• Live updates from day one of the Cheltenham festival
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In a powerful interview, Donald McRae talked to leading jockey Harry Skelton as he prepared for this year’s festival.

Preview: 2.40 ULTIMA HANDICAP CHASE, 3M 1F

President sacks Alusine Kanneh after video of him with Johannes Leijdekkers, one of Europe’s most wanted

Sierra Leone’s president has fired the head of the immigration service days after footage was published showing him receiving a birthday gift from a fugitive Dutch drug kingpin.

The footage of Alusine Kanneh being handed a present by Johannes Leijdekkers – which has not been independently verified by the Guardian – was published by the investigative outlet Follow the Money and the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad on Friday.

Senior officials meet in Jeddah aiming to build confidence after Trump cut support for Ukraine in war with Russia

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Senior US and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia for crunch talks focused on ending the war with Russia, aiming to build confidence despite a personal crisis between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although the two presidents will be absent, Zelenskyy has sent his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, while Trump dispatched his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to Jeddah.

Cameron is pulling out all the stops to promote Avatar: Fire and Ash, by telling the world that it reduced Suzy Amis Cameron to tears for four hours

Can you feel it? If you’re paying enough attention, and you have your spirit tuned to the frequencies of the planet, then you’ll be able to sense that the old Avatar machinery is starting to crank up again. The third instalment of the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set for release in December. And this means that James Cameron finds himself saddled with a familiar task; in just nine months he has to try and motivate people to see a film from a franchise that they’ve already forgotten about twice before now.

The bad news is that these are incredibly expensive films to make. So expensive, in fact, that Cameron previously stated that the second film needed to be the third highest grossing movie of all time just to break even. And, just to compound things, that film was such an incomprehensible mishmash of confused mythology, nondescript motivation and vague characterisation that this one needs to be something really special to get bums on seats.

• Woman claims player was involved in assault
• Beckham says he was not in California at time

NFL star Odell Beckham Jr has denied any wrongdoing after saying he was named in a lawsuit that alleges Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs initiated a gang-rape against a woman in California.

In an initial lawsuit filed in October, Ashley Parham claims she was lured to an apartment in Orinda, California, and assaulted by multiple men. She alleges the assault was watched by Combs, who she had claimed had played a part in the killing of Tupac Shakur. An amended lawsuit filed on Friday is understood to have named former Beckham as one of her attackers.

• Hannah Jones says she considered quitting last year
• WRU allegedly threatened pulling out of World Cup

The Wales captain, Hannah Jones, says what the squad went through amid a contract controversy last year was “disgraceful” and made her contemplate international retirement.

Allegations emerged in October that the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) had threatened to withdraw from the 2025 Rugby World Cup if the women’s team did not sign new contracts on offer. Jones says the negotiations last year were difficult “from day one” and that communication with the WRU was a “big issue”, with some of her players “becoming unwell physically and mentally” because of the process.

Westchester county has laws limiting cooperation, but Ice has accessed trove of data that holds license plate readers

As Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its crackdown on undocumented immigrants to the US, advocates are increasingly worried immigration agents will turn to surveillance technology to round up those targeted for deportation, even in so-called “sanctuary cities” that limit the ways local law enforcement can cooperate with immigration officials.

That’s because US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (Ice) in past years has gained access to troves of data from sanctuary cities that could aid its raids and enforcement actions. Among that information is data from the vast network of license plate readers active across the US, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

As mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, Randall Woodfin is trying to tackle a murder epidemic. He’s all too familiar with the pain of losing a loved one to violence

It was past midnight on 27 May 2012 when Randall Woodfin, an early-career public prosecutor, received a call about his older brother. “Ralph’s been shot,” he was told, abruptly. “You need to come.”

He jumped in a car, and raced across the city of Birmingham, Alabama, running every red light along the way. He made it to the police perimeter. It was a block and a half from his grandmother’s old home, at a public-housing project in the city’s south, where the two brothers – eight years apart – had spent much of their childhood.

Oscar Jégou’s fine Dublin performance brings into focus the potential impact of forwards who can play anywhere

The Six Nations title is still theoretically on the line entering the final weekend. But, let’s be honest, if France display the same power against Scotland as they did against Ireland in Dublin there is only one probable outcome. Even minus the unfortunate Antoine Dupont, now facing a long lay-off because of damaged knee ligaments, France have frightening reserves of strength and depth.

How good, for example, was the young back-row forward Oscar Jégou after he arrived off the bench to replace the centre Pierre-Louis Barassi? The 21-year-old from La Rochelle did not simply make a try-scoring impact; he made every specialist centre in the competition shift uneasily in their seats. Why bother with a subtle, ball-playing 12 or 13 when you have a 6ft 3in Superman who makes old-school positional orthodoxies redundant?

This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

From The White Lotus to Industry, hedonism is everywhere on TV at the moment. Actors, and the ‘wellbeing facilitators’ tasked with keeping them safe, reveal the trick to acting under the influence

“Iam not a big drinker, I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke,” says Sagar Radia, best known as the ruthless, potty-mouthed trader Rishi Ramdani in the HBO/BBC banking saga Industry. “But when friends and family watch, they’re like: ‘You look like you do know what you’re doing.’”

Nowhere was this more the case than in season three’s White Mischief, an episode focused entirely on the character’s grim descent into gambling addiction, inflamed by booze and cocaine. Previously described by a colleague as “the ghost of Margaret Thatcher in a handsome Asian kid”, here Rishi starts to look more like a disgraced Tory MP in the 90s, as he binges on shots and coke in a seedy casino. At first he’s euphoric – dancing like a drunk uncle at a wedding – but soon his behaviour becomes erratic, his movements shaky and impaired, his legs unsteady. Despite rising debts, he gambles away all he has, and even seems to consider pawning his wedding ring for a few, long seconds. The next morning, we see him stagger into work on a comedown – bloody cuts and bruises all over his face.

Our cartoonist on two larger than life presidents coming together to discuss Coldplay, a portal to hell and much more

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• David’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now

US currency has lost all the gains it enjoyed since Trump won election as global shares are sold off

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European markets have risen and the euro gained against the dollar to the highest level since the US election, as the greenback sank against other leading currencies amid mounting “Trumpcession” fears.

The euro rose sharply, breaking above $1.09 for the first time since early November, when Donald Trump’s election victory sent the dollar soaring. That “Trump trade” has unwound, as new US tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, and the threat of more levies against European trading partners, have triggered fears of an American recession.

The movement unites ‘family values’ conservatives and tech bro rightwingers. Will this incoherent coalition hold?

In his first address to the United States after becoming vice-president, JD Vance stood on stage and proclaimed: “I want more babies in the United States of America.” Weeks later, Donald Trump signed an executive order pledging support for in vitro fertilization, recognizing “the importance of family formation and that our nation’s public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children”.

In late January, a Department of Transportation memo directed the agency to prioritize projects that “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average”. And last week, it was reported that Elon Musk, the unelected head of the government-demolishing “department of governmental efficiency” and a man who has said that the “collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far”, had become a father of 14.

The Guardianas del Conchalito ignored chants of ‘get back to your kitchens’, determined to protect the environment and create a sustainable shellfish operation

Ahead of the small boat, as it bobs on the waters near La Paz in the Mexican state of Baja California, is a long line of old plastic bottles strung together on top of the waves. Underneath them are as many as 100,000 oysters, waiting to be sold to the upmarket hotels down the coast.

Cheli Mendez, who oversees the project, pulls a shell up from below, cuts it open with a knife, and gives me the contents to try: a plump, tasty oyster. Mendez is one of a group known as Guardianas del Conchalito, or guardians of the shells, and theirs is the first oyster-growing business in the region run entirely by women, she says.

The women dug a channel with shovels and pickaxes to allow seawater to reach the mangroves

Fears grow over fuel leak as investigations begin into cause of cargo ship’s collision with tanker off Yorkshire coast

Leaking fuel from the collision between a cargo ship and oil tanker in the North Sea would have a “devastating” impact on marine life, an expert has warned, as investigations began into the cause of the crash.

Fires continued to burn onboard both vessels 24 hours after the Stena Immaculate tanker was struck off the coast of Yorkshire on Monday morning. A search for a missing crew member was called off overnight.

Notorious for his drug-fuelled literary experiments and the fact that he shot his partner, beat writer Burroughs also made art inspired by the climate crisis

One day 51 years ago, out in the wilds of New Mexico, Kathelin Gray asked a question of her hero, the writer and artist William S Burroughs, whom she had just met. “William, I have read your books and I must know: what is your attitude to women?”

The question had been eating away at Gray for the best part of a decade. As a teenage babysitter, she read Burroughs’ novel The Naked Lunch and was blown away by it. “The very yuckiness of the imagery, the critique of predatory capitalism, the degrading sex and violence – all that spoke to me,” she says.

Seven health professionals who worked with football legend in days before his death face trial in Argentina

Seven medical professionals who tended to the Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona during his final days are going on trial accused of criminal negligence over his death.

Maradona died on 25 November 2020 aged 60 while recovering from brain surgery for a blood clot, after decades battling cocaine and alcohol addictions.

Hassan Diab, who maintains innocence in 1980 Paris attack, fears extradition fight as rightwing media seizes on his case

Until recently, Hassan Diab’s life in Ottawa had begun to settle back into a quiet suburban routine: spending his days teaching sociology part time at Carleton University, taking his two youngest children to the park to play football, or going for an afternoon swim.

It had been well over a year since he was convicted in absentia for carrying out a deadly bomb attack on a Paris synagogue in 1980, and the media attention had largely quieted down. He was trying to move on with his life.

Twenty-five years after her debut album, the star is still loving life as a ‘continual working girl’. She talks about menopause, mastectomy and her bizarre failure to crack her native America

After Anastacia had a double mastectomy in 2013, she began to joke about it. “It was wild to look at myself. I said: ‘My boobs look like this!’” She peers at me with her eyes screwed shut. We are sharing a sofa in a photographic studio in London. I’m not sure what she means, but she belts out, “No eyeballs!” (Typically, nipples come towards the end of reconstructive surgery.) Even in hospital, “I would make jokes and be funny,” she says. “I’m lucky.” Lucky isn’t how many people would feel after getting breast cancer for the second time, but preventive surgery was her choice and, she says, “I can accept it when I find humour in it. Being able to take the mick out of myself and my toxic titties! – See! There you go! – it takes the sting out of it.”

Anastacia has always been like this, she says. Back when she used to break her older sister Shawn’s dolls, “cos the arms didn’t go in a certain direction”, her mum tried to punish her. She gave Shawn brand new dolls, and Anastacia the broken ones. But Anastacia was in her element. “I played hospital. I was like ‘Whee! Whee!’” she says, bouncing her hands, busily working imaginary dolls. She made them have a great time despite their mutilations, scribbled-on faces and brutally cut hair. “Which is constantly how my life is. I was born with that in me, and it amplified as I got older and realised: ‘Oh yeah, that’s a better way to live than worrying about things.’”

Our refusal to reckon with the dark side of Purim reflects a refusal to reckon with the dark side of ourselves

Later this month, on the holiday of Purim, Jewish people will dress in silly costumes, eat triangular pastries, and listen to an ancient story about attempted genocide. What we notice, and don’t notice, about that story says a lot about what we notice, and don’t notice, in Israel and Palestine.

The tale comes from the book of Esther. It begins with a dissolute Persian king. He hosts a banquet, gets drunk, orders his queen to “display her beauty” to the revelers, and, when she refuses, banishes her from the throne. As her replacement he chooses Esther, a beautiful young maiden who, unbeknownst to him, is a Jew. Then he makes a calamitous personnel decision: he selects Haman, a pathological Jew-hater, to be his right-hand man. The stage is now set for an epic clash.

Revealed: rhetoric by interim US attorney for DC includes falsely claiming Kamala Harris ‘self-identified’ as Black

Trump’s appointee as interim US attorney for the District of Columbia and nominee to hold the position permanently, Ed Martin, has repeatedly made derogatory and racist comments in past social media posts and columns.

Martin’s rhetoric includes falsely claiming Kamala Harris is “self-identified” as Black and calling her the new Rachel Dolezal, claiming Planned Parenthood targets Black communities for abortions, claiming that the supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor made racist comments to white males about her own identity and invoking false claims about Dr Martin Luther King Jr to affirm support for the Republican party and the Tea Party movement.

Migratory insects covered 4.2 acres in Mexican forests this winter but number remains far below long-term average

The population of eastern monarch butterflies – who migrate from Canada and the US to Mexico during the winter – has nearly doubled over the last year, according to a recent report commissioned in Mexico, generating optimism among nature preservationists.

The modest growth in numbers for the orange-and-black butterflies follows years of ongoing conservation efforts – and perhaps provides a sliver of optimism after otherwise discouraging long-term trends for the species.

• Officials say plan will create 92,000 jobs and 17,000 homes
• Architect Norman Foster puts ‘vast umbrella’ over ground

Manchester United have confirmed their intention to build a new 100,000-capacity stadium in the Old Trafford area, leaving their home of 115 years.

The news was celebrated by United as a potential driving force for renewal in the area as they revealed plans which, officials claim, will create as many as 92,000 jobs and 17,000 new homes in Greater Manchester.

The former president faces an investigation by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity over the alleged extrajudicial killing of thousands of drug suspects

Soon after his election in 2016, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte launched his so-called “war on drugs”, a bloody campaign in which as many as 30,000 civilians were killed.

Most of the victims were men from poor, urban areas, who were gunned down in the streets or their homes by police, or in some cases, unidentified assailants.

US and Ukraine officials meet in Jeddah after Moscow authorities said one person was killed in a drone attack on the Russian capital

Ukraine wants peace and is ready to negotiate to end the war, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as he entered talks with US counterparts in Saudi Arabia.

“We are ready to do everything to achieve peace,” Ukrainian presidency chief of staff Andriy Yermak told reporters, AFP reported.

American Civil Liberties Union decries attack on free speech after immigration authorities arrest Mahmoud Khalil

Polls have opened in Greenland for early parliamentary elections Tuesday as US President Donald Trump seeks control of the strategic Arctic island.

The self-governing region of Denmark is home to 56,000 people, most from Indigenous Inuit backgrounds, and occupies a strategic North Atlantic location. It also contains rare earth minerals key to driving the global economy, AP reported.

Today’s Jeddah summit will be crucial. But so too is the need for European unity to counter Russian aggression now, and deter it in the future

• Andriy Yermak is head of the Ukrainian presidential office
• Zelenskyy’s chief of staff urges Europe to keep financial pressure on Russia

As I arrive in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a ceasefire in the three-year war the Russian Federation has waged on my country has never seemed closer. Recent talks between Ukraine and its partners have given rise to great hope that the Ukrainian people will very soon return to the peaceful lives that they enjoyed before the war began in 2014 or the extreme escalation since 2022.

I believe that together with strong American leadership we can reach this goal. The prospect of peace – long hoped for – forces every Ukrainian to reflect on our shared gratitude, concern and determination. Gratitude for the support and confidence that we have received in recent years, concern for the future of Europe and determination to reaffirm Ukraine’s democratic, European convictions. No one wants the war to end more than our people – but a peace must be found that is both just and sustainable.

Andriy Yermak is head of the Ukrainian presidential office

She was a master archivist of lies, enabling my stepfather’s crimes against me and my siblings. Despite everything, I needed to believe she loved me

The church, though aware of our abuser’s crimes, had kept Father Francis Melfe employed and in our lives throughout our childhoods.

At Saint Patrick’s, where he was a priest, we were told to call him Father Melfe. At home, we were to call him dad.

The belief that technology will usher in a golden age for humanity is in vogue once more with billionaires. But can the left offer its own vision for the future?

Techno-optimism – the belief that technology will usher in a golden age for humanity – is in vogue once more.

In 2022, a clutch of pseudonymous San Francisco artificial intelligence (AI) scenesters published a Substack post entitled “Effective Accelerationism”, which argued for maximum acceleration of technological advancement. The 10-point manifesto, which proclaimed that “the next evolution of consciousness, creating unthinkable next-generation lifeforms and silicon-based awareness” was imminent, quickly went viral, as did follow-up posts.

Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna pays tribute to the cinematographer killed in a freak on-set accident

Anyone who loved Halyna Hutchins expected her to become a name. At 42, Hutchins had worked her way from photojournalism to cinematography, building an impressive portfolio that was beginning to court attention in Hollywood. Her work alone attracted Joel Souza, a writer-director, who hired her in 2021 to be his director of photography for a new western called Rust, to film in Santa Fe that October. “She absolutely would have become a household name as a cinematographer,” said Rachel Mason, one of Hutchins’s close friends and the director of the new Hulu documentary Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna. “Anyone who knew her had absolutely no doubt she was going to be on the highest level, winning awards, becoming well-known for that.”

Hutchins didn’t get the chance. Instead, she became a household name in death, after a weapon actor Alec Baldwin was holding accidentally discharged during filming, which unbeknownst to him, was loaded with live rounds. A bullet from the prop revolver passed through Hutchins, who was leaning in close directing the camera, and lodged in Souza’s shoulder. Souza was hospitalized and recovered.

The anarchic Barça goalkeeper may not be an idealised athlete but he is writing an extraordinary closing chapter to his career

Accounts differ on just how late Iñaki Peña was to that team meeting in Jeddah. Some reports say two minutes; some go as high as four. Either way, Hansi Flick is nothing if not a coach of fine margins, and by such fine margins was Peña summarily dropped for the Supercopa semi‑final against Athletic Club in January. His replacement: Barcelona’s third goalkeeper, a 34‑year‑old smoker by the name of Wojciech Szczesny.

I think it matters that Szczesny smokes. Not because smoking is cool, which any eye-rolling Gen Z will tell you is no longer actually true, but because there is the idea here of competing motivations: of instant versus delayed gratification, of compromise in a sport that brooks none. The bible of modern football reads: your body is your work. Hone it. Optimise every detail. Squeeze out every last drop of capital it has to offer. Szczesny responds by blowing a cloud of Marlboro Light right in your passive face.

I used to struggle with living alone, but now I’m thriving. Should I give it all up?

My boyfriend and I are in our late 50s. He never married and doesn’t have kids, while I am divorced with two grown-up children. We each have our own place near to each other but he very much wants us to move in together. I am reluctant and feel guilty about it because I, too, was initially keen to do so. It was very difficult to find myself alone after my marriage broke up – I felt like a cast-off, a failure, and feared I wouldn’t cope financially. Now, 15 years down the line, I am very content because not only have I coped, I have thrived. I have a happy social life, enjoy my work and am part of a community. I also love – need even – my own space and time alone. Although my partner and I enjoy our time together, some issues that I can live with for a couple of evenings a week would be a burden to me on a 24/7 basis. For instance, he has a big dog who sleeps in the bedroom and interrupts every cuddle, making intimacy awkward and rare. I have tried talking about these issues, but he won’t engage. What can I do? I fear I’ll lose him if I tell him I don’t want us to move in together.

Why would you even consider jeopardising the self-sufficient life you have worked hard to achieve? You already know it would not work. It sounds as though he would have to step up a long way to be worthy of sharing your life, so you could tell him that – without making any promises. He is going to try to cajole you because he wants an easy life on his own terms, but what would you get out of it? Sometimes people think the availability of regular sex in a shared location is highly desirable, but it can come at far too high a price. You know what you want. Stay strong. Say a quiet “no” as one does to a whiny child, and even be prepared to lose him with a great plan B.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site.

Dried fruit three ways: a celebratory stunner of fish pilaf with green tahini sauce, a spicy apricot chicken traybake for weeknight show-offs, and a heady date and ginger cake for pudding

As well as condiments, legumes, rice and pasta, I always have dried fruit in my pantry. While they’re great to nibble on, mixed with toasted nuts and seeds for a moreish trail mix, at this time of year, when pickings are sparse, they bring a concentrated, jammy decadence to savoury and sweet things alike. Raisins, sultanas, currants and barberries add a sweet surprise to rice dishes, and to fillings for filo pies or spicy sausage rolls; apricots, prunes and figs bring a honeyed sweetness to roast meat, while sticky dates add a sublime fudginess to cakes.

After Trump’s vow to take over Greenland, which is part of the kingdom of Denmark, pro-independence voices are growing louder. Ukrainian photographer Evgeny Maloletka visited the strategically important Arctic island to check the mood before elections on Tuesday

Economic uncertainty and polarisation are a potent cocktail that extremist politicians such as Cǎlin Georgescu thrive on

In a forest outside Bucharest, a woman cradled her infant in one arm while raising the other in a Nazi salute. She was one of about 70 people who gathered on 30 November last year to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a leader of Romania’s interwar fascist Legionary Movement and head of its paramilitary wing, the Iron Guard.

Codreanu and his ally, Ion Antonescu – Romania’s virulently antisemitic wartime dictator – were central figures in the country’s Holocaust history. Codreanu was assassinated in 1938 and Antonescu was executed as a war criminal in 1946.

• Test coach may be afforded time off before the Ashes
• Andrew Flintoff currently with England Lions

Andrew Flintoff has been earmarked as a potential caretaker coach of the England senior white-ball teams this year if Brendon McCullum requires a break before the Ashes.

The England Test coach took over the national limited-overs sides two months ago in a new dual role but, given the gruelling schedule, McCullum may be given the option to miss some series, particularly as his family remain based in New Zealand.

Hardluck lecturer Dinklage stands to receive a mansion from rich widow Shirley MacLaine in underpowered comedy

This low-key oddity has the potential for some proper horsepower given the odd but intriguing casting of Peter Dinklage and Shirley MacLaine, but it never manages to build up much comic or dramatic speed – much like Dinklage’s electric scooter, his main mode of transport throughout. The film feels ill-considered somehow, like one of the half-sketched fantasies that Dinklage’s protagonist, a university lecturer named Phil, often indulges in, such as imagining a pair of identical twins (Rebecca Olson) are his sister wives ready to minister to his every need. There’s a reason why it’s best not to know other people’s dreams.

Phil’s other big desire is to own a proper home instead of the shabby condo he rents near the lesser-level Massachusetts college where he teaches cultural economics. One day Phil finds a deal that looks too good to be true. If he buys a granny flat inside the sprawling mansion occupied by eccentric widow Astrid (Shirley MacLaine on sparky form) as a live-in, he will inherit the full $5m spread when she dies. Advised to go for it his by his greasy friend/realtor Dell (Matt Dillon), Phil scrapes together every bit of cash he can and moves in. There are a number of baffling strings attached, of course, including hangers-on who may or may not be Astrid’s children; one of whom, Maggie (Kimberly Quinn), is a lawyer specialising in probate, so she’s naturally keeping a close eye on things. Nevertheless, like nearly every woman in the film, she eventually falls into bed with him, unable to resist that rumbling voice and languid charisma.

A woman is confined to the attic by her mother in a thrillingly told novel that revels in squalor

Heather Parry’s Carrion Crow sets out its stall magnificently from the off, throwing the reader right into the deep end of a claustrophobic gothic grotesque. It catalogues one young woman’s steady descent into incarcerated madness, becoming, as it goes, exponentially unsettling and increasingly stomach-churning.

Marguerite Périgord lives a stone’s throw from the “shit-stink” of the River Thames in Victorian London with her family in a crumbling house that once was grand, but is no more. She has been confined to the attic, the sinister opening lines convey, “for the sake of her wellbeing. That’s what her mother had said.”

Athiak Dau Riak was traditionally married for a record bride price last year, despite her mother’s insistence that she was only 14, which led to threats of reprisals

The mother of an alleged child bride has left a safe house in South Sudan to travel to be with her daughter after discovering the teenager is pregnant.

Deborah Kuir Yach made headlines last year when she opposed a competition for her daughter’s hand in marriage, insisting that her child Athiak Dau Riak was only 14. Fear of reprisals from her husband and family forced her to leave her home in the capital, Juba, and go into hiding.

There are plenty of ways to save money when travelling. Follow these tips and the world is your oyster, for longer

From staying with locals and sleeping in a hammock to clubbing together with other travellers, there are plenty of ways to save money while backpacking.

It might be 21 years since my first backpacking adventure – a 15-month trip that included travelling overland across parts of south-east Asia and working in Sydney – but fast forward to today, and here I am with an even larger backpack and making my way from Mexico to New York by bus for six months.