Milestone coincides with Mark Carney’s election victory in Canada as he warns ‘America wants our land’

Donald Trump plans to cushion the impact of his tariffs on US carmakers by easing some duties on foreign vehicle parts, his administration has said.

“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in a statement provided by the White House.

In three months Trump has shoved the world’s oldest continuous democracy towards authoritarianism at a pace that tyrants overseas would envy. He has used executive power to take aim at Congress, the law, the media, culture and public health.

Still aggrieved by his 2020 election defeat and 2024 criminal conviction, his regime of retribution has targeted perceived enemies and proved that no grudge is too small.

She started singing in her family’s yurt before a Goethe-Institut residency led her to jazz and life in Munich. The distance from home is ‘bittersweet’ – but both styles, she says, are about trusting your instinct

Growing up in the icy Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, singing was as natural as speech for Enkhjargal Erkhembayar. “Every day after my parents came home from working in the local power factory, they would gather with a group of friends in our yurt to unwind and someone would always begin to sing,” she says. “Soon, we would all join in, singing old folk songs to keep warm and to express ourselves long into the night.”

As Enji, 33-year-old Erkhembayar is now taking this music into international concert halls, having forged a beguiling hybrid of Mongolian folk music with acoustic jazz improvisation. She anchors her performances in the circular-breathing vocal style of Mongolian long song – a folk tradition where syllables are elongated through freeform vocalisations – her delivery tender and delicate, full of yearning emotion.

The Guardian, working with media partners, has tracked down first-hand accounts to reconstruct Viktoriia Roshchyna’s final months

The exchange took place on a lonely forest road in February. Moving along a line of refrigerated lorries, the teams in hazmat suits went about their grim work: preparing the remains of 757 Ukrainian military casualties handed over by Russia for the journey back to Kyiv.

Clipboards in hand, intermediaries from the Red Cross checked their lists. For each body shrouded in white plastic, the Russians had provided a number, a name, a location, sometimes a cause of death. And then, at the very bottom of the last page, a mystery entry: “NM SPAS 757.” The letters were abbreviations, taken to mean “unidentified man” and “extensive damage to the coronary arteries”.

Charity shops won’t take them. Councils incinerate them. Retailers dump them on the global south. We’re running out of ideas on how to deal with our used clothes – and the rag mountain just keeps growing

In February, a threadbare polycotton bedsheet landed on the desk of Simon Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s. A “protest by post”, it had been sent by the Sheffield-based designer, maker and eco activist Wendy Ward. “I purchased this from Sainsbury’s at least 10 years ago,” she wrote in the accompanying letter. “It has served me well. However, I have no sustainable options available for what I should do with it.” Beyond repair, it was too damaged to donate to a charity shop, she explained. She couldn’t compost it as it had been blended with polyester, and she couldn’t repurpose it as cleaning cloths, as, being polycotton, it wasn’t absorbent. And, she added, “I don’t want to put it into a textile recycling collection as the likelihood is that it will be shipped overseas or incinerated and not recycled.” Ward qualified her assertions with links to respected sources – as a sustainable fashion PhD student, she is well informed on such matters.

“The only action I can personally take,” she continued, “is to put it into my general waste bin. I don’t want to do this, as in Sheffield all general waste is incinerated as ‘energy recovery’. This isn’t a sustainable option as such processes have been shown to be as damaging to local air pollution as burning coal.” So, she concluded, “as Sainsbury’s is responsible for designing and manufacturing this product, making decisions to use polycotton with no consideration for what could be done once it reaches the end of its life, I have decided to return it to you. I would really love to hear what you decide to do with it.”

In his first 100 days, the president has taken a sledgehammer to institutions and the constitution. We can only guess what’s next

In nearly 100 days on the job, Donald Trump has outlasted Liz Truss and a fabled head of lettuce. That’s a fact, not an achievement. Like the hapless British prime minister, the 47th president blazes a trail of wreckage. Chaos is his calling card. If, when and how the carnage ends is anyone’s guess.

The US simultaneously wages economic war on its allies and China. Tariffs soar. It’s as if Trump forgot the words “Smoot-Hawley” and “Great Depression”. The president risks higher inflation and a recession for an idealized yesteryear that never quite was. Back on Earth, markets signal potential capital flight and stagflation.

Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992

Amid the debate about trans people on hospital wards we have lost sight of dignity, respect and the horrifying reality of a health service in meltdown

Another morning, another absolutely bananas conversation about transgender people, without any trans people involved, following the supreme court ruling that permits the exclusion from single-sex spaces of anyone not born into that sex. On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Emma Barnett was asking care minister Stephen Kinnock about wards in hospitals, and came out with the immortal line: “Do you think it’s right for trans people to be segregated from other patients, as an interim measure, or for the future?”

Great save, that “for the future” – because if you’re going to interpret this ruling as a requirement to exclude trans people, what does that mean in practice? Trans women on men’s wards, trans men on women’s wards? This delivers dignity and respect to precisely no one; so, sure, “segregate” away, and it would have to be for ever, because it would otherwise be an interim measure on the way to what? The relentless demonisation of trans people has led us straight to a place where every choice is impossible, using words that recall, or should recall, the darkest days of prejudice and hatred.

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.

We spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. It’s time to change that

I have held public meetings all over Vermont and in many parts of the country. At these gatherings I almost always ask a very simple question: is our healthcare system broken? And the answer I always receive is: Yes! The American healthcare system is broken. It is outrageously expensive. It is horrifically cruel.

Today, we spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. According to the most recent data, the United States spends $14,570 per person on healthcare compared with just $5,640 in Japan, $6,023 in the United Kingdom, $6,931 in Australia, $7,013 in Canada and $7,136 in France. And yet, despite our huge expenditures, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

Bernie Sanders is a US senator and a ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.

Our cartoonist on the Dutch manager failing to get the credit he deserves off critics close to home

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Leonardo, who went on the run from his home in Ulverston, covered distance at pace of about 6 metres a day

When Leonardo the tortoise went missing from his home in Cumbria nine months ago, his owners feared the worst.

But the intrepid testudine has been found about a mile from his home in Ulverston – covering the distance at an average pace of 6 metres a day.

Victoria McCloud brings action against UK for infringement of her human rights after ruling on biological sex

Britain’s first transgender judge is taking the UK to the European court of human rights over the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

The UK supreme court ruled earlier this month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and to biological sex, with subsequent guidance from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.

As PSG prepare for Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final, key figures in winger’s career on why he can reach the top

By Get French Football News

“I am Désiré Doué. Kylian is Kylian,” says the Paris Saint-Germain forward, shirking the Mbappé comparisons. However, there is something reminiscent of his compatriot: the explosiveness, the agility, the unbridled self-confidence. Those traits have also earned Doué comparisons with his idol, Neymar, the most expensive jewel of Les Parisiens’ bling-bling era. But Doué isn’t some pastiche of PSG past; he embodies a different ethos entirely.

“Everyone is inspired by a player. For me, it is Neymar,” says Doué. The Brazilian’s panache has certainly been adopted by the Frenchman, as have his celebrations. But for Julien Stéphan, who managed him at Rennes, there is a uniqueness to Doué. “He is already a different player in terms of his personality,” Stéphan says. “Everything is oriented towards performance and reaching the top level. That is the first thing that left a mark on me. What is remarkable about him is his personality and the maturity for his age, and to what extent everything is already aligned in his daily life and his way of working.”

Gagosian, New York

In collaboration with the artist’s daughter, an ambitious new exhibition finds unusual ways to pair better-known pieces with those lesser seen

Hosting a showing of Pablo Picasso’s art isn’t like putting together your normal gallery exhibition. For one thing, gathering the art of the prodigious Spaniard requires a lot more overhead than most shows. As Michael Cary, the resident Picasso expert at Gagosian gallery, told me: “Picasso shows are museumy. Most of them have lots of loans from museums, so these kinds of exhibitions are very costly to put on, with all the insurance and shipping and assorted costs with bringing these works to New York City.”

Yet there are great rewards for exhibiting Picasso. It is a huge prestige boost to any gallery that manages to pull all that art together, and the celebrity factor tends to drive tons of engagement from visitors. Moreover, just selling a single piece can put the whole enterprise in the black.

Oral medications are in development to provide alternative to injectables such as Wegovy that must be kept in fridge

Newly developed weight loss pills could have a big impact on tackling obesity and diabetes in low- and middle-income countries, experts have said.

Weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, that contain the drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide respectively, have become popular in countries including the UK after trials showed they can help people lose more than 10% of their body weight. Medications containing semaglutide and tirzepatide can also be used to help control diabetes.

Seven straight Six Nations titles is impressive but rivals may have been encouraged by the nervous finish against France

There are two contrasting schools of thought after England’s grand-slam clinching win against France on Saturday. According to John Mitchell, the Red Roses’ head coach, his side’s nervy 43-42 victory was ideal preparation for the World Cup this year. Alternatively, as the former England hooker Brian Moore succinctly put it during post-match TV analysis: “If they were playing New Zealand, would they have got away with that?”

Between them Mitchell and Moore know plenty about World Cup disappointment. The former was head coach of the All Blacks side beaten in the semi-finals of the 2003 men’s tournament in Australia. Moore was part of the England team edged out by the Wallabies in the final in 1991. They have spent enough time in top-level rugby to know how abruptly best-laid plans can be foiled and that wanting something badly guarantees you zilch.

From the Premier League to MLS and the NFL, huge stadiums with gargantuan costs are a symptom of elite sport’s unrealistic promises

“Nil satis nisi optimum,” boasts the motto of Everton FC: “Nothing but the best is good enough.” Performances on the pitch over the past few seasons have suggested otherwise (what’s Latin for “Anything to stay up will do?”) but in the form of the sparkling new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which will replace Goodison Park as Everton’s permanent home from the start of next season, the club now has tangible proof that its historic aspiration to excellence is at last being met.

Based on the renderings and early footage of its interior, Everton Stadium (it will be a while before that bland placeholder is draped in the capitalist rococo of the “TeslaDome” or “Open AI’s ChatGPT Arena” or “Palantir Presents Bramley-Moore Dock”) appears to be a pleasingly raked and compact arena that should retain at least some of the raucousness of Everton’s old home. The stands are at the steepest pitch that regulations will allow, sightlines are unobstructed from every seat, and judging from the promotional videos, fans will never be more than 50 metres from either a toilet or a scouse pie, which seems like a key metric of success for any stadium in Liverpool.

Scientists on Union glacier in Antarctica fear the region is reaching a dangerous tipping point

• Words and photographs by James Whitlow Delano

Every time Dr Ricardo Jaña crosses the turbulent seas that separate Chile from Antarctica, it feels like his first time. The glaciologist at the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach) has sailed each year for 12 years through the Drake Passage, where the prevailing westerly winds, unimpeded by any land mass, raise the waters in chaotic waves that lash his boat.

“I feel powerless and resigned to the forces of nature,” says Jaña, who is the research chief at the Union Glacier Joint Scientific Polar Station.

Jaña skis around the glacier making global navigation satellite system measurements

It’s better to buy from a plant shop, but these tips will improve the survival rate of herbs and other supermarket plants

What’s the problem?
Should I buy houseplants from the supermarket? I’ve had mixed results – some have thrived, but others (especially herbs) have barely survived the journey home.

Diagnosis
While supermarkets often offer attractive prices and convenience, plants are treated more like fast-moving stock than living things. They are often displayed under harsh lights and watered inconsistently. Herbs, in particular, are usually grown fast in overcrowded pots and intended for short-term use.

This was a vote against delusions of a ‘51st state’ and economic warfare, rather than an endorsement of the Liberals’ policies

Yesterday, as Canadians went to the polls, the US president, Donald Trump, suggested that if Canada became part of America, they could vote for him instead. But in truth, Canada becoming the 51st state wasn’t a prerequisite for Canadians to vote on Trump. It was Trump who set the stakes of this election anyway, beginning almost as soon as he took office. His threats against Canada, economic and existential, were the backdrop of this campaign. An unexpected crisis on our doorstep.

And now the Liberal party, led by Mark Carney, has won a fourth term in office, a result that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago, before Trump’s unprecedented intervention.

Colin Horgan is a Toronto-based writer and a former speechwriter for Justin Trudeau

We want to hear how people have been affect by the major power outages across Spain and Portugal

Major power outages hit Spain, Portugal and southern France on Monday, affecting millions of people.

Many traffic lights ceased to function, metros and trains were halted, and people struggled to get mobile phone signal.

This irresistible love story braids the personal and the political – from Brexit to who gets to use the spare room as an office

There are not many romantic novels that include Brexit, Boris Johnson’s ICU stay and the “Edstone”. Then again, not many political novels begin with a classic meet-cute. Jessica Stanley’s UK debut, Consider Yourself Kissed, is – to misquote Dorothy L Sayers – either a political story with romantic interludes, or a romance novel with political interludes. It is also the kind of book that, for a certain kind of reader, will immediately become a treasure.

That meet-cute, then: Coralie, a young Australian copywriter, and Adam, a single dad, swap homes for a single night. Adam looks like a shorter, younger Colin Firth; Coralie waits in vain for him to tell her that she looks “like Lizzy Bennet, a known fact at school”. Coralie considers Adam’s neat bookcase of political biographies, including – to her joy – those of Australian politicians. Adam considers Coralie’s piles of “those green-spine books by women”. They fall in love, books-first, fairly instantly. And the reader who knows immediately that battered green spines mean Virago Press, and that what is being implied by Coralie’s careful collection is key to not just her character, but the character of this novel as a whole – that reader will also be irresistibly, hopelessly in love by chapter three. (If this meet-cute does nothing for you, you’re in the wrong place.)

Trump has cut off Ukraine aid, brokered and lost a ceasefire in Gaza and took a sledgehammer to world commerce

• 100 days of Trump

For US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.

In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”.

Trump has wasted no time in trying to remake the US in his image – with results that are sweeping, vengeful and chaotic

• 100 days of Trump

He has blinged it with gold cherubim, gold eagles, gold medallions, gold figurines and gilded rococo mirrors. He has crammed its walls with gold-framed paintings of great men from US history. In 100 days Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into a gilded cage.

The portraits of Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan and other past presidents gaze down from a past that the 47th seems determined to erase. Trump is seeking to remake the US in his image at frightening speed. The shock and awe of his second term has challenged many Americans’ understanding of who they are.

In this warm documentary, three siblings clear out their enormously grand childhood home in Oxfordshire where among the happy memories are those of cruelty

This warm, gentle documentary from Suzanne Raes is about a family – and a family home – that might have interested Nancy Mitford or Wes Anderson. Maybe it takes a non-British film-maker to appreciate such intense and unfashionable Englishness; not eccentric exactly, but wayward and romantic. It is about a trio of middle-aged siblings’ from the Impey family who take on the overpoweringly sad duty of clearing out their enormously grand childhood home in Oxfordshire. The huge medieval manor house Cumnor Place, with its dozens of chimneys, mysterious rooms and staircases was bought by their late mother, the neuroscientist Jane Impey (née Mellanby), with the proceeds of the sale in 1966 of a postcard-sized but hugely valuable painting, Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint George and the Dragon.

Impey died in 2021 and her husband, author and antiquarian Oliver Impey, died in 2005; this left their grownup children with the task of coming to terms with the memory of growing up in what is clearly an extraordinary place. It is magical and chaotic, haunted by these two dominating personalities, full of books, papers, paintings (who knows if there is another one that might be as valuable as the one Mrs Impey sold to buy the place?), huge grounds with a swimming pool, bizarre objects and items everywhere which speak of Oliver Impey’s preoccupation with the image of the dragon.

The president has begun his second term at a whirlwind pace, slashing the government, upending international alliances, challenging the rule of law and ordering mass deportations

Law-abiding migrants sent to foreign prisons. Sweeping tariffs disrupting global markets. Students detained for protest. Violent insurrectionists pardoned. Tens of thousands of federal workers fired. The supreme court ignored.

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have shocked the United States and the world. On the eve of his inauguration, Trump promised the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”, and what followed has been a whirlwind pace of extreme policies and actions that have reshaped the federal government and the US’s role in the world.

• US Open doubles champion admits exceeding limit for an IV infusion
• 27-year-old says he has developed a nervous tic because of the case

Grand slam doubles champion Max Purcell has accepted an 18-month ban for breaching anti-doping rules, with the Australian saying he has developed a nervous tic and anxiety because of the case.

The 27-year-old entered a voluntary provisional suspension in December after admitting to breaching Article 2.2 of the Tennis Anti-Doping Program “relating to the use of a prohibited method”.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

UK grocery inflation has edged up this month, as consumers are hit by rising food prices.

Data provider Kantar has reported that supermarket prices rose by 3.8% per year in the four weeks to April 20, up from 3.5% a month earlier.

“Chocolate confectionery prices rose by 17.4% this period, the fastest of any category, but that didn’t stop the British public treating themselves this Easter. The volume of chocolate eggs sold through supermarket tills still grew by 0.4% on last year, while at the dinner table lamb was the most popular fresh meat joint, followed by beef and pork.

Some households chose to indulge in less seasonal fare as the sun came out and they dusted off the barbecue, with burger sales shooting up by 31% over the last month.”

The way in which regulations are being applied to bioethanol is undermining the commercial viability of our business. We are having constructive discussions with the UK Government to explore regulatory options to improve the position. There is no guarantee that these discussions will be successful, and we will either mothball or close the Vivergo plant if necessary.

Spain and Portugal report power supplies almost back to normal after day of chaos across the Iberian Peninsula

Speaking on Tuesday morning, the operator’s head of services, Eduardo Prieto, said that preliminary investigations meant “we can rule out a cybersecurity incident”.

Prieto added that there was nothing to suggest “there was any kind of intrusion into the Red Eléctric control system”.

A powerful speech in the Bundestag made her famous and has inspired young voters to fight back against the far right

The latest tattoo on Heidi Reichinnek’s lower right arm reads “Angry Woman”. A “present to myself”, she says, after the unexpected return to the German parliament of her party, Die Linke (The Left), in February’s elections.

Months before the vote, it had been widely predicted the far-left party, successor to the east German communists, would be decimated. But the naysayers were proved wrong: Die Linke won nearly 9% of the vote, an increase of almost 4% on the previous election, giving them a healthy 64 seats in the new Bundestag.

Israel’s genuine friends abroad, from governments to Jewish communities, must mobilise to help us end this terrible war

• Ami Ayalon is a former director of Shin Bet and a former commander-in-chief of Israel’s navy

I spent close to 40 years working as a public servant for the state of Israel, including as commander of the navy and head of the Shin Bet, protecting Israel and defending it from external and internal threats. Several weeks ago, along with 17 other colleagues who have also dedicated their lives to Israel’s security and welfare, I made a decision that the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is so under threat that it is not just my responsibility, but obligation, to sound the alarm.

The 18 of us took out a full-page advert in two major Israeli broadsheet papers. In it, we made clear that the very fabric of the state of Israel and the values on which it was founded are being eroded. The truth is that our hostages in Gaza have been abandoned in favour of the government’s messianic ideology and by a prime minister in Benjamin Netanyahu who is desperate to cling to power for his own personal gain. Our government is undermining the democratic functions of the state to shore up and protect its own power. It is forcing us into a perpetual war with no achievable military objectives and which can only result in more loss of life and hatred.

Ami Ayalon is a former director of Israel Security Agency (the Shin Bet) and a former commander-in-chief of Israel’s navy

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.

Real Madrid could not live with his relentlessness but how will Rice fare against João Neves, Fabián Ruiz and Vitinha?

Declan Rice went into Arsenal’s Champions League quarter‑final against Real Madrid knowing it was a chance to go to another level. Rise to the occasion against the kings of Europe and people would see the midfielder in a different light. Remember the boy who was kicked out of Chelsea at 14? The tearful one who travelled across London for a trial at West Ham, went on to captain them to their first trophy in 43 years, and left for £105m? Well, the thing you need to know about him is that he has never been afraid to meet a challenge head on and make people think twice about questioning his talent.

So Rice backed himself when he faced Madrid and left Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga, Luka Modric and Aurélien Tchouaméni in the shade by producing man-of-the-match displays in both legs. He drove Arsenal on, powering them forward, bending the tie to his will. Madrid, the reigning European champions, could not live with his relentlessness. There was hype around Rice’s duel with Bellingham, but it did not live up to much. There was no debate about who dominated the battle between the two leaders of England’s midfield.

Belfast rappers post apology to families of David Amess and Jo Cox after footage emerges of apparent call to kill MPs

Kneecap have apologised to the families of murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox after footage emerged in which the Irish-language rappers purportedly call for politicians to be killed.

Criticism of the group has been mounting – including from Downing Street and the Conservative leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch – since a video emerged from a November 2023 gig appearing to show one person from the group saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

Researchers have compared the monotreme’s traits with the Kryoryctes cadburyi, an ancient water-dwelling creature that lived in Australia more than 100m years ago

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Australia’s burrowing echidna evolved from a water-dwelling ancestor in an “extremely rare” biological event, scientists said in a new study of the peculiar egg-laying mammals.

With powerful digging claws, protective spikes and highly sensitive beaks, echidnas are well suited to a life shuffling through the forest undergrowth. But a team of Australian and international scientists believe many of the echidna’s unusual traits were first developed millions of years ago when its ancestors splashed through the water.

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President will ease some duties on foreign parts in domestically manufactured cars, administration says

• Business live – latest updates

Donald Trump plans to cushion the impact of his tariffs on US carmakers by easing some duties on foreign vehicle parts, his administration has said.

“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in a statement provided by the White House.

Playing host to two FA Cup semi-finals less than 24 hours apart, as well as more than 150,000 fans, means a busy time for staff at Wembley. We take a look at the preparations

It takes a great deal of organisation and a lot of staff, working across a variety of roles, to deliver these two huge fixtures. More than 12,000 staff worked at Wembley over the two days. Many worked both days and through the night to ensure everything was in place.

Matchday mascots wait to greet the players as they arrive at Wembley for the first of the weekend’s FA Cup semi-finals.

Young Serbians are keen to celebrate the Yugoslav era, and offering tours of their country in vintage Yugos is a fun way of doing it

‘Jump in, comrade,” my driver honks and calls out the window of the smallest, boxiest car I’ve ever seen: the communist vintage Yugo. I’m setting off on a tour of Yugoslav-era Belgrade with driver Vojin Žugić from Yugoverse tours, a company in the business of cold-war nostalgia. The car is a time capsule, with its little cube headlights, cranky gear stick and cassette player. Its horn sounds delightfully cheeky, and the smell of diesel and old leather seats is strong. We trundle around the Serbian capital for half a day, taking in communism’s most striking bridges and sites, honking merrily at the many drivers who overtake us. All of them smile and wave, for the Yugo holds fond memories in this part of the world.

Driving around the hippodrome next to Ada Bridge, or under the gravity-defying arch of the experimental brutalist Genex tower, it’s easy to get caught up in Žugić’s nostalgia – even though he’s only 24. “I love the feel of the mechanics, the simple geometry,” he says of the car. We park at the tower and take the lift to the top floor at 140 metres for spectacular city views from its spaceship-like windows. When it was designed in 1977, this was architecture of an imagined socialist utopia. Though the concrete is a bit shabby up close, the tower has kept its photogenic appeal. Just like our Yugo.

The Patrick Melrose author brings his trademark dark wit and flinty compassion to this wide-ranging sequel

Edward St Aubyn’s previous novel, 2021’s Double Blind, was something of a challenge even for his devotees. Leaving aside the usual gripe that he is never quite as compelling without the shield of his authorial alter ego Patrick Melrose, the obsessive nature of the book’s inquiry into bioethics, narcosis, psychotherapy, oncology, venture capitalism and inheritance made too heady a cocktail to be more than sipped, a few pages at a time. I struggled with it until the very last scene, a charity bash where a schizophrenic young man takes his first terrified steps in employment as a waiter and happens upon a woman who, unknown to both, is intimately related to him. Their chance encounter was intensely moving and tautly suspenseful – you felt an immediate longing to know what would befall them.

That longing is now answered in Parallel Lines, which picks up the narrative five years later and reintroduces its cast of interestingly troubled characters. Francis, a botanist pursuing a rewilding project on a Sussex country estate, has now joined an NGO in Ecuador trying to save the Amazonian rainforest. He’s also raising a son with his wife, Olivia, a writer producing a radio series on natural disasters and wondering whether Francis can resist the amorous lures of his philanthropist boss. Olivia’s best friend, Lucy, is in the throes of treatment for a brain tumour, the traumatic reverberations from which have forced her boyfriend – wild man plutocrat and drug fiend Hunter – to seek refuge with “compassion burnout” at an Italian monastery, where he’s hosted by a gentle abbot, Guido.

Sweet documentary about Sean DeLear, of LA punk band Glue, who never landed a major record deal but was famous among celebrities

That’s Sean DeLear, pronounced like “chandelier”, born Anthony Robertson in 1964. You probably haven’t heard of him: DeLear was the lead singer of a band called Glue on the underground post-punk scene in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 90s. On stage, he performed in drag, singing punk songs dressed like a 1960s go-do dancer in cute little dresses. The band never landed a major record deal, and DeLear died from cancer in 2017. This sweet, scrappy documentary has been lovingly put together by his friend Markus Zizenbacher.

It’s not the first posthumous attempt at recognition for DeLear. In 2023, his teenage diary, written in 1979, was published under the title I Could Not Believe It. Extracts of this queer black memoir are read here on the voiceover – and they are glorious. Even aged 14 years old, living with his Christian parents in a conservative suburb of Los Angeles, DeLear was proudly, joyfully gay, though this was before the terror of Aids. The interviews in the film with his mum and brother, an evangelical pastor, feel a little bit thin; his family accepted his sexuality, they say, but not much else.

A poetic new exhibition of dreamlike black and white images captures the country’s contemplative beauty, from lonely Torii gates to sprawling temple trees

1,000 tonnes of dog waste hits the ground daily in the UK – how can we reduce its environmental impact? Scientists weigh up the best options, from flicking it into the undergrowth to reusing newspapers

When Laura Young got Cooper the cavapoo in 2020, she knew that single-use plastic poo bags weren’t going to cut it. “Having a dog is a lifestyle extra,” says the 28-year-old environmental scientist. “I was aware that I wanted to try not having a negative environmental impact.” But where to start? The shelves seemed to be divided into two camps: bog-standard, single-use plastic wisps, and shiny, expensive bags brandishing eco buzzwords. “I was conscious that compostable bags weren’t the solution,” says Young. “But initially that’s all I could find and so that’s what I bought.”

Often marketed as biodegradable, compostable or made from an alternative material such as cornstarch, they promise a more environmentally friendly option than single-use plastic. (Plastic poo bags, frequently made from low-density polyethylene, will sweat in landfill for thousands of years, breaking down into harmful microplastics and releasing climate-warming methane as they go.)

Exclusive: Documents indicate government gave embassy contact details while arms factory protest was investigated

The UK government shared contact details of counter-terrorism police and prosecutors with the Israeli embassy during an investigation into protests at an arms factory, official documents suggest, raising concerns about foreign interference.

An email was sent on 9 September last year by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, with the subject matter “CPS/SO15 [Crown Prosecution Service/counterterrorism police] contact details”.