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Here we go then, as the whistle from referee Stacey Pearson gets us going at a sun-soaked Meadow Park.

It’s all over at the Joie Stadium where Manchester City have seen off the challenge of Aston Villa. With Chelsea v Crystal Palace getting under way at 2.30pm as well, we’ll know all four semi-finalists in a couple of hour’s time – and then we’ll get the draw.

• Latest updates from the 2pm GMT kick-off
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Another veteran writes. “Currently sitting in ED after dislocating my shoulder (not fun for 51 playing vets football),” says Mark Goodchild. “So can these updates be witty and fun please, take my mind off people coming in with rashes and sore fingers.” Ouch!

“Your exchange about xG,” says Richard Hirst, “highlights the pointlessness of the whole thing. Unless the algorithm/pointy heads feed in the difference between Ian Rush and Ronny Rosenthal or between Gordon Banks and Gary Sprake, then there can be no legitimate expectations. Bah, humbug (and yes, I am 71, and therefore by definition a boring old fart).”

• Rugby union updates from Twickenham (3pm GMT)
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Have you got some sympathy for Marcus Smith, the man who held the keys to this England attack but has since been plonked in the sidecar?

“Has England’s attack looked clunky because of Marcus’s performances or because of the philosophy the team is imbued with? I’d say the latter,” says Ugo Monye.

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

Fantasy realms offer a place to escape when our own world is too intense, too boring, too heartbroken

The idea of being present with your grief might evoke virtuous images of letting ashes blow in the wind like dandelion seeds, days spent flipping through family photo albums or crossing the finish line of a charity run in honor of your person. Grief at different times in your journey might look like all those things to you.

Perhaps your life might call for you to find the off switch. Or if there’s not one to be found, to turn the volume up on something else in your life to drown out the noise that all this grappling with death can stir up. Fantasy football. National politics. FBoy Island.

Fast, free and phenomenally effective, push-ups are an unbeatable way to build the muscle you need every day – all the way into old age. Here’s how to master them, even if you’ve previously struggled

If you can’t do push-ups – or if you’re still scarred by being forced to do them as a kid – it can be hard to see the point of them. Sure, they look impressive, especially the “explosive” variety that launches you into the air, but even the standard version is so demanding that armies use it as a punishment: “Drop and give me 50!” Then there’s all the macho, chest-beating rubbish that surrounds them. It is no surprise many of us avoid them, or think we will never master them.

The thing is, we probably can with the right preparation, and we should definitely try. Push-ups are one of the most effective ways to strengthen your upper body, building your chest muscles, your shoulders and your triceps. They will help you open a heavy door, lift your bag into an overhead locker, lever yourself off the floor after a fall. You can do them whenever you have a few minutes at home, at work or on holiday – no need to go to the gym or spend a penny on equipment. Once you’re used to them, they won’t even leave you sweaty.

Conservatives benefit most from donations provided either before or after peers secured their seats

• Cash before honours: the Tory donors made peers who barely speak in Lords

Peers who sat in the House of Lords during the last parliament have given a combined £109m in political donations, almost £50m of which was contributed before they secured their seats.

A group of 20 super-donors – all male – have given more than £1m each.

Nearly £48m came from donors before they joined the Lords, with 91% of that sum going to the Conservatives.

Donations after joining the Lords were split more evenly, with 42% given to the Conservatives, 33% to Labour and 25% to the Lib Dems.

The top three donors were David Sainsbury, with £25m to Labour and the Lib Dems, and the Conservative supporters Anthony Bamford with £10m and Michael Farmer with £9m.

The author always sits in the corner of a room but doesn’t understand why. Do some people crave the solace of the corner more than others? He finds clues to the compulsion in his upbringing – and in art

It can take a surprisingly long time to become conscious of something that has been a feature of one’s life for as long as one can remember. I was 66 before I realised that I had always liked sitting in a corner. This revelation occurred in a restaurant while I was waiting for a friend. I’d got there right on time – I’ve known for more than 40 years that I have a mania for punctuality – and after being shown to a corner table I took what was obviously the best of the two seats on offer: the one in the corner. When I was growing up my mum said that if a man was out with a lady he should always walk curb-side; was there a version of this whereby the gentleman should always let the lady have the corner seat and sit with his back to the interior equivalent – the foot traffic – of the open road, with the attendant risk of being assaulted from behind by the chill blast of air conditioning? If so, that bit of chivalry had been invalidated by my friend’s texting to say she was running an incredible seven minutes late.

As soon as I sat down I was happy. Because I was in a corner. Realising is one thing, but I also want to understand. Where does the satisfaction and pleasure of the corner come from? What does it mean? The following reflections are personal and contingent but, as Diane Arbus once said: “I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things.”

After suffering a violent attack in Buenos Aires, the writer rediscovered her love of dance

Dance can be life-changing – it’s a lesson we learn every year on Strictly Come Dancing, but it bears repeating. Last year’s winner, comedian Chris McCausland, the show’s first blind celebrity, defied expectations and changed people’s attitude to his disability, while 80-year-old presenter Angela Rippon demonstrated in 2023 that age is no barrier to dancing.

Over my two decades as a dance writer, I’ve tried a little of everything – ballet, ballroom, even breaking, but nothing has moved me like the Argentine tango. And I’m not talking about the version you see on Strictly – that’s the choreographed stage tango, with dancers kicking up their legs in performative tricks; few of us ever get to do that – but rather, the social dance style.

Before the next outbreak, we need a serious conversation about how to cope, but first, the more strident, misguided voices must be muted

• Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

Once, we all respectfully listened to what epidemiologists said. We queued up for vaccines, observed distancing lines and confidently asked unmasked passengers on public transport to cover their faces. A tyrannical virus ruled over us, and we did everything in our power to limit its ravages.

Five years on from the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s the masked passenger who is suspect, nobody notices the scuffed distancing lines and trust in vaccines has taken a tumble. A different narrative has invaded the conversation: it wasn’t the virus that ruined our lives, but the response.

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

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

The president, who derided Barack Obama for golfing while in office, even makes money off his Mar-a-Lago weekends

It has become a familiar routine for the Palm Beach county sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, and his deputies. Almost every Tuesday in recent weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration has posted to its website a formal “notice to airmen” advising of upcoming flight restrictions over south Florida, signaling once again to those who must protect him that Donald Trump is on his way to Mar-a-Lago for another weekend of golf.

The president is at his waterfront mansion again this weekend, his sixth visit to Florida and the beloved golf courses he owns since his 20 January inauguration.

At the ​​Academy Awards last weekend, a little Latvian film ​scooped ​the ​prize for best animation​. Here ​its creator Gints Zilbalodis, and ​other Oscar nominees of micro-budget films, ​discuss ​taking risks and challenging the big studios

Flow is a gorgeous animated Noah’s Ark tale-of-sorts that bobs into cinemas like a message in a bottle. The brainchild of Gints Zilbalodis, a 30-year-old Latvian film-maker, it’s about an unnamed house cat cast adrift on a sailboat alongside a capybara and a ring-tailed lemur. The world has flooded; one disaster follows another. The animals on the boat have to help one another or die. Flow contains no human life and not one line of actual dialogue. Despite this, it is eloquent and humane and almost unbearably tense.

Animators, says Zilbalodis, are a little like cats, in that they tend to be self-sufficient, antisocial and have to be coaxed into joining a team. Flow’s production involved Zilbalodis abandoning his desk to oversee a small crew of artists. He had to learn how to delegate, collaborate and risk having his ideas challenged and shot down. The finished film, therefore, is almost a parable of its own making; a comment on all those behind-the-scenes negotiations. It’s a salute to the loners who need to pool their resources, and the endangered beasts on the margins that have to adapt to survive.

This unforgettable tale of two men in late-80s Wales deals with the emotions and repercussions of their intimacy – and is one of the best debut novels in years

Finding a distinctive voice that stands out and speaks clearly is an essential test for a novelist, and it’s one that Welsh artist and writer Anthony Shapland effortlessly passes in his impressive debut. A Room Above a Shop opens in south Wales in the late 1980s, where a young man, B, is feeling excited, about to make a big decision. It will take him away from the sense of provisionality that’s embodied by his council house with its “doors with weightless cardboard interiors and hollow aluminium handles”. He’s going to meet an older man, M, to view the sun from a hill on New Year’s Eve.

But he’s not really going for the sun. “He’ll go to hell for what he wants, but still he climbs.” M and B edge closer to each other, certain and uncertain at the same time, heading towards an intimacy they can’t speak aloud. “The hunger for another body, for a person to know, to see what he knows, to share.” Over time, M, who owns the local hardware shop, gives B a job there and invites him to stay in the room above the shop.

While it might save some politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officials

After Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, was hounded out of his own town hall event last week, Republican party leaders had had enough. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, and Richard Hudson, the chair of the GOP’s fundraising body, decided the embarrassment had to end, and they told Republicans to stop holding the public events.

But while that might save some Republican politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officials, experts said, and prevent people from letting their representatives they are not happy with the increasingly divisive direction of the Trump administration.

• Kansas City wideout faced third-degree felony charge
• Worthy was taken in first round of last year’s draft

Xavier Worthy was released Saturday after a district attorney in Texas declined to pursue charges against the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver following an arrest in which he had been accused of felony domestic violence.

Williamson County district attorney Shawn Dick told the Austin American-Statesman his office had spoken with witnesses and was not accepting the case at this time. He also said Worthy and his lawyers were fully cooperating with the investigation.

Francis pays tribute to ‘miracle of tenderness’ after doctors report slight improvement in his condition

Pope Francis has issued a message from his hospital bed thanking medical staff and volunteers for the “miracle of tenderness” that they offer the sick, as he continues his recovery from pneumonia.

After more than three weeks in hospital, the 88-year-old pontiff is responding well to treatment and has shown a “gradual, slight improvement” in recent days, doctors said.

The actor was likely alone in his house for days, disoriented and too frail to seek help, after death of wife Betsy Arakawa

Actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, who were found dead last month in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were rarely apart from each other, and it’s that closeness that may have led to the circumstances of their deaths.

Arakawa had become Hackman’s caregiver in his later years when he developed Alzheimer’s disease and became incapable of carrying out even the simplest of tasks. She ran the household errands, made sure he remained active and protected him from illnesses.

Sepideh Gholian’s diary of prison life came out four years ago. Next month, she will publish a cookbook to honour her fellow inmates

Maziar Bahari used to feel sceptical when people talked of the way that books can change lives. Such statements always seemed like so much hyperbole to him.

But when Sepideh Gholian, one of Iran’s most famous political prisoners, came into his life, everything changed. “If anyone wants to know why writing matters, her book is the best example,” says Bahari, a London-based journalist, documentary maker and the founder of the news website IranWire.

Halal or haram? Flirt to convert? Why didn’t he call? The comedian and matchmaker discusses a fraught Muslim dating scene and her new Hulu show

Does a hedonistic lifestyle prevent young Muslims from ever finding love? Should Muslims flirt to convert? What’s the right halal to haram ratio?

Like any dating demographic, the rules of romance for Muslims looking to meet other single Muslims are fraught. So Yasmin Elhady is stepping in as their nosy auntie, helping them navigate everything from lifestyles choices, which may include alcohol and sex, to spirituality and attachment styles, on Hulu’s new dating show Muslim Matchmaker.

Under the guise of spiritual leadership, Gregorian Bivolaru allegedly exploited hundreds of people through an international network of yoga camps and retreats. Now he’s awaiting trial, accused of kidnap, trafficking and rape. Here, one of his victims reveals how she broke free

From the outside, Tara Yoga Centre looks like a normal, welcoming yoga studio. A pleasant building in an expensive east London postcode, with another popular branch on an Oxford high street. There are positive, even gushing, Google reviews. The website is professional, with photos of smiling people stretching on matching purple yoga mats. It promises “rapid and integral transformation”, as well as “an invitation to awaken now”.

When Miranda, from Oxford – who has asked to go only by her first name – was in her late 20s, she visited India to practise yoga. It was 2015 and yoga was already a booming industry in the UK. She was working as an English teacher at a London school and gravitated to yoga for the same reason that it’s recommended by health bodies from the World Health Organization to local GPs: healing, exercise and mental wellbeing.

Damage to trees in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene was ‘extraordinary and humbling’ but urban areas face particular problems

The city of Asheville and its surrounding areas have been left vulnerable to floods, fires and extreme heat after Hurricane Helene uprooted thousands of trees that provided shade and protection from storms.

Helene was catastrophic for the region’s trees – in part due to the heavy precursor rainstorm that pounded southern Appalachia for two days straight, drenching the soil before Helene hit, bringing yet more heavy rain and 60-100mph winds.

Waists, heels and lace take centre-stage in Seán McGirr’s ‘modern dandy’ collection, as hourglass tailoring returns

Backstage after his third Paris fashion week show, Dublin-born Seán McGirr, 36, was asked whether he was growing in confidence as the designer of Alexander McQueen. “I guess so?” he replied, with an emphasis on the question mark. “I spend so much time with the incredible atelier. Really getting into it, you know? So, I guess so.”

The clothes spoke with more self-assurance than McGirr took credit for. The setting was the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, built in 1785 as part of the Natural History Museum in Paris, a room catwalk-shaped but Dickens-coded – a tall, narrow alleyway heavy with wooden cabinets, which once showcased scientific curiosities from all over the world. The entrance to the runway was a dazzling glass corridor from which the models appeared before stepping on to the wooden floor, as if emerging from a hall of mirrors.

UK appears to be out of US eyeline for now but it would not be immune to slowdown triggered by rising tariffs

Forget the “Trump put”, as financial analysts called the bet that the US president’s policies would unleash a winning era for the nation’s stock markets. By Friday, the chat was of the “Merz spurt”.

The decision by Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor-in-waiting, to cut a deal on ditching Germany’s debt brake – still to be confirmed by the outgoing parliament – marked a seismic shift.

Operation Nanook, carried out in conjunction with allies, aims to ‘project force’ in a region attracting growing interest from Russia and China

The winter sun hasn’t yet risen above Inuvik’s jagged horizon of black spruce trees, but already, more than 150 nervous soldiers have gathered in a community recreation centre.

Tables clear of their breakfast and fingers fiddle with pens, a giddiness akin to the first day of school settles over the room.

Pioneering architects Alison and Peter Smithson’s no-frills glass box near the ruins of a grand 18th-century folly was an experiment, a second home and a ‘fairy story’ – all of which awaits whoever buys it next…

Upper Lawn is a weekend retreat in Wiltshire built by the late architects Alison and Peter Smithson for themselves and their family and used by them from 1959 to 1982. It’s a place of obvious delight, thanks to a garden enclosed by old stone walls in which it stands, a clump of grand old beech trees just outside, and broad views of sweeping countryside beyond. The house itself is a well-proportioned, thoughtfully detailed, somewhat rustic glass box that makes good use of the transparency and openness that modernist building methods made possible. It’s also a work of less obvious riches, a material diary of building and dwelling, a three-dimensional essay on the passage of time. Now it is being put up for sale by its owners for the past 23 years, the graphic designer Ian Cartlidge and his wife, Jo.

The Smithsons, acknowledged founders of brutalism, never saw themselves as practising a style, but applying an attitude – one that makes evident the ways buildings are made. Upper Lawn is possibly the purest expression of their ideals. Having to satisfy no clients but themselves, it was a “device”, as Peter (1923-2003) called it, “for trying things out on oneself” and for generating ideas they could use on larger projects, such as their headquarters for the Economist in St James’s, London.

The Obama administration veteran’s Chokepoints looks at recent US sanctions policy regarding Iran, Russia and China

Edward Fishman’s first book, Chokepoints, is a study of American economic warfare. Densely reported but fast-moving, the book examines recent US sanctions policy regarding Iran, Russia and China, and how the dollar’s dominance of international financial systems has allowed administrations to pursue political aims.

Fishman’s own service under Barack Obama, at Treasury, Pentagon and State, stands him in good stead. So does teaching at Columbia and being a Washington thinktank fellow.

Chokepoints is out now

Autonomous digital assistants are being developed that can carry out tasks on behalf of the user – including ordering the groceries. But if you don’t keep an eye on them, dinner might not be quite what you expect …

I’m watching artificial intelligence order my groceries. Armed with my shopping list, it types each item into the search bar of a supermarket website, then uses its cursor to click. Watching what appears to be a digital ghost do this usually mundane task is strangely transfixing. “Are you sure it’s not just a person in India?” my husband asks, peering over my shoulder.

I’m trying out Operator, a new AI “agent” from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Made available to UK users last month, it has a similar text interface and conversational tone to ChatGPT, but rather than just answering questions, it can actually do things – provided they involve navigating a web browser.

Wingfield Manor is part-managed by English Heritage, but has fallen into a state of disrepair

At various points in history it has been a prison for Mary, Queen of Scots, a battleground in the English civil war, and the site of one the country’s first flushing toilets.

But despite its storied past, Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire has fallen into disrepair, and members of the public can no longer visit the magnificent ruins on a hilltop in Amber Valley.

Art lovers catch last glimpse of prestigious art collection before gallery shuts for five years for major revamp

Tourists and French visitors alike filled Paris’s landmark Pompidou Centre at the weekend to catch a last glimpse of its prestigious art collection before it closes for five years for a major renovation.

“Five years – it’s long!” exclaimed one guide, Elisa Hervelin, as people around her took photos of many of the museum’s permanent works, among them paintings by Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse and sculptures by Marcel Duchamp.

Salt cod and sweet pears are just the thing to stir happy memories

I have history with salt cod. Some years ago, we were on our way from the south of Italy, where my father is from, to Tuscany, where my parents now live. We had a new baby and a car suspension compromised by a boot packed with wheels of cheese and salami. We took a break on the outskirts of a town not far from Naples, where we planned to order a quick primi and be on our way.

The pastas came and went, and then more cutlery arrived for one member of our party – my father, unable to resist salt cod, sat bashfully awaiting a sneakily ordered secondi for at least another hour.

Ukrainian president backs negotiations, despite Trump’s remarks he finds Russia ‘easier’, and calls for more sanctions after deadly missile attack

Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the frontline.

The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photos on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia.

• India chasing 252 to win after Black Caps make 251-7
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5th over: New Zealand 37-0 (Young 10, Ravindra 25) A stunner from Ravindra: he flicks a ball on off stump through midwicket, along the carpet, for four. Ravi Shastri and Nasser Hussain are gushing on comms. Mohammed Shami responds well, going around the wicket to find the outside edge … but the ball runs away to the boundary.

4th over: New Zealand 26-0 (Young 8, Ravindra 16) Pandya, key in this side as the only bit of seam support for Shami, begins well until dropping short – Ravindra hits a staggering pull over deep midwicket for six. A gorgeous punch through point follows for four, the crowd silent. Another pull, for four more, ends the over. He’s special, this kid.

Even if the supreme court were to resist the president’s onslaught, it has little means to enforce its decisions

When the chief justice of the US supreme court, John Roberts, delivered his bombshell ruling last July granting Donald Trump absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, he laid out his vision of an expansive presidency. The executive, he wrote, should be “vigorous and energetic”, and free to carry out duties “boldly and fearlessly”.

If that sums up Roberts’ ideal occupant of the Oval Office, then he has certainly got what he wants in the 47th president. In his first month back, Trump has vigorously fired tens of thousands of federal workers; energetically ignored congressional statutes; boldly run roughshod over the constitution; and fearlessly unleashed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, in a slash-and-burn campaign against the US government.

Trinidad and Tobago and its neighbors mix music genres in a fast-growing transatlantic artistic exchange

It was the wee hours of carnival on Saturday when the soca legend Machel Montano and Nigerian American Afrobeats superstar Davido took to the stage in Port of Spain. By then, the audience of thousands had already been partying for hours, but when the two launched into their hit song Fling It Up , the crowd erupted.

This year’s Trinidad and Tobago carnival – which included the finals of the country’s steelpan competition and two days of hardcore reveling – highlighted a growing trend of collaboration between artists from Africa and the Caribbean, with musicians exploring the common threads of their cultural heritage at a time when the campaign for reparations has brought about a closer look at historical ties.

Dealing with PTSD, Merlin Hanbury-Tenison retreated to his family farm in Cornwall. There, working to revive a rare fragment of rainforest, he found a way to heal himself

A straight-backed, well-spoken former management consultant and ex-soldier in a wax jacket might not resemble much of a tree wizard, but the man leading me into a steep Cornish valley of gnarled, mossy oaks is called Merlin. He possesses hidden depths. And surfaces. Within minutes of meeting, as we head towards the Mother Tree – a venerable oak of special significance – Merlin Hanbury-Tenison reveals that he recently had a tattoo of the tree etched on his skin. I’m expecting him to roll up a sleeve to reveal a mini-tree outline, but he whips out his phone and shows me a picture: the 39-year-old’s entire back is covered with a spectacular full-colour painting of the oak. “It took 22 hours. I was quite sore,” he says, a little ruefully. “But I was in London afterwards, feeling quite overcome by the city and I had this moment: I’ve got the rainforest with me. Wherever I go, I feel like I’m carrying the forest and its story with me.”

Merlin is keen to tell the remarkable 5,000-year story of this fragment of Atlantic temperate rainforest – a rare habitat found in wet and mild westerly coastal regions and which is under more threat than tropical rainforests. In fact, he is now the custodian of this special, nature-rich landscape filled with ferns, mosses, lichens and fungi. He is slightly more reticent about his own remarkable life. Both stories are well worth telling.

My American accent inspired pity, empathy and utter confusion. I feel the same: it’s as though we’ve entered hospice care

Traveling abroad for the first time since November, I saw pity in the eyes of strangers when they heard my American accent. Pity, empathy, and utter confusion, as if to convey “What the hell is happening to your country?” with a mere glance or a quiet sigh.

Believe me, I’m American and I’m just as confused as you are.

Shanti L Nelson is a writer and photographer

The gadfly-minded abuser has openly threatened Greenland, Ukraine and Europe. He, and America, are the enemy now

I’d say writing comedy about the ever-shifting opinions of Donald Trump, the Speedy Gonzales of on-the-hoof policymaking, is like playing pin the tail on the donkey, but it’s unfair on donkeys. No donkey ever sexually assaulted someone in a department store changing cubicle.

It’s 4.30pm on Wednesday and I’m done. Last week I filed this column on Thursday, and then on Friday DJ Trump and JD Vance beat up Volodymyr Zelenskyy live on TV in the Oval Office to try to grab his minerals, as brazenly as Trump might grab a pussy, like a performatively cruel Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Sopranos suits.

Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July

The DJ and podcaster on taking over the 6 Music breakfast slot, coping with grief, and what he learned working as an intern at MTV

Born in Oldham in 1984, Nick Grimshaw has just taken over as 6 Music’s new breakfast DJ . After stints in PR and TV, his radio career began in 2007 on Radio 1 youth strand Switch; in 2012, he became the station’s breakfast presenter, doing it for six years. He’s also been an X Factor judge, a Gogglebox regular (with his niece, Liv), has written a memoir, Soft Lad, and co-hosts Waitrose’s Dish podcast, with Angela Hartnett, and BBC Sounds podcast Sidetracked, with Annie Mac. Engaged to his dancer partner Meshach Henry, he lives in London and will broadcast live from the 6 Music festival in Greater Manchester, later this month.

Congratulations on the new job. How is breakfast DJing different on 6 Music?
Radio 1 is about being at the zeitgeist of what’s going on in popular culture, so when there’s a change of presenter there, it feels seismic – there’s new imaging, new jingles, a new attack. The remit on 6 is more about the music, giving you classics you love to hear, and new songs we hope you fall in love with, to actually make you want to get up and survive a Tuesday morning.

When it comes to appreciating art, genius really is in the eye of the beholder

Not for the first time, I’m examining a picture my daughter has drawn. It’s an expressive piece, formed from purple marker, but presented in a larger format than her usual efforts. The effect is multiplying; there is a feral freeness in her strokes, a sense of passion at play, of creativity unbridled.

We are at my sister Maeve’s house, where she and her brother have been happily ensconced in a drawing session with their cousins all afternoon. Paper and markers and crayons are scattered in every direction, and each child’s own style is on display. For my son, the endless Minecraft characters and dinosaurs he can now reproduce with frightening speed and accuracy; for his older cousins Nora and Ardal, a menagerie of beautifully rendered characters from their favourite books and games. My daughter, however, has eschewed such figurative works, preferring to rely on pure expression.

More governments seeking to keep millions of people offline amid conflicts, protests and political instability

Digital blackouts reached a record high in 2024 in Africa as more governments sought to keep millions of citizens off the internet than in any other period over the last decade.

A report released by the internet rights group Access Now and #KeepItOn, a coalition of hundreds of civil society organisations worldwide, found there were 21 shutdowns in 15 African countries, surpassing the existing record of 19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021.