Sometimes a branch grows so low and bushy that it blocks access to my room. I diligently cut it back

• More summer essentials

In the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now – in my lifespan, 47 years – it has grown into a forest. When I was a child, we called my parent’s plantings “the garden”, implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it “the forest”. A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon – cutting back, cleaning up debris – but only when it made incursions into our actual house.

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• Spurs heavily criticised after thrashing at Liverpool
• Postecoglou’s side travel to Aston Villa in FA Cup

Ange Postecoglou believes he could “destroy” some of his young players’ careers if they are exposed to the spotlight too early given the criticism levelled at his Tottenham side after their 4-0 defeat by Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg.

The Tottenham head coach is expecting to field a similar starting lineup against Aston Villa in the FA Cup fourth round on Sunday to the team that were thrashed 4-0 at Anfield as he waits for the return of several key players from injury.

The match that was billed as a battle of the superheroes ended without a winner, all set up for a sequel instead. Kylian Mbappé and Julián Álvarez had looked out from Madrid’s front pages on the morning of the city derby, the media turning Marvel Comic, and they will probably be there on Sunday too but this isn’t over. The man they liken to a Mutant Turtle and the striker they call The Spider scored one each as another derby finished 1-1, leaving these two great rivals first and second in La Liga, a single point between them, left to fight another day.

Between them Mbappé and Álvarez had already scored 37 goals in their debut seasons; on a night that took a while to get going but did eventually become a real contest if certainly not a classic, they took that to 39. Atlético started in the ascendency then Real were revived.

• Veteran to play after presumptive season-ending injury
• Graham, 36, had decisive strip-sack in Super Bowl LII

Philadelphia Eagles star defensive end Brandon Graham was cleared to return from a torn triceps suffered 11 weeks ago and will play in the Super Bowl against Kansas City.

The 36-year-old Graham was thought to be done for the season after he was injured in a 24 Noember game against the Los Angeles Rams.

What a difference a week has made for Fabian Hürzeler. There were plenty of Brighton supporters who would have justifiably viewed this fixture with some trepidation given their abject performance in the record 7-0 Premier League defeat at Nottingham Forest. But despite falling behind to a dreadful error from Bart Verbruggen when he spilled Cole Palmer’s cross into his own net after just five minutes, a rousing comeback inspired by Georginio Rutter, their record signing, made it a night to remember against opponents that are not the most popular in these parts given recent history between the two clubs.

There were wild celebrations when Kaoru Mitoma – who was the subject of a £61m bid from Al-Nassr during the transfer window – put Brighton ahead midway through the second half after Rutter had equalised with a clever header, with Hürzeler enjoying his moment of redemption as his side recorded their first win here since beating Manchester City at the start of November.

When Steph Vizard hooked up with Hugh during a trip back home, it was like living inside a romantic comedy. But could they have a happy ending?

• Find more stories from The moment I knew series here

I met Hugh in 2012 during my summer of fun – when nothing serious was meant to happen. I was 23 and had just finished my literature degree in England. I had returned home to Melbourne for three months to apply for the work visa I needed to start my first grown-up job in London.

I’d been a student journalist so thought I’d keep myself busy with some writing. I was asked by a local lifestyle publication to write an article on the best dumplings in Melbourne. The only problem was, I hadn’t lived in Melbourne for five years and had never eaten dumplings.

• Cooney suffered intracranial haemorrhage at Ulster Hall
• ‘He was a much loved son, brother and partner’

The Irish boxer John Cooney has died, his promoter Mark Dunlop has announced, a week after he was injured in a fight in Belfast.

A statement on Monday said that the 28-year-old was in intensive care following his defeat to the Welshman Nathan Howells at the Ulster Hall last Saturday. The bout was stopped in the ninth round and Cooney had subsequently undergone surgery after it was discovered he had an intracranial haemorrhage. The bout was his first defence of the Celtic super-featherweight title.

Shootouts are the least bad way the game has found to settle drawn matches, but they should be a last resort

So Uefa is considering doing away with extra time, at least in the knockout stage of the Champions League, another grand old tradition swept away as the arc of history bends towards the generation of revenue for the already wealthy. This is the way of the world and so it is the way of football, all that is great and glorious about the game desecrated to produce more content to be sold.

But first, a caveat, an increasingly necessary one as middle age hurtles by. Is this about age? Are our responses to extra time conditioned by our formative years? My first FA Cup final was 1982, a drab game enlivened by Glenn Hoddle putting Tottenham ahead after 110 minutes and Terry Fenwick heading an equaliser five minutes later (Spurs then won the replay). The Schumacher-Battiston World Cup semi-final in Seville came six weeks later: at 90 minutes it was 1-1, by the 98th minute it was 3-1 to France and by the end it was 3-3 and West Germany had won on penalties. The following year’s FA Cup final also went to extra time as Manchester United drew with Brighton; although there were no goals in the added 30 minutes, there was the drama of Gordon Smith’s late miss.

Whether it’s infertility, to save a career or pure altruism, is there ever a reason that can morally justify surrogacy?

An online row last week underlines something we all know but which many prefer to ignore. There is something not right about surrogacy. The furore started with an Instagram post by Lily Collins: a picture of her new daughter, Tove, in a little basket, under which the Emily in Paris actor expressed “endless gratitude for our incredible surrogate”. Reaction split along predictable lines – those in favour of surrogacy, and those against.

What was striking was that it also split along another fissure: Collins’s possible motives. It was OK, some felt, to use a surrogate if you have infertility problems. But not in order to keep your figure, help your career, or because pregnancy is taxing and you are rich enough to outsource it.

There is a talent pool of brilliant Americans who should be invited to study here, to work in our hospitals, construction sites and research labs

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Move fast and break things was Mark Zuckerberg’s guiding principle, and for many years Facebook’s motto. In the process of dispensing junk food for the mind, his company and others broke the back of institutions, industries and regulations around the world.

Now Donald Trump is demonstrating what happens when this motto becomes the guiding principle of the most powerful office in the world. As old rules are trashed, norms disregarded, scores settled, jobs lost, funding stopped, allies goaded and deals made. No one can know for sure what will happen next.

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This weekend Google Maps turns 20 – and Stephen Ma is writing himself and his friends back into its origin story

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Stephen Ma has every right to claim bragging rights for helping to hatch the world’s most popular online mapping platform. Instead, for the past two decades Ma, one of the four co-founders of Google Maps, has buried himself in a big black hole of anonymity. But not because of any shame or regret – it’s just that he isn’t one to blow his own trumpet.

“I tend to be a very private person,” Ma says in a rare interview. “I find the limelight uncomfortable.”

• England 26-25 France
• England roar back in thrilling clash at Allianz Stadium

Another Saturday night at the movies with a stunningly different conclusion. England have been involved in a few thrillers in recent times but this one could not have had a more dramatic plot twist. The collective roar which greeted the decisive 79th-minute try by the replacement Elliot Daly, bursting unstoppably on to a short ball from his young fly-half Fin Smith, must almost have rattled the windows in Calais.

Previously it had seemed England were about to lose another tight game when France’s precocious winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey went over for his second try six minutes from time. With barely 90 seconds left, though, England had one last chance and, in a set strike move off a lineout, Smith and Daly combined to clinch a result that transforms their team’s Six Nations prospects.

Release of three Israeli hostages and 183 Palestinian prisoners comes as next phase of ceasefire set to begin

Israel and Hamas completed their fifth hostage-prisoner swap under a fragile Gaza ceasefire deal, with the frail, disoriented appearance of the three freed Israelis sparking dismay among their relatives.

Out of the 183 inmates released by Israel in return, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said seven required hospitalisation, decrying “brutality” and mistreatment in jail.

Natalia Arroyo enjoys her first win as head coach with a 3-2 victory over Brighton and feels their fortunes are looking up

While the new Aston Villa head coach Natalia Arroyo’s days working as a football journalist for the Catalan daily newspaper Ara are well behind her, she clearly still knows what runs through a sports writer’s mind, as she reflected on her side’s 3-2 victory over Brighton: “It wasn’t that difficult for the journalists, probably. It’s always more difficult when somebody scores in the last minute, those are the craziest ones to write!”

Indeed, thanks to Villa taking a 3-1 lead inside 55 minutes, this five-goal thriller of a Women’s FA Cup tie did not present late drama but it was no less significant, as it delivered the Spanish coach her first victory in charge of Villa in her second game, and could provide her team with a platform to build on for the remainder of the season.

Trump’s attendance at the Super Bowl on Sunday in New Orleans stands to offer more evidence that the sporting climate has shifted from resistance to acceptance

As a 2016 presidential candidate and White House occupant, Donald Trump lambasted NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem in protest at civil rights abuses. Now, set to become the first incumbent president to attend a Super Bowl, it appears that the US’s most popular sport is genuflecting before him.

Trump will reportedly attend the clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in New Orleans as a guest of Gayle Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints. A pre-recorded interview conducted by a Fox News anchor will also air during the pre-game show of an event that last year was viewed by more than 123m Americans. And while he watches the action, Trump will not have to stare at a message inspired by the kind of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies that he is intent on bulldozing.

Demonstrators at the proposed site included Hongkongers who fear it could be used to illegally detain dissenters

Large crowds gathered outside the proposed site of a new Chinese “mega-embassy” in London on Saturday, as politicians and protesters expressed concerns it could be used to “control” dissidents.

More than 1,000 people congregated outside the Royal Mint Court, the former headquarters of the UK’s coin maker, near the Tower of London. The site could soon be turned into a Chinese embassy.

Meta accounts of those affected flooded with ads for casinos and betting sites

We didn’t click ‘consent’ on any gambling website. So how did Facebook know where we’d been?

Gambling companies are covertly tracking visitors to their websites and sending their data to Facebook’s parent company without consent in an apparent breach of data protection laws.

The information is then being used by Facebook’s owner, Meta, to profile people as gamblers and flood them with ads for casinos and betting sites, the Observer can reveal. A hidden tracking tool embedded in dozens of UK gambling websites has been extracting visitors’ data – including details of the webpages they view and the buttons they click – and sharing it with the social media company.

Would be chancellor Friederich Merz breaks post-war convention of no political deals with far right

On a foggy, frigid morning in Saxony, far-right MP René Bochmann could not believe his party’s luck in the final days of the German election campaign, with all eyes on Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Since conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz signalled a taboo-breaking openness to AfD support for his hardline course on border policy, voters visiting Bochmann’s information stands in small towns such as Schkeuditz have had one issue at the front of their minds: immigration.

The US president said he wanted Palestinians to leave, in an announcement widely condemned as ethnic cleansing

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Inquiry uncovered health problems in neighborhood near Monterrey-area plant that processes US hazardous waste

Mexican environmental regulators say they have discovered 30,000 tons of improperly stored material with “hazardous characteristics” in the yard of a Mexican plant that is recycling toxic waste shipped from the US.

The authorities ordered “urgent measures” to get the materials into proper storage as part of inspections they are conducting in response to an investigation from the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, which raised questions about contamination around the plant, located in the Monterrey metro area.

The author and journalist on ‘modern London corruption’ and his Orwell prize-shortlisted novel Caledonian Road, how he helped Jonathan Franzen and the last book he gave as a gift

Journalist, novelist and cafe owner Andrew O’Hagan, 56, grew up in Ayrshire and lives in London, the setting for his most recent book, Caledonian Road, now out in paperback. Shortlisted for last year’s Orwell prize for political fiction, it follows 60 characters over 650 pages and has been praised as an “extremely readable how-we-live-now novel” (Margaret Drabble) that “captures London in all its messy, multicultural glory” (Yotam Ottolenghi) and “instantly feels like a box set waiting to happen” (the Standard).

Tell us how Caledonian Road came about.
I was writing a lot of big stories for the London Review of Books – working with Julian Assange [on a memoir that Assange disavowed, an experience O’Hagan reported on], with another guy who claimed to have invented bitcoin, with people who were reinventing themselves on the net – and a lot of that reporting came together in the character of Campbell Flynn, a kind of falling man at the centre of modern London corruption. I got some insight into the British aristocracy’s relationship with dirty Russian money, and following that money led to street gangs, migrant traffickers, fashion brands and high-street businessmen. In my head, a kind of Dickens and Zola energy was pulsing. The research became huge: I was at the polo in Windsor one minute, with the queen attending, or with rap gangs or inside Leicester sweatshop factories the next. I was sort of amazed at the real-life connections and wanted to give inner life to them.

Let’s see if AI can take the faff – the actual writing bit – out of penning a Shakespearean thriller with a Scottish villain

The monsters of artificial intelligence are coming for you. They will cast you out on the street like a Dickensian mill owner and laugh as they do it – at least they will if you work in any sort of creative industry. We’re told this again and again, and the warnings might be right – America’s Authors Guild has even just announced plans for a trust mark to be stuck on book covers to show that the book was written by a human.

Well, I’m going to turn the tables. My publisher is anxiously waiting for me to finish my new novel, a sequel to my previous thriller The Turnglass. So let’s see if AI can take the faff – the actual writing bit – out of creative writing.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

Family of Daphne Caruana Galizia condemn delays in bringing Yorgen Fenech to trial after arrest in 2019

A millionaire businessman charged with the 2017 murder of the Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been released on bail with no date set for his trial.

Yorgen Fenech, the heir to a casino and hotels group, was arrested and charged with complicity to kill Caruana Galizia in November 2019. However, delays in bringing the case before a jury have allowed his lawyers to successfully argue for bail.

New book reveals that Pacific islands inhabitants helped European scientists identify hundreds of plant species

In 1769, nearly nine months after setting sail with Capt James Cook on his first voyage to the Pacific, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander ­disembarked from HMS Endeavour and made history as the first European botanists to explore the island of Tahiti.

Once on land, they faced a mammoth task: how to describe and name, for the benefit of other European naturalists, the hundreds of plants they were encountering for the first time.

Competing interests and rivalries between regional powers threaten hopes of change after the fall of Bashar al-Assad

Previously undisclosed Pentagon plans for withdrawing 2,000 US troops from eastern Syria received scant attention last week, overshadowed by Donald Trump’s surreal Gaza pantomime. The troops help local Syrian Kurdish forces contain the residual threat posed by Islamic State jihadists, 9,000 of whom are held in prison camps. If the US leaves, the fear is of a mass breakout and, over time, a reviving IS terrorist threat to Europe, Britain and the west.

The mooted American pullout is one piece in a complex Syrian jigsaw puzzle that is challenging friends and foes alike following December’s toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship. Unlike Trump, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – competing for influence – want to get more involved in Syria, not less. Europe wants a stable, democratic state to which refugees can safely return. Israel, aggressively paranoid, sees only potential threats, while vanquished Russia and Iran seek to regain a foothold.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

On 10 January, as fires raged across Los Angeles, local portrait artist Asher Bingham made an offer via an Instagram reel: “ To anyone that has lost a home in the #LAfires I will draw [it] for free.” She had already drawn the house of a close friend that had burned down; by offering her services more widely, she hoped to help others grieve for what they’d lost. She wasn’t prepared for the response. So many people sent in photos – 1,300 and counting – that she had to recruit volunteers to keep up with demand. For Bingham, it’s all about the small details: wind chimes, potted plants. “Anywhere I can see people put love into their home, I draw it,” she says. “I’m trying to recreate a memory that only lives in their minds of the beautiful time they lived there.”

• See more on instagram.com/asherbingham.fineart

Kerr’s mother, Dawn Searle, and her partner Andrew were found dead at their rural home in south-west France on Thursday

A former Hollyoaks actor has said he is “grieving the tragic loss” of his mother after she was found dead alongside her husband in France.

The bodies of Andrew Searle, a retired fraud investigator, and his wife, Dawn, a project manager, were discovered at about 12.30pm on Thursday at their home in the village of Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The couple had moved to south-west France from Scotland about 10 years ago.

The Centenary Building in Salford was described as ‘dynamic and sophisticated’ when it won the first Stirling prize. Now it is to be knocked down as part of a huge development

• Rowan Moore’s view

When judges awarded Salford’s Centenary Building the inaugural Stirling prize in 1996, they declared it “a dynamic, modern and sophisticated exercise in steel, glass and concrete”.

The recognition as Britain’s best new building from the Royal Institute of British Architects cemented Salford as an emblem of emerging northern architecture.

Senescent cells power the body’s ageing process, and scientists are developing treatments to annihilate them

At St Jude children’s research hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, an unusual clinical trial is under way that, if successful, could have wider ramifications for the vast field of age-related chronic diseases. At first glance, childhood cancer survivors may seem like an unusual population in which to study ageing, but as Greg Armstrong, principal investigator of St Jude’s Childhood Cancer Survivorship Study, explains, we now know they represent a group of individuals who are ageing unusually quickly.

For while modern chemotherapies and radiotherapies have become increasingly efficient at curing childhood cancers, this comes at a great cost, owing to the corrosive impact of such treatment on these children’s bodies, something that becomes more apparent when they reach middle age.

(Leiter)
The Berlin-based threesome’s groove-heavy debut is all too short

There is much more to Berlin than techno. Over the past five years, the German capital has seen a thriving jazz scene flourish in its clubs, spanning the soulful vocals of Douniah, the sweeping compositions of Zacharias S Falkenberg and the electronic productions of Abasé. Leading the pack is keyboardist Moses Yoofee and his groove-forward trio, who have garnered a European following thanks to their intricate and often explosive live shows, which draw on everything from Robert Glasper-style hip-hop fusion to lightning-speed drum breaks and modal melody.

On the 13 tracks of their debut album, the do not disappoint. Drummer Noah Fürbringer fires on all cylinders, driving a heavy groove on the synth-focused Push and playing in frenetic double time on Bond, while bassist Roman Klobe-Barangă provides a steady foundation, peaking on the thundering distortions of Deep, and Yoofee manages to find pockets of soulful melody throughout. The group present a remarkably confident sound, but with most tracks running at under three minutes, MYT can feel too tightly wound and brief. You’re left longing for the trio to cut loose and push the boundaries of their evident skill.

The Siċaŋġu Nation in South Dakota is building community and climate resilience through traditional foods

On a Wednesday summer evening on the Rosebud Reservation, members of the Siċaŋġu Nation arrange 12 tables to form a U in the parking lot of a South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. The tables at the Siċaŋġu Harvest Market are laden with homemade foods for sale: tortillas, cooked beans, pickles and fresh-squeezed lemonade.

The market is one of many ways the non-profit increases access to traditional and healthful foods that also happen to come with a low climate impact. The Lakota, of which Siċaŋġu is one of seven nations, were traditionally hunters and gatherers, but today, the Siċaŋġu Co non-profit is building on both new and old traditions to fulfill its mission.

BJP won most seats in territory that includes the capital for first time in more than 25 years, ousting AA party

Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party has won the most seats in the high-stakes state legislature election in India’s federal territory for the first time in more than a quarter-century.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) won 47 seats in the 70-member assembly that includes India’s capital, New Delhi, ousting the Aam Aadmi party (AAP), which has ruled it since 2015. The AAP won 22 seats. The outcome of the race in one remaining seat had yet to be declared, according to the Election Commission of India.

Leaders from across Africa call for immediate ceasefire at cross-party summit in Tanzania

A summit of regional leaders has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire within five days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, and the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, joined a summit in Tanzania on Saturday, where African leaders said they were deeply concerned by the crisis.

US president also offers asylum to Afrikaners and criticises law that allows land seizures without compensation in some circumstances

The US president, Donald Trump, has signed an executive order to cut financial assistance to South Africa, accusing the country’s government of “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners and offering them asylum in the US.

The order criticised a law signed by the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, last month that allows for land to be expropriated with “nil compensation” in limited circumstances.

Marguerite, who survived diphtheria and torture by the Gestapo, is the focus of Musée d’Art Moderne showcase

Throughout his career, Henri Matisse would return repeatedly to paint his favourite model: his illegitimate daughter, Marguerite.

In what is considered his most famous portrait, she is depicted holding a black cat. In others, she is reading, relaxing and sleeping, most often with a high-neck blouse, a ribbon or a scarf covering a tracheotomy scar.

The US singer-songwriter on the Cure, The Bear, neighbourhood restaurants and spiritual solace

Born in New Jersey in 1981, singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has released seven studio albums, including 2019’s acclaimed Remind Me Tomorrow. In the mid-2010s she took some time away from music, studying to become a mental health therapist and starring in film and TV roles including The OA and Twin Peaks: The Return. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, musician Zeke Hutchins, and their son. Her latest album, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, named after her new band, is out now on Jagjaguwar; they tour the UK in March.

Founded in Chicago by two friends in their 40s, Earlybirds Club gives people an opportunity to let loose without interfering with responsibilities

The signature tequila cocktail is called a Hot Flash. The playlist skews towards nostalgic hits from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. Cis men are politely asked to just stay away.

Founded in Chicago by two friends in their 40s, the Earlybirds Club is a party designed for women and trans and non-binary people who have jobs and responsibilities that start early in the morning – but who still want a chance to dance crazily with their friends.

Rita and Philip Potter ‘never gave up hope’ after their labrador Daisy was stolen by suspected backyard breeders

A couple whose dog was stolen more than seven years ago have said it was a “dream come true” when the RSPCA reunited them.

Rita and Philip Potter, from Norfolk, said they “never gave up hope on her being found one day” after thieves stole their labrador Daisy from their garden in November 2017.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from Russia’s network on Saturday, ending energy dependency and aiding security

The three Baltic states have disconnected their electricity systems from Russia’s power grid as part of a plan designed to integrate the countries more closely with the EU and boost security.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the IPS/UPS joint network on Saturday. Subject to last-minute tests, they will synchronise with the EU’s grid at 12.00 GMT on Sunday after operating on their own in the interim.

Ten people died in the crash on Thursday, and authorities are still trying to piece together why the aircraft went down

Just hours after finding the remains of 10 people in western Alaska from one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years, authorities raced to recover their bodies and the wreckage of the small commuter plane from unstable sea ice before expected high winds and snow.

“The conditions out there are dynamic, so we’ve got to do it safely in the fastest way we can,” Jim West, chief of the Nome volunteer fire department, said on Friday.