Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was put under house arrest, and her husband, Benjamin, lost his job after they protested at board of supervisors meetings

Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was ready to go to jail.

She had been prepared to spend six months in the custody of the Shasta county sheriff’s office. One of the top prosecutors in this part of far northern California had presented the evidence against her in a weeklong trial, and a jury had delivered a guilty verdict. A judge offered probation, but O’Connell-Nowain did not agree to the terms.

Watching one nocturnal family through all of spring, I experienced the exhilarating thrills of their nightly routine – and learned the call of the frogmouths

What’s not to love about a Muppet in a long coat with spooky eyes like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon? Posing as tree stumps on a branch, tawny frogmouths almost parody themselves.

But there’s much more to them than that. Frogmouths have another life that few people see: like vampires, they wake at sunset and night-hunt until dawn. These stolid creatures turn into zephyrs that silently swoop, catching prey on the ground and in the air.

As states scale back requirements for comprehensive sex ed, some parents and faith communities are stepping in to teach what schools won’t

When Wendy Pfrenger’s children started high school in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, she had the choice to enroll them in abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex ed.

Although the abstinence-plus option would include instruction on contraception, neither curriculum was required to provide medically accurate information. As a parent, she felt like the lessons her teens were receiving fell short of their reality.

After being eliminated from the Asian Cup, the players reportedly escaped their regime minders and are being looked after by police in Queensland

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Five members of the Iranian women’s football team have been taken into the protection of police in Australia after refusing to return to their home country following the team’s elimination from the Women’s Asian Cup, according to reports.

Speculation had mounted for days that some of the players would try to seek asylum in Australia after reports that they had been called “traitors” for refusing to sing their national anthem before their opening game of the tournament last week.

Cem Özdemir gains 30.2% of vote in Baden-Württemberg, ahead of CDU, with far-right AfD in third

Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have stumbled into a busy election year with a defeat to the Greens in a key state poll, as his embattled party struggles to fend off a challenge in other pivotal races from the far right.

The German chancellor’s conservative CDU had enjoyed a double-digit lead in the south-western car production region of Baden-Württemberg just weeks ago but the Greens and their charismatic candidate Cem Özdemir eked out a half-point-margin win in Sunday’s poll with 30.2%.

Musician created numerous volumes of beats that were acclaimed across the grime scene, before crossing over with solo chart success

British rapper and producer Dot Rotten, who flourished in the grime scene before crossing over to mainstream success, has died aged 37.

The musician, real name Joseph Ellis-Stevenson, reportedly died in the Gambia. His family confirmed the death to the BBC.

★★★★★ / ★★★★★
Photographers’ Gallery, London
Gottschalk documents lesbian life in the 60s and 70s, while this year’s Deutsche Börse prize ranges from appalling scenes from women’s prisons to an exploration of invented facts

When Donna Gottschalk came out as gay to her mother, she replied: “You’ve chosen a rough path.” It was New York in the 1960s, homosexuality was illegal and, as the photographer reflects in a video piece included in her new exhibition We Others: “There were no happy gay people.” A photograph of Gottschalk’s mother in the beauty salon she ran in the notoriously crime-ridden Alphabet City appears at the start of the show, in which the images are accompanied by texts by the French writer Hélène Giannecchini, recording the photographer’s memories of the people and events depicted.

Gottschalk picked up a camera at 17, so these pictures also constitute her own awakening, as she accepted her identity and became involved with the Gay Liberation Front. It starts with family. Here is a painfully poignant image of Gottschalk’s sister, Myla, aged 11, the picture of innocence and peace, asleep in bed in the family’s apartment in a tenement building.

Bundesliga survival looks an uphill struggle for Wolfsburg as a lack of leadership off the pitch has led to drift on it

Edin Dzeko, understandably, erred on the side of caution. Dieter Hecking has not. Wolfsburg are indisputably in crisis and have gone back to the future to stop themselves teetering over the ledge into the abyss, with a coach who left – or was invited to leave – nearly 10 years ago returning to the club to prevent the worst coming to pass. It had felt for a while as if change was coming at the Volkswagen Arena. The question to which we will find out the answer in the coming weeks is have they already left it too late?

This was a weekend that was a very bad one for Die Wölfe; pivotally so, potentially. It was not just their own 2-1 tumble at home to Hamburg, who were also in serious need of points, which defined the moment. After all, Wolfsburg began the weekend second-bottom of the Bundesliga and ended it in the same place, but things are not the same. That is largely due to results elsewhere. Even outside Lower Saxony little went right for Wolfsburg, whether it was St Pauli and Mainz clawing points from superior opposition in Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart respectively, or Werder Bremen making the most of Union Berlin going down to 10 men seconds after they took the lead, paving the way to a second successive win of unexpectedly comfortable proportions (4-1, in the end, to Werder).

Ukraine criticises organisers’ decision to allow Russia to take part in prestigious art exhibition as ‘incomprehensible’

Ukraine has urged organisers of the Venice Biennale to reconsider Russia’s participation in the prestigious art exhibition, arguing that it must not become “a stage for whitewashing… war crimes.”

Biennale organisers said last week that Russia would be allowed to take part in the event, held from 9 May until 22 November, triggering widespread criticism, including from Italy’s culture ministry, which said it opposed the decision.

Startup still believes in ‘principle of treating adults like adults, but getting experience right will take more time’

OpenAI is delaying the launch of “adult mode” for ChatGPT after admitting it had more pressing priorities than introducing erotica on its signature artificial intelligence product.

The startup’s chief executive, Sam Altman, had announced last year that OpenAI would allow adult content as it rolled out age checking.

• QB signed $212.4m extension with team in 2024

• Hit will be spread over two seasons

The Miami Dolphins are moving on from Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback they drafted with the fifth overall pick in 2020 in hopes of turning the franchise’s fortunes around.

The move will cost the Dolphins an NFL record $99m in dead money against the salary cap. ESPN reported that the move will be designated after 1 June, meaning the Dolphins will spread the hit to their salary cap across two years ($67.4m in 2026, $31.8m in 2027).

Federal authorities apparently never searched the property, but now state authorities will reopen a 2019 investigation

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When Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking teenagers, New York federal prosecutors said the ultra-wealthy predator “exploited and abused dozens of underage girls” in Manhattan and Palm Beach “among other locations”.

One of those other locations was the late financier’s sprawling New Mexico property. Epstein’s so-called Zorro Ranch came into sharper relief after his 10 August 2019 death in jail awaiting trial, with criminal and civil proceedings revealing that numerous alleged abuses unfolded there. But Zorro Ranch did not receive the same scrutiny as Epstein’s other properties: an 8 February Guardian investigation revealed that federal authorities apparently never searched the property.

A fairly original and twisting plot is skewered by cliched dialogue and unforunate cinematography

We meet horror heroine Abigail (Cristina Moody) some years after the loss of both her daughters in a car crash. One fateful night, a police officer visits Abigail to tell her that she might want to lock her doors extra carefully: he has a report of some escaped convicts in the area, and indeed there are no prizes for guessing that the crims will shortly show up at Abigail’s place. What happens thereafter has at least the virtue of being a fairly original plot, with twists and turns as surprising as they are implausible.

It would be too much of a spoiler to say exactly how the “voodoo” of the title is employed, but suffice to say it blends elements drawn from actual Haitian Vodou alongside the voodoo-doll convention popularised by western pop culture. The performances, though, are the film’s real weakness: much of the acting is the kind you might encounter in an escape room or ghost train experience at a theme park. The dialogue is no great shakes either, a mixture of soap opera melodrama (“You don’t always have to take his side!”) and crime procedural cliche (“You gave up on this job a long time ago, didn’t you?”). The shot choices don’t help: one sequence of a woman fleeing for her life as she runs downstairs is filmed in a way that recalls Mrs Doubtfire sprinting to turn the oven off.

We take a look at the best images from day three of the Games, including skiing, ice hockey and curling

Footage of attack on Minab compound adds to evidence indicating it was a US strike that killed scores of children

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A video has shown a US Tomahawk missile hitting the Iranian naval base next to a primary school in Minab where more than 168 people, mostly children, were killed – adding to evidence that indicates the US was responsible for the school strike.

The video, released by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated to the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, shows the missile hitting the Minab compound on the morning of 28 February, when US-Israeli strikes on Iran began.

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

• Warning: Gallery contains sensitive images

• Varvara Voronchikhina wins women’s super-G standing

• Russian anthem has not been heard at Games since 2014

The Russian national anthem has been played at the Paralympics for the first time since 2014 as the skier Varvara Voronchikhina claimed gold in the women’s super-G standing.

A tearful Voronchikhina received her medal on Monday afternoon, and the Russian flag was raised, after a dominant performance on the slopes of the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre. A watching crowd of international fans responded only with polite applause, but Voronchikhina’s success has already been celebrated by Russia’s sports minister.

• Briton, 17, wins her second park crown in São Paulo

• Event was cut at halfway due to ‘recurrent rainfall’

Britain’s Sky Brown celebrated International Women’s Day by becoming a skateboarding world champion for the second time at a rain-curtailed park competition in São Paulo.

The two-time Olympic bronze medallist was leading after two runs in Brazil, the halfway point at which World Skate deemed “adverse weather conditions and recurrent rainfall” to have called time on proceedings.

With oil prices soaring and stock markets falling, economists warn that a prolonged conflict in the Middle East risks knocking growth worldwide and boosting prices

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Oil prices continued to surge on Monday, triggering a stark sell-off across some of the world’s leading stock markets amid growing concern that the US-Israel war on Iran could set the stage for a global economic shock.

The Middle East conflict has sparked an energy supply crisis that could risk driving up inflation and interest rates, according to economists, who believe growth is set to weaken while prices rise. Fears of stagflation – where economic activity stagnates, but inflation increases – loom large.

Wait times at security checkpoints in Houston and New Orleans as long as three hours due to shortage of TSA agents

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Travelers complained of long waits Sunday – lasting hours in some cases – at security checkpoints at airports in Houston and New Orleans, which officials blamed on a government shutdown of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The estimated wait time at the standard security checkpoint at the William P Hobby airport in Houston early Sunday evening was at one point three hours, according to the Houston Airports website. The Hobby airport on social media Friday said it expected more travelers than normal due to spring break.

As the original On the Road scroll heads to auction, a new exhibition uncovers the private life of the Beat legend

Among great literary myths, the one of Jack Kerouac is often reduced to a vibe The open road, a cigarette, a postwar rebel leaning on a beat-up car – a masculine archetype of rebellion and hedonism. Kerouac’s 1957 book On the Road was the bible of the beat generation and chronicles, in startlingly unfiltered prose, his travels across the US with fellow writers Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, and his lifelong muse, the dashing Neal Cassady. The book shifted the course of US literature and captured the imagination of a rapidly changing world. Kerouac was crowned king of the beats, a moniker he later despised.

This, at least, is what many students of US literature know. But a new exhibition Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac at New York’s Grolier Club aims to rehumanize the myth, with letters from Kerouac that have never been publicly viewed before.

ICE launched ‘Operation Buckeye’ and ‘influencers’ claimed Somalis are running fraudulent businesses after Trump repeatedly used racist language against group in December

The men started showing up at around 6am in late December.

In their cars, they circled the 161 Child Care facility in Columbus, before parking at the front of the building. Then they sat in their cars, opening their windows enough to tell the Somali Americans who own the daycare: “We’re exposing all of you. Every single one of you, you’re all going back.”

As the US space agency misses its launch window for the second month, smaller firms continue work on their parts

It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost last Friday when chief executive Justin Cyrus learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa.

Cyrus’s company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a myriad of projects crucial to the Artemis program that seeks to return humans to the moon, so anything Isaacman had to say about it was naturally of interest to him.

Pete Docter says Pixar will concentrate on more commercially appealing films after staff dissent over deleted scenes that implied lead character was gay

Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter said that the reason why LGBTQ+ plot elements were removed from the company’s 2025 film Elio was that Pixar is “not [making] therapy”.

Docter was speaking to the Wall Street Journal in the wake of the successful release of Pixar’s latest film Hoppers, which opened at No 1 at the North American box office this weekend.