The level will have to rise when Newcastle return to London with designs on ending their long wait for silverware this weekend. This scrappy performance is unlikely to have sent a shiver down Liverpool’s spine before the Carabao Cup final, although there were positives for Eddie Howe to dwell on after his side boosted their hopes of Champions League qualification with a forgettable win over West Ham.

It was vital that spirits were lifted after the blow of exiting the FA Cup a week ago. The avoidance of further injuries was welcome and Howe could take satisfaction from a first clean sheet in over a month before Newcastle attempt to keep Mohamed Salah quiet. Liverpool, though, will presumably pose more questions than a cautious, limited West Ham attack managed here. Newcastle, who were clearly holding back at times, were comfortable after Bruno Guimarães scored the goal that lifted them two points off fourth place.

Policy would apply to those seeking asylum as well as anyone who had been charged with or convicted of immigration offences

All foreign nationals in the UK who receive a criminal conviction would be deported under a new Conservative party policy. The Tory plan would introduce an amendment to the government’s borders bill that would remove the current threshold, in which foreign criminals are only removed after being handed a prison sentence of one year.

The party hopes this amendment, which would need support from Labour MPs, would also make it easier for the government to deport foreign offenders by ending exceptions that had been granted by the European court of human rights.

Foreign minister says legalisation of main ingredient of cocaine is only way to stop drug trafficking and violence

Colombia, whose president, Gustavo Petro, is a vocal critic of the US-led war on drugs, has urged the UN to remove coca – the main ingredient in cocaine – from a list of harmful substances.

Used not only for cocaine, the coca leaf is also chewed as a stimulant in countries such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, or brewed into a tea thought to combat altitude sickness.

Judge denies Edward Kelley’s motion to dismiss separate charges of plotting to kill federal agents investigating him

A man pardoned by Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection who also was convicted of plotting to kill federal agents investigating him is still legally liable for the plot, a judge ruled on Monday.

Edward Kelley was pardoned by Trump for his role in the US Capitol riot, but he remained in prison on separate charges. The Tennessee man had developed a “kill list” of FBI agents who had investigated him for the Capitol attack.

Latest medical update for 88-year-old pontiff said he was responding well to treatment in hospital

Pope Francis is no longer in immediate danger and is responding well to treatment in hospital, the Vatican has said, in a sign of progress as the 88-year-old pontiff battles double pneumonia.

Francis has been in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for more than three weeks. He was admitted on 14 February with a severe respiratory infection that has required evolving treatment.

• Co-owner backs Ruben Amorim to stay for ‘long time’
• He admits not sacking Erik ten Hag in summer was error

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has launched a blistering attack on Manchester United players, stating some are “not good enough” and “overpaid”, referencing Casemiro, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Rasmus Højlund and André Onana when doing so.

In a series of interviews, Ratcliffe, the club’s co-owner, also said that Ruben Amorim would be the head coach for a “long time”, and admitted that not sacking Erik ten Hag last summer was an error.

Very public squabble between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe has been a joy to witness – even if predictable

These past few weeks have been grim. The world hasn’t felt less safe in decades. European leaders desperately scrabbling to secure a peace in Ukraine that isn’t a capitulation to Russia. A US manchild president who is giving a convincing impression of a Russian asset. Vladimir Putin struggling to believe his good fortune.

So a big thank you to Reform for providing so much comic relief. Never has the UK needed a good laugh more than now. Which isn’t to say that the very public squabble between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe was in any way unexpected. Given enough time away from dissecting the niceties of the Nazi salute – these things matter to supporters of Reform. Strictly arm out to the front, not the side – Nige can usually manage to fall out with anyone. Apart from Richard Tice. Dicky only exists as an echo to Farage. Without a mind of his own. His tragedy has been to be born a man of limited intellect and charisma.

Billionaire owner claims ‘attack’ may have originated in Ukraine after site unresponsive for many users

Elon Musk claimed on Monday afternoon that X was targeted in a “massive cyber-attack” that resulted in the intermittent service outages that had brought down his social network throughout the day. The platform, formerly known as Twitter, had been unresponsive for many users as posts failed to load.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” the platform’s CEO posted. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

Sue Perkins does her best presenting this show that pits embarrassingly named stars like the Unruly Knight and the Chess Princess against each other … but even she can’t get around the fact that chess is the least telegenic thing ever

Appropriately enough, I suppose, what Chess Masters: The Endgame is doing in the television schedules is a bit of a puzzle. The Queen’s Gambit, the adaptation of Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel about a chess prodigy that became an unexpected hit for Netflix, made a star out of Anya Taylor-Joy and brought the game to wider public attention. But that was five years ago. The flurry of interest it roused in the subject has long since fallen back to normal levels. Chess Masters has no moment to capitalise on, except for what it assures us is “Britain’s booming chess community”, 12 of whose “rising stars” compete over eight episodes to, well, beat the other 11 at chess.

This has clearly presented the producers of the show with a number of problems, none of which has been successfully solved. There is the question of how you make an essentially silent, cerebral game telegenic and accessible. They have hired a presenter with glasses to acknowledge the intellectualism of the pursuit, but made it Sue Perkins to try to give warm, Bake Off vibes too. But it is still inescapably people frowning over an abstract strategy board game, not constructing model cities out of profiteroles or coaxing clouds of pistachio and rose-flavoured cakes out of the oven like culinary gods.

Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all down by at least 2% and Tesla shares fall 15% for worst day since September 2020

The US stock market continued to drop on Monday as the White House denied that Donald Trump’s trade policies were causing lasting chaos within the economy.

The S&P 500 fell 2.7%, the Dow Jones dropped 2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 4% as investors sold shares in the so-called “magnificent seven” – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla. Tesla’s shares had their worst day since September 2020, falling 15%.

• Head coach ready for second-leg showdown at Anfield
• Luis Enrique says winners of last-16 tie will make final

Arne Slot believes Liverpool must produce their best performance of the season to finish off “a complete” Paris Saint-Germain team that gave him sleepless nights after the Champions League encounter last week.

Liverpool take a 1-0 lead into the last-16 second leg at Anfield but Slot rates the tie at “50-50” on the evidence of PSG’s display at Parc des Princes. “The result was ours, the performance was for them,” he said.

The health secretary will shrink NHS England’s workforce to save money and avoid ‘duplication’

NHS England will lose half its staff and a huge swathe of its senior management team as part of a brutal restructuring under its new boss.

Its workforce will shrink from 13,000 to about 6,500 as entire teams are axed to save money and avoid “duplication” with officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

In a win for US justice department, judge rules ex-leader of Russian oil and gas company lacks plausible claim to yacht

A US judge on Monday ruled that a former chief of the Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft does not have a plausible claim to own a $300m superyacht that US authorities seized in 2022, in a win for the US Department of Justice.

US district judge Dale Ho’s decision boosts federal prosecutors’ bid for a forfeiture of the 348ft (106-meter) Amadea, which could be sold at auction.

Actor tells libel trial against Guardian that female accusers were ‘lying’ and ‘seeking attention’ in their claims

Women began discussing Noel Clarke’s past sexual misconduct in response to the #MeToo movement, the high court in London has heard, as he began giving evidence in his libel claim against the Guardian.

Cross-examining Clarke for the Guardian, Gavin Millar KC told the actor he had begun to panic because the movement “began to catch up with you”.

Poll takes place against backdrop of threats by Donald Trump and growing calls for independence

Greenland’s prime minister said voters face a “fateful choice” as the Arctic island prepares to go to the polls in a pivotal election closely watched by Europe and the US.

The vote on Tuesday has attracted global attention after Donald Trump’s repeated assertions about acquiring the autonomous territory, using military and economic force if necessary.

Number of animals affected by neurological toxin increases in past week as experts warn of impact from climate crisis

The number of marine mammals in California affected by a neurological toxin from algae has surged in the past week, in what could be another deadly year for animals such as sea lions, seals, dolphins and larger whales.

According to the Marine Mammal Care Center, a rescue facility based in Sausalito, California, the facility is treating more than 30 animals affected by a toxic algal bloom, with eight animals admitted on Wednesday. The algae bloom off the California coast has been on the rise in recent years, producing a neurological toxin called domoic acid.

• Premier League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off
• Live scores | Premier League top scorers | Mail Michael

Russell Martin, the former Southampton manager, is the guest pundit on Sky Sports tonight, here in the UK. I wonder where he might end up. Many will be put off by the way that Southampton played in the Premier League this year, but many feel that the Saints have got worse since his departure. I would suggest that he didn’t have the players good enough to fit his system, although he is not without fault.

Remember the season previous, Burnley were relegated under Vincent Kompany, who had a similar tactical evangelism. And the Belgian got the Bayern job. I’m not suggesting that Martin will be manager of a European giant anytime soon but I wonder if a European club might take a punt. There are other British coaches, such as Liam Rosenior and Will Still, doing well abroad.

First official meeting since disastrous Trump-Zelenskyy encounter comes as Russia intensifies attacks

Senior US and Ukrainian officials have arrived in Saudi Arabia for high-stakes meetings on Tuesday aimed at repairing a severely damaged relationship that has left embattled Kyiv without Washington’s support.

Ukraine’s delegation, led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, will meet the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and other senior White House officials on what is seen as neutral ground in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

• Quarterback will replace Geno Smith in Seattle
• Jets move on from Aaron Rodgers era
• Khalil Mack set to re-sign with Chargers

Quarterback Sam Darnold has agreed on a three-year, $110.5m contract with the Seattle Seahawks, according to multiple reports.

Darnold had the best season of his career with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024, leading the team to 14 wins and a playoff appearance. He replaces Geno Smith, who was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders last week. Darnold’s deal is reported to include $55m in guaranteed money.

Nathan Hochman says he would consider support only if pair ‘fully accept complete responsibility’ for 1989 killings

The Los Angeles district attorney has said he is opposed to the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who have been in prison for decades for the 1989 killings of their parents, and said the brothers first needed to acknowledge and fully accept responsibility for the murders.

Nathan Hochman said at a press conference on Monday that he would ask the court to withdraw the resentencing motion filed in the case by his predecessor George Gascón. The new DA, who took office in December, said last month that he did not believe the brothers should receive a new trial.

Researchers say problem could increase number of people at risk of starvation by 400m in next two decades

The pollution of the planet by microplastics is significantly cutting food supplies by damaging the ability of plants to photosynthesise, according to a new assessment.

The analysis estimates that between 4% and 14% of the world’s staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles. It could get even worse, the scientists said, as more microplastics pour into the environment.

Surviving aid to be administered by state department in radical narrowing of definition of US national interest

• US politics live – latest updates

The Trump administration has taken an axe to US foreign aid, eliminating 83% of programs run by the US Agency for International Development (USAid) in a sweeping six-week purge that has done away with entire categories of development work that took decades to build up.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio announced the massive cuts on Monday, posting that roughly 5,200 of USAid’s 6,200 global programs have been terminated. The surviving initiatives – less than a fifth of America’s previous aid portfolio – will be absorbed by the state department.

More than 1,000 people are believed to have died so far in fighting between security services and Assad loyalists

Clashes between Syrian security services and fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime erupted on Wednesday, kicking off five days of still-ongoing fighting which has killed more than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, according to a war monitor.

The clashes, some of the deadliest in the country since the beginning of its civil war in 2011, were the biggest challenge Syria’s new authorities faced since taking power in December.

Former central banker won landslide victory in Liberal party race as trade war with US hastens transfer of power

Canada’s incoming prime minister, Mark Carney, has met with Justin Trudeau as the pair discuss a transfer of power after the former central banker’s landslide victory at the Liberal party’s leadership race.

The meeting on Monday sets the stage for an imminent federal election and gives Canada a fresh leader to square off against the United States president, with the two countries locked in a bitter trade war provoked by Donald Trump.

Police said they had identified Morgan Harris, 39, and had also found more remains of another person

Canadian police have identified the remains of a murdered Indigenous woman at a landfill and found more remains from another person, after a months-long search demanded by the families of victims targeted by a serial killer.

Police said in a statement they had confirmed that human remains found in the Prairie Green Landfill, north of Winnipeg, had been identified as those of Morgan Harris, who was 39.

President says in post his administration ‘will not tolerate’ actions of protesters at Columbia and other US universities

Donald Trump said on Monday that the arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, was the “first arrest of many to come”.

“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Adam Boehler says Hamas proposed a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in negotiations that did not involve Israel

A US envoy has said Hamas proposed a five-to-10-year ceasefire and a full prisoner exchange during backroom talks that have provoked angry responses from the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative backers in Israel and the US.

Adam Boehler, the US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, told Kan News, an Israeli public broadcaster, that he “does believe” Hamas would eventually lay down its weapons and leave power in Gaza. While he said the series of interviews was meant to explain the US position, he also defended the talks by saying that Washington is “not an agent of Israel”.

Authorities warn more fatalities expected as a year’s worth of rain falls on Bahía Blanca in eight hours

Rescue teams in Argentina are searching for two girls, aged one and five, who were swept away by severe floods that ripped through Buenos Aires province, killing at least 16 people.

A year’s worth of rain fell on the city of Bahía Blanca and the town of Cerri on Friday, rapidly inundating neighbourhoods and destroying homes, bridges and roads. The rainfall – 400mm (15.7in) recorded in just eight hours – was more than twice the city’s previous record of 175mm (6.8in) set in 1930.

President suspended implementation of law ordering app to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or face US ban

Donald Trump said on Sunday the United States was in talks with four groups interested in acquiring TikTok, with the Chinese-owned app facing an uncertain future in the country.

A US law has ordered TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or be banned in the United States. Asked on Sunday if there was going to be a deal on TikTok soon, Trump told reporters: “It could be.”

• Team admitted cheating by employing altered suits
• Coach and equipment manager both suspended

The Norwegian ski federation has suspended a ski jumping coach and an equipment manager over their alleged role in a cheating scandal which shook the world championships this weekend.

The federation said coach Magnus Brevig and equipment manager Adrian Livelten were suspected of modifying ski suits by sewing in an extra seam in an attempt to create more lift in the air. Norway is one of the traditional powers within ski jumping, and the scandal at its home world championships has caused a massive outcry in a country that prides itself on its winter sports prowess.

Premier Doug Ford says province ‘won’t back down’ until US president retracts duties on Canada

The Canadian province of Ontario is imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota in protest against Donald Trump’s tariffs, the premier, Doug Ford, said on Monday.

“President Trump’s tariffs are a disaster for the US economy. They’re making life more expensive for American families and businesses,” Ford said in a statement.

SXSW film festival: Meghann Fahy lands a killer star vehicle with a fun, seat-edge piece of pulp entertainment, playing a woman tasked with killing her date

I have a special place in my heart for a movie that knows what it is, doesn’t mislead and delivers accordingly in a tight 90 minutes. Drop, as indicated by title and trailer, is a one-room thriller for the digital natives: what would happen if your phone was barraged by mysterious AirDropped memes telling you to kill your date, or your family dies? It’s a simple premise familiar to anyone who has received an unwanted dick pic on the subway, and one that writer/director Christopher Landon drills into with fresh and invigorating precision.

And one elevated by two well-cast leads in Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, who both keep their cards just close enough to their chests. Sklenar, recently in It Ends With Us, once again convincingly plays the nice, understanding guy to a woman who has survived domestic abuse; sweet and self-effacing, he’s more “fuck” or “marry” material than “kill”. But this is Fahy’s movie as Violet, a therapist for survivors of domestic violence and a single mother to a five-year-old son. She is no stranger to it; the film opens with a scene one could assume is a flash forward, with a bloody and bruised Violet crawling limply away from her late husband, who brandishes a loaded gun.

• City are fourth in WSL but in Champions League last eight
• Former manager Nick Cushing named interim manager

Manchester City Women have sacked their head coach, Gareth Taylor, just five days before the club’s appearance in the League Cup final. Nick Cushing, whom Taylor succeeded in 2020, will return as interim manager for the remainder of the season.

The news comes with City fourth in the Women’s Super League, 12 points behind the leaders Chelsea, and was announced 24 hours after they booked their place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup by beating Aston Villa on Sunday.

Lowe’s online presence, helped by Elon Musk, dwarfs that of Nigel Farage, but may not bring him new Reform voters

If you were looking for answers as to why Rupert Lowe, a relatively little-known Reform UK MP, thinks he can lecture Nigel Farage about running a party and winning an election, there is one place you should probably start: X.

In person Lowe can sometimes resemble a slightly embarrassing uncle at a wedding, but on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, the Great Yarmouth MP is a big name – and by some metrics, a notably bigger one even than his party leader.

Ruth Marcus dissented from paper’s new opinion policy of supporting only ‘personal liberties and free markets’

Washington Post associate editor and top political columnist Ruth Marcus is reportedly resigning following the decision by the CEO, Will Lewis, to kill her opinion column critical of the billionaire owner Jeff Bezos’s latest changes to the paper.

“It is with great sadness that I submit my resignation as columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post,” Marcus wrote in a letter addressed to Lewis and Bezos and posted on X by a New York Times media reporter.

‘Multiple explosions’ rupture cargo tank of MV Stena Immaculate, with jet fuel reportedly released

The crews of an oil tanker and a cargo ship are “safe and accounted for” with one person taken to hospital after the vessels collided in the North Sea, with jet fuel reported to have been released, a maritime company has said.

Crowley, the shipping company that manages the MV Stena Immaculate, said there were “multiple explosions onboard” when the oil tanker suffered a ruptured cargo tank.

Swansea Building Society Arena
Fresh from Taylor Swift’s endorsement, Justin Hawkins and his hard-riffing band can still strut and peacock with the best – so it’s a shame about the bad sound mix

Midway through the deliriously profane Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Justin Hawkins demands that the crowd claps along. Before you know it, the frontman is standing on his head and joining in by slapping together the heels of his pointy white shoes. There has already been bountiful swearing and ripping guitars, and now there is showing off. All is right in the Darkness’s world.

Hawkins has never misplaced his desire to peacock in front of an audience, and yet his acrobatic high spirits do appear to be supercharged at an interesting moment in the group’s long career. Fresh from becoming a side quest for Taylor Swift’s legion of fans due to her admiration of their 2003 hit I Believe in a Thing Called Love – a song dispatched here with undimmed bombast – the Darkness have a new record out shortly that, if Hawkins’ pumping of the faithful for pre-orders is to be believed, might return them to the top of the charts.

Republican faces backlash for saying Democrat shook ‘his pimp cane’ at Trump during congressional address

The extremist Republican US House member Lauren Boebert has been accused of racism, ableism and hypocrisy in one fell swoop after criticizing a Black Democrat for “shaking his pimp cane” at Donald Trump during the president’s recent speech to Congress.

“Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum,” Boebert told Real America’s Voice, a far-right outlet, while discussing the Texas Democratic congressman’s ejection from the House chamber for shouting about Trump’s threats to social benefits spending on 6 March.

The favourite has seen off every challenge in all his races, but could be facing his sternest opponent so far

Constitution Hill has seen off every challenge with ease in winning all 10 of his races to date, but he could be facing his sternest opponent so far in Tuesday’s Champion Hurdle and Brighterdaysahead (4.00) can also boast the strongest recent piece of form in the field.

The Neville Hotels Hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting was set up for Brighterdaysahead by a front-running stable companion, while State Man, the defending champion on Tuesday, was clearly not at his best and finished a long way behind Gordon Elliott’s mare.

The Last Week Tonight host looks at Trump’s ‘largest deportation operation’ campaign and the dangerous state of facilities used to house immigrants

John Oliver took aim at the immigration detention system in the US and the many problems that come with it.

The Last Week Tonight host spoke about how Donald Trump has centered deportation as a main element on his presidency and recently made “a big show of having Ice conducting immigration raids” which have largely been ineffectual.

What does it cost you to let others finish your bowl of chips at the pub? What do you gain by binning the soggy fruit salad?

Last week’s chicken too dry to finish off. A carrot so old it flops like a garden hose. Yoghurt – with a carton of mouldy blueberries – three weeks past its use.

You might see trash; I see entree, dinner and dessert. There’s no such thing as food too old to eat.

On the downside, all my personal data is being harvested by faceless corporations. On the up, I’ve got a little parent in my pocket, anticipating my every need

I awoke recently to one of those galleries of photographic memories curated for me by my phone. This one featured my best friend, M: admiring a dosa, stroking her cat, holding a pair of Parisian melons and lying in my garden. It made me smile and when I told her, she said her phone had had the same idea. “It keeps trying to get me to put you as wallpaper,” she messaged, showing me its suggestions. Like pushy parents, it was as if our phones had got together and decided it was time we had a playdate. The worst of it is they are right: I really miss her.

It reminded me of all the other ways my phone parents me. When I get out of choir practice, it volunteers, unprompted, that it will take 12 minutes to get home by my usual route. It helpfully offers to count down a minute when I am at the gym and want to time my rests between weights sets. When I get into the car on Saturday afternoons, it always shows me the way to the supermarket. At bedtime, it offers a shortcut to TikTok because it knows watching cats confused by Ramadan and RuPaul explaining how to parallel park soothes me.

A hundred years ago the average person, in one of the the world’s wealthiest societies, could expect to live until 40. Now global life expectacy is 73

At the start of the millennium it was widely presumed each successive generation would achieve a higher level of prosperity than the last. Today that is no longer the case. Just 19% of Americans expect their children’s lives to be better than their own, while two-thirds believe their country will be economically weaker by 2050.

So our zeitgeist is increasingly one of pessimism, from anxiety about the climate crisis to concern over rising inequality. According to the historian Adam Tooze, we are living through a “polycrisis” – where such challenges are not only simultaneous but mutually reinforcing.

Aaron Bastani is the co-founder of Novara Media. He is also the author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism

Bushwick is a dizzying, thrilling place to be.

At Maria Hernandez park men pack into the volleyball courts, shouting over matches in Spanish, while children chase soccer balls around shirtless skateboarders. Reggaeton plays from passing cars and techno leaks out of nightclubs under the M train. Recent art school grads throw rooftop parties and split rent four ways, and European tourists roam the neighborhood’s industrial sections to snap photos of street art.

Ukrainian president will be holding talks with Mohammed bin Salman

The UK rejected Russian allegations that two British diplomats were suspected of carrying out espionage activities (9:04) as “malicious and baseless,” saying it is not the first time Russia made similar accusations.

Visitors from around the world have been flocking to the Pompidou Centre in Paris this weekend, seizing the last opportunity to enjoy Europe’s largest temple of modern and contemporary art before it closes its doors for a five-year overhaul.

In prose and in paint, the great artist Celia Paul is exorcising the ghosts of her past – from the cruelties of her lover Freud, to his offhand cohorts, and the YBA revolution that declared painting dead

Painter Celia Paul has lived in the same flat in Bloomsbury – bought for her by her then lover Lucian Freud – for 40 years. To ascend to it, up the 80 steps to bring you level with the pediment of the British Museum opposite, is to enter a different world. The main room contains little but a lumpy and ancient chaise longue and a metal-framed bed. One wall is stacked with freshly stretched empty canvases. Next door a mountain range of old sheets, stiff and stained with paint, obscure what might be a sofa. There is a huge, dusty mirror in which we both appear, spectrally: she a slight figure in a brown floor-length skirt, her slippers paint-encrusted. I ask her if she sleeps in the metal-framed bed. Sometimes, she says, but she shows me her bedroom. It is equally spartan, but for the immense piles of books. “You didn’t get round to building many bookshelves,” I observe weakly, in the face of this almost unimaginably austere existence.

Paul – like Edmund de Waal, a contributor to the vast monograph about her work that is about to be published – is now as much respected for her writing as for her art. In 2019 her Self-Portrait came out, a memoir that, among other things, described her relationship with Freud, who seduced her when she was 18 and he in his 50s. In 2022 came Letters to Gwen John, a one-sided correspondence with one of her favourite artistic forebears. These books were published in her 60s. On her shift to writing, she says, “It is a way of articulating thoughts that otherwise just brew. That can work evocatively in painting. But with words, you need to have order of a different kind. One sentence does have to follow another. And that’s what I needed to do.”

Remember when a few chunks of pineapple were enough to cause outrage? This latest offering puts even chicken tikka masala or pumpkin and hummus pizza in the shade

Name: Orange pizza.

Age: First mentions come in 314BC and AD997 respectively. The combination, however, is a product of our own dark age.

Nigel Farage’s team is down to four MPs, with the suspended Rupert Lowe denouncing it as a “protest party led by the messiah”. Let’s not waste time wondering who’s wrong and who’s right

I have one primitive but foolproof tool of political analysis. Trying to balance competing claims in any matter of party discipline – unless it’s a party of which I am a member, in which case, of course, I have already picked a side – I think: “Does it sound as if anyone’s done the kind of vetting even I would know how to do?”

Rupert Lowe has been suspended from Reform over claims of bullying and physical intimidation, which he says are without basis. He went on to say, on X, that he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the allegations, which has a conspiratorial whiff. He has already said the allegations are false, so if he is not surprised to hear them made, it surely indicates that he thinks he is dealing with the kind of people who will expediently exploit any kind of nonsense.

Canada’s incoming prime minister warns the US president’s tariffs threaten the ‘greatest crisis of our generation’

When Mark Carney becomes Canada’s prime minister later this week, a list of simmering crises across the country will demand his attention: housing is unaffordable, healthcare is breaking, living costs keep rising and the climate crisis is ransacking livelihoods.

But most – if not all – of those concerns will be pushed aside, supplanted by a far greater threat to the country: the US president, Donald Trump.

Backpacker Rebecca Burke was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility in Washington state

A British tourist on a four-month backpacking trip around North America has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the US for 10 days after trying to enter the country via the Canadian border.

Rebecca Burke, 28, a graphic artist from Monmouthshire, was trying to cross into the state of Washington when she was refused entry.

Chris Wright signals abandonment of Biden’s ‘irrational, quasi-religious’ climate policies at industry conference

The world needs more planet-heating fossil fuel, not less, Donald Trump’s newly appointed energy secretary, Chris Wright, told oil and gas bigwigs on Monday.

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less,” he said in the opening plenary talk of CERAWeek, a swanky annual conference in Houston, Texas, led by the financial firm S&P Global.

Eco-concerns upturn moral battle over fur as quiet luxury gives way to ‘boom boom’ looks at Paris fashion week

• Ellie Violet Bramley: Are you fur real?

Gabriela Hearst is an ethical fashion designer, with sustainability at the heart of her brand. And she wants to sell you a mink coat.

Hearst’s Paris fashion week show included a coat, jacket and stole made from vintage real fur. “We bought all these old mink coats in Italy, and pieced them together,” she said after her show.

Residents sought safety in temporary shelter after Fuego volcano spewed lava, ash and rocks

Guatemalan authorities have evacuated about a thousand people after Central America’s most active volcano erupted, spewing lava, ash and rocks.

Residents with traumatic memories of a deadly eruption in 2018 sought safety in a temporary shelter after the Fuego volcano – located 35km (22 miles) from the capital, Guatemala City – showed escalating activity on Sunday.

In January, the first person in the US died from bird flu. Learn what the symptoms are and how you can stay safe

Bird flu has been spreading in North America since late 2021, but recently the situation has taken some concerning turns.

In January, the first person in the US died from bird flu. In February, two more people were hospitalized, and officials detected two new spillovers into cows, indicating the virus is here to stay among livestock and farm workers. The price of eggs has also skyrocketed as bird flu moves through egg-laying chickens.

After his takeover in 2018, the early enthusiasm has long gone, and so mostly has he. Now he wants to get on his bike

At the end of training on Friday, as Real Valladolid’s players left the annex next to the José Zorrilla stadium and headed off under grey skies, rain preparing to roll in, a surprise waited for them. It was the final session before the weekend their coach said would show what hopes they had, an opportunity not so much to save their season as still have one, and there was he was: the Original Ronaldo, in the flesh. He came to encourage them, he said, going round the dressing room reminding them what it means to be committed, always. “Thank you for accompanying the team before the Valencia game!” the club tweeted, exclamation included. The Brazilian, after all, is one of the greatest footballers ever.

He is also their owner and president. But still this was unexpected: they hadn’t seen him for months and didn’t think they would see him now either. He had been in the directors’ box for Valladolid’s first game of the season, which they had won, and when they played Real Madrid at the Bernabéu the following week too, which they hadn’t. Since then, as they watched their team slide towards the second division, abandoned to an increasingly inevitable fate, he hadn’t been back. “Where is the president?” supporters had sung. One day in November, while they were playing Getafe, he was playing tennis. They knew that because he had broadcast it on Twitch. So the following week, they set up a game in the stands, giant foam rackets hitting a ball back and forth.

SXSW film festival: Fresh director Mimi Cave delivers an underwhelming follow-up that can’t make the most of its hard-working leading star

Nicole Kidman is, in general, providing a public service with her seemingly inexhaustible energy. She’s been working consistently with female directors – 19 in the last eight years – while also attempting to rescue the tight domestic thrillers of yore and consistently probing the gap between women’s placid public facades and private turmoil. The quality of Kidman’s performances – and she is almost always delivering something a little weird, a little off and very magnetic – does not indicate the quality of the project, which can range from the provocative (if underwhelming) Babygirl to her personal beach-read cinematic universe of mediocre TV roles.

Holland, Kidman’s latest film as a star and producer (under her Blossom Films banner), finds Kidman in a familiar groove: a suburban housewife with secrets and suspicions, beset by paranoia and straining to keep up appearances. Like many a Kidman character before her, Nancy Vandergroot projects perfection – china-doll smile, coiffed hair, nuclear family dinners – and nurses big feelings about the small stakes of her fishbowl environ. The trailer, released ahead of the SXSW film festival by distributor Amazon Prime Video, promises a Kidman performance in the lane of The Stepford Wives – eerie, brittle and unnerving, with the added weirdness of the Dutch iconography of Holland, Michigan, an idyllic lakeside town locally famous for its annual tulip festival. In practice, it squanders the talents of its star, especially for this particular brand of unsettling, on a bizarrely paced script that adds up to nothing.

‘We were moving away from bar band covers to doing our own songs. So shouting “Ho hey!” from the stage got people’s attention. We were doing it to be heard. Then suddenly everyone started listening’

After growing up in Ramsey, a small town in New Jersey, we moved to New York to try to make it in music but found it a very difficult circuit to break into. Bars would let you play because they wanted your friends to buy drinks, but then they’d kick everybody out to get the next group in. Whenever I would meet people, I’d tell them, “I’m a waiter but I play music,” and they’d go, “Yeah, so does my cousin.” The prospect of playing somewhere like the [iconic New York venue] Mercury Lounge felt about as likely as playing a stadium.

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Football Daily can’t help but yearn for the days when footballers weren’t particularly interested in walls. Back in 1978, the players of West Brom went on what was, at the time, a trailblazing end-of-season tour to China. Having taken 90 hours to get there on a combination of planes, trains and automobiles, on one of their free days the Baggies were somewhat reluctantly taken to visit the Great Wall of China, prompting an accompanying BBC documentary crew to ask midfielder John Trewick for his impression of the famous fortification. “When you’ve seen one wall you’ve seen ‘em all, haven’t you?” came the response. And while Trewick insists his deadpan appraisal was made with tongue firmly ensconced in cheek, it is a quote that continues to haunt him.

Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey are joined by Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, to discuss Labour’s plans to tackle the climate crisis, the third runway at Heathrow and how secure the path to a greener future looks in the age of Trump. Plus, are cuts to welfare and foreign aid the best way to balance the budget?

Insurance market says fine art losses were limited because rich residents took such possessions with them

Lloyd’s of London expects losses of $2.3bn (£1.78bn) from the California wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles this year, but fine art losses were limited because rich residents took their prize possessions with them.

The Eaton and Palisades blazes in Los Angeles in early January killed 29 people and were only fully contained after 24 days, having burned more than 14,973 hectares (37,000 acres) and destroyed more than 16,000 buildings.

Supporters have marched in protest at a number of Premier League grounds. It’s not hard to see why they believe their game is being taken away

On Sunday, thousands of Manchester United fans marched in protest at the club’s ownership. The week before last, there was a (much smaller) march against their club’s owners by fans at Chelsea. A couple of weeks earlier there were protests at Tottenham. Fulham fans are deeply unhappy. There have been grumblings at Manchester City. In total, at roughly three-quarters of the Premier League clubs, there is significant supporter discontent.

In some ways, the protests are distant background noise. Television viewers could quite easily have watched United’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal on Sunday and not known about the march. How big a deal is it, anyway, that around 5,000 people walked about a mile from a pub to a stadium, with most wearing black and chanting? The demonstrations are often incoherent. The one at Chelsea featured chants for Roman Abramovich, which suggested what they were really angry about is the club’s lack of success since the oligarch was sanctioned. It’s true that dissent would be rapidly quelled by a proper title challenge; nobody wants to disrupt that.

Palestinians facing mass displacements, airstrikes and rise in attacks on children and other civilians, rights group says

Israel has brought the military tactics of its war in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians face mass forced displacements, a surge in airstrikes and a sharp rise in attacks on children and other civilians, a Palestinian-Israeli rights group has said.

B’tselem has detailed the impact of Israel’s most intense operations in the area for at least two decades in a report that describes what it calls the “Gazafication” of Israel’s occupation there.

Projects to detect, treat and research new ways to fight TB among those disrupted by sudden funding freeze

Dangerous new forms of tuberculosis (TB) for which there is no treatment could emerge as a result of US aid cuts, a top doctor has warned.

Dr Lucica Ditiu, who heads the Stop TB Partnership, said she feared that interruptions to people’s treatment would allow the airborne bug to mutate into a new, untreatable form.

Two-time central banker has no cabinet experience but some analysts say his experience of financial crises such as Brexit may be just what Canada needs

• Mark Carney to be next Canada PM

Mark Carney, soon to become Canada’s new prime minister, is a two-time central banker and crisis fighter about to face his biggest challenge of all: steering Canada through Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The 59-year-old will be the first person to become Canadian prime minister without having been an MP or having any cabinet experience.

Graham Stuart says other 36 mariners across both crews are ‘safe and accounted for’

• Full story: UK coastguard scrambled after ship collision

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has expressed concern about the collision and thanked emergency workers who are dealing with the situation.

The Labour MP for Swindon South said “I’m concerned to hear of the collision between two vessels in the North Sea this morning and am liaising with officials and HM Coastguard as the situation develops. I want to thank all emergency service workers involved for their continued efforts in responding to the incident.”

Ukrainian president to meet Mohammed bin Salman but will not be at Saudi-led talks with US officials later this week

• Europe live – latest updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is flying to Saudi Arabia for high-stakes talks with the crown prince, at a time when Ukraine is being squeezed on and off the battlefield.

The Ukrainian president has gone to Riyadh for talks with Mohammed bin Salman, whose government has played a mediating role between Ukraine and Russia, before separate meetings in Saudi Arabia this week between Ukrainian and US officials.

Secretary of state says on social media that 83% of the programs at USAid are being cancelled

Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced that USAid will cancel the majority of its programs, while the rest will be folded into the state department.

Writing on X, Rubio said:

After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

With the Queensland capital essentially shut down thanks to some of the wettest weather in decades, residents are feeling bored, cooped up and anxious

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As they scroll through videos of Brisbane homes being flooded and losing power, Laurence Alexander and Gabrielle Caulfield feel they are probably better off than people living in houses. Their home is a 36-foot Catalina sloop called Rhino which, on Monday morning, is sheltering on the Brisbane River from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred as the storm continues to cause havoc across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Rhino, which they had planned to sail from Yamba in NSW to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, has its own generator, a gas stove and tanks that hold 300 litres of water.

Desire discrepancy is one of the most common reasons couples come to certified sex and relationship practitioner Georgia Grace. Solving the issue means challenging false assumptions

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Human sexuality is often likened to a fingerprint: our desires, fantasies and physical responses are as unique as the ridges on our fingers. In session, when I share this analogy with couples, they are relieved to know it’s actually normal to be different from their partner.

While it’s true that no two people are the same, when it comes to “mismatched libido” a predictable scenario will usually play out. In my first session with a couple, they will sit on opposite sides of the couch and say they haven’t had sex in months, or years. They are lost and desperate. One of them will share that they feel unwanted, and the other will admit that they want to want it, they just don’t. Because of this, they feel broken. They both agree sex is important for their relationship, but now it has become a stressful, awkward topic where discussion almost certainly ends in conflict. Desire discrepancy, or as many call it a “mismatched sex drive”, is one of the most common reasons people come to see me. It’s also why I dedicated a whole chapter to navigating desire in my book The Modern Guide to Sex.

The South African writer, who has died aged 92, was grateful for his extraordinary life and wrote out of love rather than anger

I feel that Athol Fugard and his wife, Paula Fourie, changed my life in the autumn of 2022 when I visited South Africa to spend time with them and their daughter Halle. We were supposed to be working on a book together, and we did; but our time became so much more than that. There were lunches in the house or the restaurant round the corner; walks in the woods; a braai that went on past midnight.

Over coffee in the mornings I’d sit with Athol and we’d use an app on his phone to identify the calls of all the birds in the garden. Then he might tell me a story from his life – the awe he felt when he asked Yvonne Bryceland to smash a chair to bits during rehearsals for Antigone and she proceeded to do so for a full 30 minutes; the journey he made by sea at 18 from Cairo to Japan, when an illiterate Somalian sailor used to watch him every night as he wrote a novel by hand, sitting on a deck hatch; and the way that sailor never spoke to him again when he finished the novel, decided it was terrible, and threw it in the sea.

Barney Norris is a playwright and novelist

• 53-year-old Italian left Atlético Madrid in January
• Berta has vast experience after 12 years in Madrid

Andrea Berta is primed to join Arsenal as their new sporting director. The club have conducted a thorough recruitment process to find a replacement for Edu, who resigned from the post last November, and they have considered a number of candidates. They included an internal one – Jason Ayto, who has filled the role on an interim basis since Edu’s departure.

Berta has emerged as the outstanding choice. The 53-year-old Italian, who left Atlético Madrid in January after 12 years as the sporting director there, has agreed a deal and, once the contracts have been signed, there would appear to be no obstacle to him starting straight away, enabling him to work towards what is sure to be a big summer for Arsenal.

Nate Vance reportedly spent three years trying to help Ukraine repel Russian troops and has been alarmed by his cousin’s remarks

• US politics live – latest updates

After voluntarily fighting in Ukraine to defend it from Russia’s invasion, and as the White House halts Ukrainian military aid, JD Vance’s first cousin has called the vice-president and Donald Trump “useful idiots” to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Nate Vance’s comments to France’s Le Figaro newspaper came after he reportedly spent three years volunteering to try to help Ukraine repel Russian troops as part of the so-called Da Vinci Wolves first motorized battalion.

As more companies mandate a return to the office, young workers learn to game the system to take back control

As employers crack down on hybrid work, insisting that the US corporate class head back to the office, gen Z reckons with a dilemma. How do you appear to look busy enough to appease an ever-present boss?

Thirty years ago, Seinfeld’s George Costanza had a theory: “Always look annoyed.” That way, “people think that you’re busy.” Today, performative productivity goes by a new name.

The billionaire and now Trump adviser grew up amid the collapse of white rule, attending an all-white school and then a more liberal one

With an imposing double-winged redbrick main building, and school songs lifted directly from Harrow’s songbook, Pretoria boys high school is every inch the South African mirror of the English private schools it was founded in 1901 to imitate.

Elon Musk, who has rapidly become one of the most powerful people in US politics, spent his final school years in the 1980s as a day pupil on the lush, tree-filled campus in South Africa’s capital, close to his father’s large detached home in Waterkloof, a wealthy Pretoria suburb shaded by purple jacaranda blossoms in spring.

Investigative journalist called ‘modern-day Sherlock’ by Alexei Navalny on unsettling photos, reprisals and being exiled from Vienna

Christo Grozev was sitting in a New York cafe in February 2023, expecting to fly back to his home in Vienna that evening, when US law enforcement officials delivered some news that changed his life.

“I was told that it’s not a good idea for me to leave back to Austria, because there’s been some intelligence suggesting there’s a red team waiting for you,” said Grozev, a Bulgarian-born investigative journalist who has infuriated the Kremlin by exposing numerous Russian intelligence operatives in recent years.

Mahmoud Khalil was detained by Ice and now being held in Louisiana despite having a green card

• US politics live – latest updates

A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s protests against Israel over the war in Gaza is evidently being detained by US immigration authorities at a facility in Louisiana after his arrest, according to information from officials.

A spokesperson for the US’s homeland security department – as well as the country’s top diplomat – confirmed the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University until this past December who holds permanent US residency..

André Corrêa do Lago suggests US organisations can play a constructive role even if government limits participation

The US will be “central” to solving the climate crisis despite Donald Trump’s withdrawal of government support and cash, the president of the next UN climate summit has said.

André Corrêa do Lago, president-designate of the Cop30 summit for the host country, Brazil, hinted that businesses and other organisations in the US could play a constructive role without the White House.

Middle East nations among those to have paid 27 members of Lords for work such as consultancy and legal advice

• Philip Hammond has made millions from 30 roles while member of Lords

Members of the House of Lords have been paid more than £3m in the last two years by foreign governments including repressive Middle Eastern regimes.

Many of the states paying peers have human rights records that have been widely criticised, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

He outed Norman Cook as Fatboy Slim, imported turntablism and made BPM a staple of dance journalism. Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson remember a pivotal figure

Norman Cook can remember the first time he met James Hamilton very clearly. “He was enormous,” he laughs. “Enormous and very well-spoken, called everyone ‘dear boy’, quite camp. He looked so … unlikely. Not a party animal, not into anything apart from dance music and the vibe and the culture of it all. Not interested in being cool, he was like, ‘it’s OK to be nerdy as long as you really know your music’, but I think he really enjoyed the fact that every club he went to, everyone would know who he was and they were all going to tell him some gossip or give him a record.”

Moreover, Cook remembers their meeting because James Hamilton had caused him a whole world of trouble. It was the 80s, a decade before Cook became Fatboy Slim, superstar DJ and multi-platinum producer of countless dancefloor hits: he was still the bass player in indie band the Housemartins, who had quietly put out his first solo single – “a kind of cut-up rap record called The Finest Ingredients” – under a pseudonym, DJ Megamix, further masking his identity by trying to make the 12in look like an American import.