Martin Freeman does his best to lift this three-parter, but it feels like Enid Blyton – made for an international market that thinks Paddington Bear is holding the queen’s hand in heaven

‘Tis the season, just, for your annual Agatha Christie. In recent years, the adaptations have been infused with the grief and instability of the postwar backdrop against which they all exist, and been given rich, dark, adult inflections by Sarah Phelps for the BBC.

The latest, however, is for Netflix by Chris Chibnall and we are back in the world of period costume, clipped vowels and dialogue infused with nothing but plot, designed to get the puzzle pieces recited into the right position for the next bit then the next bit then the solve – this time at the end of three very hour-long episodes.

Margaret says her daughter didn’t pay the airport charge, so it’s on her. Georgie says this cock up is all her mum’s doing. You decide who got them into this fine mess
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We dropped Georgia off in her own car and she didn’t pay the drop-off fee, so the fine is hers

I didn’t know you had to pay for drop-off. Mum knew and didn’t tell me, so she should help pay

Critics and curators are reframing great artists, from Gentileschi to Soutine, to fit with modern ethical narratives. But this ignores the glorious ambivalence of their creations

One rainy afternoon last winter, sitting under a blanket with a cup of tea, I found myself Googling paintings by Chaïm Soutine. It’s a pastime I’ve indulged ever since visiting an exhibition of his portraits of hotel staff on the French Riviera during the 1920s – paintings that combine such a mixture of tenderness and debasement that it’s as if his brush is kissing and beating his subjects at the same time.

I flicked through images of hopelessly innocent cooks and bellboys, with complexions the colour of raw sausage and ears that look as if they have been brutally yanked. And as I did, I came across a review of the very show where I had first encountered Soutine’s works. Ah, I thought, looking forward to luxuriating in literature about his particular genius for kindly sadism.

Real Madrid and Manchester United put their faith in familiarity but the lesson of Ferguson is dynastic greatness rests not in tradition but ditching principles

“It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood.” Francis Crick, molecular biologist

“This club is about winning, winning and winning again. It’s in our DNA.” Álvaro Arbeloa

The EU must be more robust in order to stem the tide of international disorder, or it risks falling to authoritarian imperialism

Donald Trump is threatening to take over Greenland, the territory of a Nato ally, possibly by military force, as Vladimir Putin is trying to take over Ukraine. Even if he doesn’t actually do it, this is a new era: a post-western world of illiberal international disorder.

The task now for liberal democracies in general, and Europe in particular, is twofold: to see this world as it is and to work out what the hell we’re going to do about it.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist

• Six-time champion returns for opening ceremony

• World No 1 to face Adam Walton in first round

Roger Federer hailed the dominance of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner as the six-time champion returned to the Australian Open for the first time since his retirement in 2022.

Federer, who last travelled to Australia in 2020, will headline the inaugural opening ceremony with a doubles exhibition match alongside Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt.

Today’s rumours are air-tight

David Moyes is a keen admirer of massive centre-forwards, so it should not come as a surprise that Everton want to bring in all 6ft 2in of Youssef En-Nesyri from Fenerbahce. An initial loan offer, with a £20m option, is on the table for the Moroccan, leaving a decision to made in Istanbul. There is a chance Callum Wilson could swap West Ham for Merseyside to join up with Moyes, too.

Nottingham Forest are also interested in En-Nesyri but their main striking target is Olympiakos’ veteran forward, Mehdi Taremi. Sean Dyche was hoping for a quiet month but needs must and that could include sending Oleksandr Zinchenko back to Arsenal after a very forgettable loan spell at the City Ground.

From amused texts to awkward introductions, the run-up to the release of awards-tipped Shaker biopic The Testament of Ann Lee has been a strange experience

The messages started over a year ago. “The title cracked me up,” my film-loving friend Matt texted me, along with a tweet announcing a new musical called Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried and directed by Mona Fastvold, about an 18th-century leader of the Shaker movement. Why would such innocuous film news delight him so much? Well, because my name is Ann Lee too.

“Yes! Fame at last!” I replied. I’ve answered in a similar vein to all the messages since then from other friends eager to break the news to me that my name was getting top billing in a prestigious Hollywood film. And I was genuinely amused and excited; for most of my life Ann Lee had seemed the beigest of names. Lee, or Li as it’s also spelled, is one of the most common surnames in the world and shared by more than 100 million people in Asia. I was sure there were many many Ann Lees out there. But when you get a film title dedicated to it? Now that’s when you start to feel your name might be special after all.

A fascinating deep dive into the discovery, use and implications of a revolutionary new treatment

Few aspects of being human have generated more judgment, scorn and condemnation than a person’s size, shape and weight – particularly if you happen to be female. As late as 2022, the Times’s columnist Matthew Parris published a column headlined “Fat shaming is the only way to beat the obesity crisis” in which he attributed Britain’s “losing battle with fat” to society’s failure to goad and stigmatise the overweight into finally, shamefacedly, eating less. The tendency to equate excess weight with poor character (and thinness with grit and self-control) treats obesity as a moral as well as physical failing – less a disease than a lifestyle choice.

One of the great strengths of Reuters journalist Aimee Donnellan’s first book is its insistence on framing the discovery of the new weight-loss drugs within the fraught social and cultural context of beauty norms, body image and health. For those who need them, weekly injections of Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro can be revolutionary. Yet for every person with diabetes or obesity taking the drugs to improve their health, others – neither obese nor diabetic – are obtaining them to get “beach-body” ready, fit into smaller dresses, or attain the slender aesthetic social media demands of them. Small wonder some commentators have likened the injections to “an eating disorder in a pen”.

For the first time in the UK, the photographer’s magnum opus is going on display in its entirety – introducing new viewers to New York’s edgy downtown scene and a generation lost to Aids. Here, she looks back at the ‘fearlessness and wildness’ of her life and times

Dipping in the freezing waters of Scandinavia, Greenland and Finland was life-changing – and full of warmth thanks to saunas, hot springs and like-minded people

Warm lights shine from the houses that dot the wintry slopes of Mount Fløyen and a cold wind blows as I stand in a swimming costume trying to talk myself into joining my friends in Bergen harbour. Stars are already appearing in the inky mid-afternoon sky.

Life-changing moments are easy to spot in retrospect, but at the time they can feel so ordinary. I didn’t know then that my wintry swim would lead to a year of adventures. I was a hair’s breadth from wimping out, but then I was in. The water was so cold it burned. I gasped for breath. The bones in my feet ached with cold as I trod water, legs frantic under the dark surface. It lasted under a minute and then we were out.

Mathilde Aurier’s 65 Rue d’Aubagne looks at the 2018 house collapse in Marseille and how the city healed itself through ‘love and solidarity’

“It was a turning point for Marseille, and it spotlighted the politics of France’s second city. There’s still a lot of things that have been left unsaid, things that aren’t pretty. But it set things into motion too.”

Playwright and director Mathilde Aurier is talking about what has been referred to as France’s Grenfell moment: the collapse of two dilapidated houses on 5 November 2018 on the Rue d’Aubagne in the Noailles neighbourhood, just a few hundred metres from the magnificent Old Port. Eight people were killed, causing a national outcry about urban inequality and social deprivation.

A social media content moderator becomes obsessed with a violent video in this restrained, unsettling workplace thriller starring Lili Reinhart

Here is a workplace drama, of sorts. Like many people, Daisy (Lili Reinhart) works a desk job using a computer. Unlike most people, fainting at work is a rite of passage; she moderates videos on social media that have been reported for violating the terms of service. That means watching everything from horrible porn to horrible politics to horrible accidents and everything in between, a non-stop diet of videos with titles such as “fetus in blender” or “strangulation but she doesn’t die”.

Her boss takes her to task for deleting a graphic video showing a suicide, which supposedly has news value and should have been left up. But the tipping point for Daisy is a really nasty video titled “nailed it”, which shows violence and cruelty that she believes is real and non-consensual. So begins a low-key quest to track down the perpetrator, though she is far from sure what she will do when she finds them. Nor is she altogether sure why it is this particular video, of all the trash and hatred washing over her, day in, day out, that has inspired her obsession. Her colleagues and boss shrug off her concerns: this video is nothing special.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

It feels as if this really is the start of a new era for the Thursday news quiz. Not only was there last week’s announcement that Willow had retired from her role as the official dog of the Guardian Thursday news quiz, but this week we have a new visual tone, courtesy of a set of lovely, whimsical illustrations by Anaïs Mims. Rest assured, not much else has changed. It is still 15 questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge, and it is still packed every week with the same hackneyed old in-jokes. There are no prizes, but tell us how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 230

• Robertson leaves role two years into four-year contract

• Decision to part ways comes after internal NZR review

Scott Robertson has stepped down as New Zealand coach following an internal review of the All Blacks’ performance.

Speculation over Robertson’s future has mounted since December amid reports of friction between senior players and All Blacks staff.

Exclusive: US is less feared by its traditional adversaries, while its allies feel ever more distant, results show

A year after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a global survey suggests much of the world believes his nation-first, “Make America Great Again” approach is instead helping to make China great again.

The 21-country survey for the influential European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank also found that under Trump, the US is less feared by its traditional adversaries, while its allies – particularly in Europe – feel ever more distant.

• Trump defeats Ding Junhui, Robertson sinks Wakelin

• All eight first-round games ended in same scoreline

The world No 1 Judd Trump made three centuries as he saw off Ding Junhui 6-2 to move into the quarter-finals of the Masters, before Neil Robertson defeated Chris Wakelin by the same score – meaning that all eight first-round matches at London’s Alexandra Palace finished 6-2.

After edging a lengthy first frame, Trump – who was not able to lift any silverware in 2025 – crafted a fine break of 116 which was followed with a break of 69 to open up an early 3-0 lead.

It’s damning that Chelsea, despite spending vast sums on their squad, are still reliant on such a skittish goalkeeper

Martín Zubimendi had as much time as he wanted against the team forever building for tomorrow. Taking a flick from Viktor Gyökeres in his stride, the Arsenal midfielder danced into the area, weighed up whether to shoot and thought better of it. Instead there was a sauntering move away from Andrey Santos, a feint to throw Wesley Fofana and then, only when Zubimendi had decided he was ready, was there the calm to beat Robert Sánchez and leave Chelsea with a mountain to climb in this Carabao Cup semi-final.

It was swaggering from Zubimendi. In that moment it was Arsenal demonstrating why they are so far ahead of this occasionally thrilling but often baffling Chelsea side, who have faint hope of a turnaround after battling to a defeat that was 3-2 going on 4-0. Mikel Arteta’s side had, after all, done the dirty stuff. The first goal came from a corner, the second from Sánchez’s error, but the third was different. It was silky from Arsenal, the ball pinging between Mikel Merino and Gyökeres before Zubimendi applied the graceful finishing touch, and a reminder that they are top of the Premier League because they perform both sides of the game.

• Indian government yet to issue visas to spinners

• Ahmed and Rashid unlikely to fly to Sri Lanka this week

England have had a setback in their preparations for the T20 World Cup next month with the Indian government yet to issue visas to the spinners Adil Rashid and Rehan Ahmed.

The delay means both players, who have Pakistani heritage, are unlikely to travel with the rest of the squad this weekend for six warm-up games against Sri Lanka, and it is unclear when they will join their teammates.

Sting and his former bandmates go to the high court over a royalties dispute this week – the latest chapter in the song’s remarkably fractious story

This week’s high court hearings between Sting and his former bandmates in the Police, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are the latest chapter in the life of a song whose negative energy seems to have seeped out into real life.

Every Breath You Take is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Copeland and Summers against Sting, alleging that he owes them royalties linked to their contributions to the hugely popular song, particularly from streaming earnings, estimated at $2m (£1.5m) in total. Sting’s legal team have countered that previous agreements between him and his bandmates regarding their royalties from the song do not include streaming revenue – and argued in pre-trial documents that the pair may have been “substantially overpaid”. In the hearing’s opening day, it was revealed that since the lawsuit was filed, Sting has paid them $870,000 (£647,000) to redress what his lawyer called “certain admitted historic underpayments”. But there are still plenty of future potential earnings up for debate.

Prime minister wants cabinet ministers to move on from policies that have tanked with voters

Before the 2015 UK election, the Australian political expert Lynton Crosby devised a strategy for the Tories that became known as “scraping the barnacles off the boat” – shedding unpopular policies that hindered the party’s electoral appeal.

Instead, the party focused on core issues it believed would help win over floating voters: the economy, welfare, the strength of David Cameron (and weakness of Ed Miliband) and immigration. Everything else was deprioritised and the Conservatives stuck to their messages rigidly. It worked.

Sustainable fresh scallops are best treated simply, and this herby, garlicky breadcrumb topping ticks all the right boxes

As a kid growing up in West Bay, Dorset, I used to sit on the harbour wall and watch the small trawlers coming in with their catch. My friend Mark’s dad’s boat, along with all the others, would be stacked high with sacks of queenies that they’d dredged up only hours before, and Mark’s mum would pack us off to school with a tub each of queen scallop meat doused in Sarson’s vinegar and white pepper, to eat later as a playground snack. At the time, I thought nothing of it, but, looking back now, I realise quite what a luxurious schoolday treat this was.

These days, however, our local scallop fishermen don’t fish for queenies much any more, because the time it takes to shuck and clean them is more or less the same as that for larger king scallops, so they’re no longer financially viable; also, instead of all those trawlers that Lyme Bay had in the past, it’s now mostly divers who fish more sustainably for king scallops, without demolishing the sea bed in the process. There are two main dive boats that fish out of Lyme Regis nowadays, operated by Jon Shuker and Ali Day, and they’ve pretty much cornered the local market. They recently started experimenting with so-called “disco scallops”, which are caught in pots fitted with flashing lights that lure them in, which is much more efficient, crew-wise, than diving, because a boat with one diver is legally required to have a crew of four, comprising the working diver, a standby diver, a supervisor and a driver. Crazy, eh?

As I write my last regular column for the Guardian, my thoughts turn to the lessons and hope we can take from history

From Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand, as the old hymn has it, we seem to inhabit a world that is more seriously troubled in more places than many can ever remember. In the UK, national morale feels all but shot. Politics commands little faith. Ditto the media. The idea that, as a country, we still have enough in common to carry us through – the idea embedded in Britain’s once potent Churchillian myth – feels increasingly threadbare.

Welcome, in short, to the Britain of the mid-1980s. That Britain often felt like a broken nation in a broken world, very much as Britain often does in the mid-2020s. The breakages were of course very different. And on one important level, misery is the river of the world. But, for those who can still recall them, the 1980s moods of crisis and uncertainty have things in common with those of today.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

The AI chatbot’s torrent of nonconsensual deepfakes isn’t its first scandal and won’t be its last. Responsible governments should simply ban it

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Billionaire and career Bond-villain cosplayer Elon Musk has been forced by public backlash into a humiliating backdown over use of his AI chatbot, Grok. Watching the world’s richest man eat a shit sandwich on a global stage represents a rare win for sovereign democracy.

Because – unlike his company history of labour and safety abuses … his exploding rockets … his government interventions that deny aid to the starving … disabling Starlink internet systems in war zones … sharing “white solidarity” statements … or growing concern about overvaluations of his company’s share price – the nature of Grok’s latest scandal may finally be inspiring governments towards imposing some Musk-limiting red lines.