greene, is due to hold a hearing on Wednesday entitled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild”.
We have a duty to call out antisemitism when we see it. We also have an equal duty to remember that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are also being targeted
This must stop. Two incidents of political violence, both targeting groups of Jewish people, are two incidents too many. Less than two weeks ago, a gunman shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington DC, yelling “Free Palestine” as he was being detained. This week, a man used a “makeshift flamethrower” along with other incendiary devices to attack a Boulder, Colorado, rally organized by Run for Their Lives, a group which organizes events “calling for the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas”. Eight people were injured in this latest assault, at least two of them seriously.
These horrific acts will no doubt increase the anxiety many Jewish people have about increasing – and increasingly violent – antisemitism in the United States. Understandably so. Antisemitism must not be given any oxygen to breathe. One can oppose Israel’s 600-plus day war, relentlessly pounding the innocents in Gaza, while vigorously opposing all forms of antisemitism. In fact, one must oppose both. Such is our duty to each other in a civilized world.
A beautiful drifter tries to make it in the strip clubs of Las Vegas in this absurd film – now a cult favourite thanks to its maniacal acting and directing
Martin Scorsese’s Casino wasn’t the only Las Vegas movie of 1995, there was also Showgirls – now on rerelease for its 30th anniversary – whose pure bizarreness has over three decades achieved its own identity, like Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent in Mary Poppins. It is the softcore erotic drama from screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven that has made a slow ascent from critical flop to kitsch cult favourite and now to a supposed tongue-out-of-cheek classic melodrama. Maybe it’s the last great mainstream exploitation picture, a film which owns and flaunts its crassness; a bi-curious catfight version of All About Eve or Pretty Woman.
Elizabeth Berkley plays Nomi, a mysterious, beautiful, super-sexy drifter who arrives in Vegas, hoping to make it dancing in one of the hotel shows. She is befriended by Molly (Gina Ravera), a good-natured pal whose help gets Nomi a start in a low-grade strip joint called Cheetah’s. Nomi soon upgrades to the supposedly classier Stardust where she is dazzled by the gorgeousness of leading lady Cristal Connors, played by Gina Gershon with an entirely ridiculous way of addressing everyone as “darlin’” in a Texas accent. Nomi has a sexual frisson with the club’s owner Zack, played by Kyle MacLachlan (whose presence helps give the film a mild and accidental Lynchian flavour) and also with Cristal herself, whose understudy she aspires to be. Throughout it all, Nomi shows she is a survivor with a streak of ruthlessness.
Lee Jae-myung must tackle US leader’s trade war as he attempts to revive Asia’s fourth biggest economy
Two years ago, the then South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, serenaded Joe Biden in the White House with a rendition of American Pie. The foundations of Washington’s ties with Seoul, one of its most important allies in the Asia-Pacific, appeared as firm as Yoon’s more-than-passable crooning.
As he prepares to replace the now-disgraced Yoon, South Korea’s new leader, Lee Jae-myung, will have to strike a very different note with Biden’s successor in the White House.
BBC says ‘sharp and deeply troubling escalation’ this year of Iran targeting families of UK-based BBC Persian journalists
BBC staff in London say their families are being “targeted and punished” by the Iranian regime as it intensifies a campaign of intimidation against journalists and media outlets.
There have been more than 20 “threat-to-life” incidents against people in the UK by Iran in recent years, according to the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism commander.
Exfoliating cleansers don’t have to leave your skin tight and dry – there are great options for all skin types
The ritual of facial cleansing is sacrosanct in my home, but only for me. While beauty buffs use melting balms, silky oils and rich creams to remove daily makeup, dirt and SPF, and separate exfoliants to remove dull skin, the vast majority of consumers – including my own family – will always prefer a foaming face wash that does it all.
I get it. Exfoliating cleansers are fast to use (and easily stored in the shower), and give that fully refreshed feeling only wet cleansing can. The drawback is that they can leave your face feeling tight, dry and begging for moisturiser, and frequently fail what I call “the towel test” – that is, they leave behind enough makeup for it to lightly stain a white towel during post-cleanse drying. So which exfoliating cleansers do a decent job and leave skin clean, without too much squeak?
Marilyn Monroe is incandescent in Billy Wilder’s comedy about a tempted married man, but it’s a film hampered by restrictions of the time
One of the patterns that emerges in Conversations With Wilder, a delightfully candid 1999 interview book that the director Cameron Crowe did with his film-making hero, Billy Wilder, is that Wilder tends to look more fondly on his hits than his misses. To him, commercial flops were rarely the result of audiences misunderstanding his work, but a regrettable failure on his part to connect with them. So it’s notable that Wilder didn’t have kind things to say about the Marilyn Monroe comedy The Seven Year Itch, a box-office sensation that’s rightfully settled a few tiers below classics like Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, his brilliant second go-around with Monroe.
A work-for-hire job for Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, The Seven Year Itch didn’t originate with Wilder, but George Axelrod’s 1952 Broadway comedy about marital wanderlust, with its ping-pong between lustiness and guilt, seemed well-suited to his sensibility. But the real tension that undermines the film is the ping-pong between Monroe’s five-alarm sexuality and the wet-blanket prudishness that keeps putting out the fire. Wilder and Axelrod, who also scripted, were “straitjacketed” by the Hays code, which imposed strict limits on how far the film could go, and Wilder couldn’t work around it. He called it a “nothing picture” because censors neutered a comedy about infidelity. A comedy about mere temptation doesn’t have the same pop.
Edmonton face the Panthers in the NHL title showdown for the second season in a row. But there are plenty of talking points off the ice too
This time last year the story of the Stanley Cup final between Florida and Edmonton was mostly about Connor McDavid, hockey’s generational talent, getting the chance to bring the Cup back to hockey’s generational home. And it almost went his way, after the Oilers overcame a three-game deficit to force a deciding Game 7. Instead, McDavid’s win came a little later. His series-winning goal against the US in February’s Four Nations Cup amid the febrile nationalism created by Donald Trump’s annexation threats and tariffs seemed to quiet the doubters about where hockey both belonged and who rightly owned its highest honours. But here we are again, on the eve of the final, with the Oilers back in Florida for the second season in a row – Game 1 is on Wednesday night – and with a team from that state contending for the Cup for the sixth straight year.
The easiest way to explain why the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020-22) and Florida Panthers (2023-25) have each reached the Stanley Cup final as Eastern Conference champions in three consecutive seasons is that, well, they have both been very good teams. You can point to some common elements between the two, like scoring depth, a certain level of tenacity and grit, elite Russian goaltending, and Carter Verhaeghe. But there has also been something less obvious or quantifiable about these teams. Some characteristic that they share, beyond the on-ice talent and performance. It may be Florida itself.
Forty years on, Richard Donner’s adventure movie continues to delight audiences – and its heroes and villains. They remember the thrills they had behind the scenes
When The Goonies was first released in 1985, the swashbuckling kids’ adventure became a resounding box office hit. Audiences were charmed by Mikey (Sean Astin), Data (Ke Huy Quan), Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and Mouth’s (Corey Feldman) rambunctious personalities as the self-styled Goonies, who were desperately trying to save their homes in Astoria, Oregon, from being sold off by a property development company.
Steven Spielberg is rumoured to have come up with the idea for The Goonies when he wondered what kids got up to on rainy days. Apparently the answer was daring exploits worthy of Indiana Jones involving a dastardly family of ex-cons and a hidden shipwreck heaving with jewels. It all combined to make a touching film about the power of friendship that was also rip-roaring good fun.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has detailed the harrowing account of one of its paramedics, who told the organisation he heard Israeli troops shoot first responders while they were still clinging to life.
Asaad al-Nasasra, 47, was one of two first responders to survive the 15 March attack on a convoy of emergency vehicles in which 15 other medics and rescue workers were killed.
From moss piglets to radioactive horses – a survey of animals’ extraordinary adaptations to extreme environments
Atop the gloop that swirls on subterranean pools in Romania’s Movile cave, a host of mostly translucent, unseeing creatures scrabbles around. These singular beasties – centipedes, spiders, scorpions, leeches, snails and woodlice – derive their daily nutrients from slimy mats of sulphur-loving bacteria that thrive in the oxygen-poor atmosphere.
This unique ecosystem was isolated for more than 5m years until 1986, when drilling for a potential power plant pierced the cave’s walls. As the science writer Alex Riley reports in Super Natural, 37 out of the 52 invertebrate species living in the 240-metre-long space – which sits 21 metres below the surface near the Black Sea coast – exist nowhere else on Earth.
A spacecraft crashes back to Earth in an English field in this BBC series spinoff from the soon-to-be-legendary house of horror
In the early 1950s, there could hardly have been a bigger and more delirious pop culture phenomenon in Britain than The Quatermass Experiment, Nigel Kneale’s wildly popular science-fiction drama serial for BBC television, which spawned its own spoof version on The Goon Show (“The Scarlet Capsule”) and paved the way for Doctor Who. It was also turned into this brash standalone feature from 1955 from Hammer; it was the company’s first real hit, and an unusual example of the high-minded BBC feeding content to this garish movie outfit. Hammer of course was in time to discover that its vocation was not really for futurist twilight-zone sci-fi but for the atavistic world of vampires and mythic beasts.
This forthright and watchable picture, with its terrific cast of veteran players such as Jack Warner, Thora Hird and the totemic Sam Kydd, is entirely happy in its own B-movie skin, with the “X” in “Xperiment” gleefully signalling its identity as a pulp shocker; though it is also recognisably part of the English science-fiction tradition of John Wyndham, a world of strange doings in the innocent English shires with the frowning authorities – uniformed coppers, men from the ministry and white-coated medics – withholding the facts from the excitable public for their own good.
Johnnie Moore, also an adviser to Trump, named as US- and Israeli-backed initiative tries to recover from resignations
An evangelical leader and adviser to Donald Trump on interfaith issues has been appointed the new head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as the controversial US- and Israeli-backed initiative attempts to recover from top-level resignations during a tumultuous rollout last week.
Johnnie Moore, a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and founder of the boutique advisory firm Kairos Company, was appointed the new head of the GHF after Jake Wood, a former marine, resigned, saying that he could not guarantee the GHF’s independence from Israeli interests.
The American essayist, playwright and author of books including A Boy’s Own Story and The Married Man has died
Edmund White, the American writer, playwright and essayist who attracted acclaim for his semi-autobiographical novels such as A Boy’s Own Story – and literally wrote the book on gay sex, with the pioneering The Joy of Gay Sex – has died aged 85.
He died on Tuesday evening while waiting for an ambulance after experiencing symptoms of a stomach illness. His death was confirmed to the Guardian by his agent, Bill Clegg, on Wednesday.
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation halts limited supply of food distribution after at least 27 killed by Israeli fire as they waited for food
Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday criticised an initial proposal from the United States in negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme, though he stopped short of entirely rejecting the idea of agreement with Washington.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the US proposal as “100% against the idea of ‘we can’”, borrowing from an Iranian government slogan. He also said that Tehran needed to keep its ability to enrich uranium.
“If we had 100 nuclear power plants while not having enrichment, they are not usable for us,” Khamenei said. “If we do not have enrichment, then we should extend our hand (begging) to the US.”
However, some nuclear power nations get uranium from outside suppliers, reports the AP.
Details of the American proposal remain unclear after five rounds of talks between Iran and the US.
The UN security council will vote later today on a resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza. It will be the first vote on the issue held by the council since November.
Triple murder accused, who denies deliberately poisoning anyone, tells court she dumped dehydrator used to dry foraged mushrooms due to feeling ‘scared’ of child protection officers seeing it
Erin Patterson has told a court her estranged husband asked her if she had used a dehydrator to poison his parents, and admitted resetting her phone out of fear police would discover photos she had of foraged mushrooms.
In her third day in the witness box, Patterson also said she thinks there is a “possibility” that foraged mushrooms were unintentionally added to her beef wellington mixture as she tried to improve its “bland” flavour, and admitted she lied to her lunch guests about having cancer because she was embarrassed about planned weight-loss surgery.
A hacked or compromised account can be a nightmare. But with these tips, it need not be the end of the world
Email accounts have become more than a longstanding method of communication, morphing into the centre of your digital world as the user login for hundreds of services from shopping to socials. So when you forget your password, your email gets stolen or hacked, it can be a total nightmare.
Here’s what to do if the worst happens. Quickly taking these steps can help get you back into your email and safeguard the many other accounts linked to it.
Try to change your password from a device that’s already logged in.
Use a familiar device in a familiar location that you have frequently used your email account from before, such as your computer or a phone on your home wifi. Use the same browser you usually would if you have more than one installed.
Use account recovery process for provider, such as Google or Microsoft, and access your account through your recovery email or phone if you have one.
Answer all the recovery questions to the best of your ability, including any old passwords you might remember, even if you only know part of the answer. Google and Microsoft have tips you can follow. It may take up to 24 hours for you to be verified to recover your account.
If all else fails, set up a new email account so that you can quickly migrate your logins for various sites and services to one you can control.
Set a new, strong password that is unique for your email account. The password should be at least 12 characters, but the longer the better. Use a combination of alphanumeric and special characters. Some tips include using a combination of random words, a memorable lyric or quote, and avoid simple or guessable combinations. Use a password manager to help you remember it and other important details.
Set up two-step verification using a code-generating app, rather than SMS text messages. Make sure you save your two-step backup codes somewhere safe.
Use a passkey rather than a password, which uses your device and biometrics to authenticate you and cannot be hacked like a password.
Set a recovery email and phone number to help get back into your account if you can’t log in.
Set up as many security questions as your account allows in settings and make them as difficult to guess as possible. Make sure you write the answers down somewhere safe.
‘Got’ was changed during the editing of an opinion piece, leading to correspondence lamenting a slide into American English. But language isn’t a fortress
In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, a messenger breathlessly announces to the king that, “Jack Cade hath gotten London bridge”. Hold this late 16th-century text in mind as we fast forward to last week when Martin Kettle, associate editor and columnist at the Guardian in the UK, was seen to suggest in an opinion piece that, if King Charles has pushed the boundaries of neutrality, such as with his speech to open the new Canadian parliament, he has so far “gotten away with it”.
In a letter published the next day, a reader asked teasingly if this use of “gotten” – and another writer’s reference to a “faucet” – were signs the Guardian had fallen into line with Donald Trump’s demand that news agencies adopt current US terminology, such as referring to the “Gulf of America”.
Winger flickered during his time at Stamford Bridge but failed to provide consistency and Maresca is thinking bigger
The best way to respond to Chelsea having to pay a £5m penalty fee because of their failure to meet a £25m obligation to buy Jadon Sancho from Manchester United is with a shrug.
There is no tale of excess, no evidence of scattergun thinking from the recruitment team at Stamford Bridge, no stick with which to beat Todd Boehly. In fact it is not even much of a punishment. A penalty clause is one way of framing it; another is that it is the equivalent of a standard loan fee and that all Chelsea are doing is making a delayed payment after not being asked for one when the deal to borrow Sancho went through on the final day of last summer’s transfer window.
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