Leftover cooked pork and bones are essential ingredients in this hearty Asturian winter stew

Fabada Asturiana is classic Spanish cooking at its simplest and best. This stew of creamy white beans cooked slowly with pork and cured meat is traditionally made with fabes de la Granja (or judion beans), morcilla (Spanish black pudding), chorizo and lacón (cured pork shoulder, and similar to pancetta); it’s also the perfect dish for using up leftover roast pork.

Life drawing hit the headlines when a north London class, which had been running for more than 30 years, was told to cover up its naked models or find a new location. Ellie Heney, 32, from Lancaster, has been a life model for 13 years and hopes to be one for the rest of her life. She explains why

It was my first year of university in Liverpool and it was a typical broke student situation. I saw a poster saying £20 for life modelling and when you’re living on beans on toast you think: ‘Well, I can do that.’ So I gave it a go.

It’s the strangest thing in the world when you do it for the first time. I remember my heart was pounding and the adrenaline was rushing and the back of my head was prickly because I was thinking: ‘What on earth am I doing? This is crazy!’

My wife has developed an aversion to cooking while becoming increasingly fussy about what she’ll eat. Lucky me …

When the oldest one left home for the second time about six years ago, my wife made an announcement.

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m never cooking again.”

Gráinne, 31, a software engineer and musician, meets Alexander, 34, a civil servant

What were you hoping for?
A giggle with someone I fancy!

In the run-up to Sunday’s crucial election, the Guardian took a long journey through Europe’s heartland to talk to voters

Creaking, overcrowded, neglected, Germany’s railways, once a source of national pride, have taken a battering to their image in recent years. Amid wider concerns about the health of Europe’s stagnating largest economy, the state of its trains has become something of a metaphor for a more general sense of malaise.

On Sunday Germans will go to the polls in one of the most important elections in recent times, with an emboldened far right hoping to more than double its share of votes. In the run-up, the Guardian travelled more than 850 miles on trains across Germany to hear what its citizens have to say about the state of their nation.

Two years ago, transgender teenager Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death by two 15-year-olds. The killers had been radicalised on the dark web, while the victim was trapped in an online world of her own. Now her mother has become friends with the parent of one of the murderers. On the second anniversary of Brianna’s death, Esther sits down with Simon Hattenstone to discuss her daughter’s murder and her own extraordinary response.

Like the soldiers they battle to save, combat medics in Ukraine are under constant attack. Three years after the invasion, one NHS doctor bears witness

“The frontline here is cold, hard, true war. My comrades and I had more than 40 bombs dropped on us by drones over two hours. You can’t hide from drones in a trench, but you can’t outrun them either. Your only hope to live is to zigzag, to be cleverer than the drone.”

A gaunt 28-year-old former IT worker sits patiently beneath a window barricaded with sandbags, awaiting his turn on the operating table, cloaked in dust. Now an infantryman in the Ukrainian army’s Third Assault Brigade, “Sasha” (not his real name) has shrapnel embedded in his shoulder after the Russian assault on his foxhole. “When you hear a drone, you run as fast as you can and see if you can reach any trees,” he says. “If you’re out in the open, you try to get the drone behind you, so it won’t destroy your face. It’s not panic, this running; it’s a professional response. You know what you have to do to save your life and you do it.”

Some specialists suspect that constantly filtering out background noise may have unintended consequences

They are prized for making the commute more bearable and shielding against the din of daily life. But noise-cancelling headphones have come under scrutiny after audiologists raised concerns that overuse might impair people’s hearing skills.

While the technology has clear benefits, not least in helping people listen to music at lower volume, some specialists suspect that constantly filtering out background noise may have unintended consequences.

US secretary of defense had questioned whether history-making air force general CQ Brown Jr got job because of race

Donald Trump abruptly fired the air force general CQ Brown Jr as chair of the joint chiefs of staff on Friday, sidelining a history-making Black fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to purge the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.

The ouster of the second Black general to serve as chair of the joint chiefs comes three months after Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, outlined a plan for ridding the US military of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts during a podcast interview.

A stop-work order had been issued to government-funded attorneys to cease counsel for about 26,000 minors

The Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children, just three days after it ordered government-funded attorneys across the country to immediately stop their work.

The Acacia Center for Justice and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) confirmed that the stop-work order affecting non-profits that provide legal counsel for about 26,000 unaccompanied minors had been lifted.

Extreme fire danger and total bans have been declared for large parts of the east coast with sweltering temperature accompanied by hot and dry winds

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Extreme fire danger and total fire bans have been declared for much of South Australia and Victoria, including Melbourne, as hot and dry winds bring sweltering temperatures to the region on Saturday.

Residents have be warned to shelter indoors as bushfires burn out of control in three states.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Australian cyclist’s day began at 4.09am in Auckland, New Zealand, and ended 18-and-a-half hours later in Wellington

Throughout his career, Lachlan Morton – among the world’s pre-eminent ultra-endurance cyclists – has spent some long days on the bike. The Australian has raced the Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italia, ridden from Land’s End to John o’Groats in the United Kingdom, and last year spent a month riding 14,200km around Australia.

But no single day has compared to an effort last month, beginning at 4.09am in Auckland, New Zealand, and ending 18-and-a-half hours later in Wellington. Covering the 648km from the New Zealand’s biggest city to its capital in less than a day, the Australian cyclist made history.

PM to claim if US rejects Mauritius’s claim to own the islands, Beijing will be drawn into the regional dispute

Keir Starmer is to urge Donald Trump to recognise that a US rejection of Mauritius’s legal claim to own the Chagos Islands, including the strategic US military base at Diego Garcia, may stoke tensions similar to those in the South China Sea.

Starmer is due to meet Trump next Friday mainly to discuss the future of Ukraine, but also a UK plan for Gaza’s reconstruction under international protection with no need for Palestinians to be required to quit the Gaza Strip. The paper is similar but not identical to proposals being discussed by Arab foreign ministers in Riyadh, which has a strong international component and would prevent Hamas ruling in Gaza.

After defeat in India, England start tournament against Australia, who are without their feared fast-bowling trio

In contrast to the drawn-out 50-over World Cup and its T20 equivalent, the Champions Trophy is quite a cutthroat affair, with one slip-up in the group stage manageable but two likely terminal. Jos Buttler called it a brutal format before England’s opener against Australia in Lahore on Saturday, while his opposite number, Steve Smith, spoke of needing a “quarter-final” mentality.

As unforgiving as it is, there is a fair bit riding on this Champions Trophy for Buttler, a captain who lifted the T20 World Cup in 2022 straight after replacing Eoin Morgan but has struggled to live up to it since. Series results have nose-dived, both world titles were surrendered meekly, and the messaging has often been confusing. Matthew Mott paid the price as head coach last year but not every shortcoming was his.

Like its predecessor, Denis Villeneuve’s second instalment is a true blockbuster that harnesses the full power of the art form. It’s a beautiful film to behold

A common complaint I’ve heard about Dune: Part Two is that it is too similar to the first Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s audacious gamble to adapt just half of Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi tome and hope for another greenlight from Warner Bros. This is correct. Part Two, like its predecessor, is arcane, surprisingly weird, oddly structured and deeply uninterested in pandering. This is actually a compliment, because though I have seen Part Two six times and still do not totally understand the Bene Gesserit, the film, like its predecessor, is a strange creature in modern cinema: a true blockbuster – a cinematic behemoth that makes millions, generates memes and cements the ever-vanishing movie star – that harnesses the full power of the art form.

That is no small feat – this is a movie with many moving parts and much potential for off-putting density. (An honest reader of the book will tell you: Herbert frequently gets in his own way. The rich source material itself is no guarantee of quality storytelling.) If Part One was a thrilling immersion into a rare universe that felt genuinely alien and remote from our times, Part Two is the spaceship hurtling at full speed – and that spaceship, gloriously designed and rendered in sleek silver, landing on a planet in one of Villeneuve’s signature shots of great, arresting contrasts in scale.

Death of actor Kim Sae-ron sparks renewed calls for changes to ease pressure on celebrities who face intense scrutiny from media and fans alike

On Friday, the South Korean columnist Yang Sung-hee asked a question to which no one appears to have an answer: “When will this ever end? How many more lives must be lost before this tragic cycle is broken?”

Yang’s question, asked in the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper, is just one of many that has emerged since the actor Kim Sae-ron was found dead in her home in Seoul on Sunday in a case police are treating as suicide. She was 24.

Some residents say the agreement has harmed relations with New Zealand while others welcome the economic benefits it may bring

Standing under the shade of trees outside the Cook Islands parliament this week, Fe’ena Syme-Buchanan questioned a controversial deal signed with China that has sparked concern across the Pacific country.

The photographer from Rarotonga feels mixed emotions about the agreement prime minister Mark Brown struck with Beijing last week, describing it as a “double-edged sword”.

Deputy PM Richard Marles says explanation for the drills, which were conducted in international waters and according to international law, are ‘unsatisfactory’

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has confronted her Chinese counterpart after Chinese warships conducted apparent live-fire exercises at short notice on Friday, forcing commercial aircraft to change course.

In a post on X late on Friday night Australian eastern time, Wong said she met with China’s foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in South Africa that day.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Pair declined to give public endorsement of Trump in wake of 7 October attacks, All or Nothing by Michael Wolff reveals

Donald Trump’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, refused to sign a statement saying Trump was not antisemitic, according to a new book by the veteran Trump tell-all author Michael Wolff.

“As he kept seeming to be incapable of offering absolute support for Israel in the wake of October 7,” Wolff writes, referring to the deadly 2023 attacks by Hamas, “Trump, not for the first time, turned to Jared for Jewish cover, explicitly asking him and Ivanka for a public endorsement.

Keith Kellogg takes different tone from Trump, who contrasted ‘very good talks’ with Putin with cooler relationship with Ukraine’s leader

The US envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, has praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, striking a dramatically different tone from Donald Trump, who has called Ukraine’s president a “dictator”.

Kellogg left Kyiv on Friday after a three-day visit. Posting on social media, he said he had engaged in “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelenskyy and his “talented national security team”. “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” he said.

A growing number of fitness groups are catering to the LGBTQ+ community, with the opportunity to build genuine connections the biggest drawcard

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Gay bars have traditionally been the most visible queer-inclusive spaces in Australia for LGBTQ+ people to gather. But with dim lighting, loud music and a focus on alcohol, they aren’t always conducive to genuine connection – or welcoming to all. And with dating apps blamed for the closure of gay bars and a trend towards younger people drinking less, many LGBTQ+ Australians are finding community through sport.

“It’s so intimidating to go to a gay bar,” says Michael Pereira, 34. “People think you’re going to have this Sex and the City experience and suddenly meet your authentic friends … I couldn’t do that.”

Nathan Hochman casts doubt on sexual abuse claims but declines to say whether he would support resentencing

Los Angeles’s new tough-on-crime district attorney made clear on Friday he was taking a much less sympathetic view of Erik and Lyle Menendez’s case, though his office has not yet announced what position it will take on the issue of whether the brothers should be resentenced.

Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, Menendez were found guilty of first-degree murder in the killings of José and Kitty Menendez in 1989, and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Capitol police said officers saw Tarrio strike protester at gathering he attended with Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes

Enrique Tarrio, a former national leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys, was arrested on Friday near the US Capitol on a charge that he assaulted a woman protesting against a gathering attended by him and others who received presidential pardons for crimes stemming from Donald Trump supporters’ 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Capitol police said officers saw Tarrio strike the protester’s cellphone and arm after the woman placed the phone close to his face as they walked near the Capitol. Tarrio had just left a news conference that had ended “without incident”, police said.

In Buriticupu, about 1,200 people risk losing their homes, and residents have seen the problem escalate in 30 years

Authorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazon have declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes.

Several buildings in Buriticupu, in Maranhão state, have already been destroyed, and about 1,200 people of a population of 55,000 risk losing their homes into a widening abyss.

New year, new look England, same lack of consistency. Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses began their Nations League campaign with a profligate and frustrating 1-1 draw against Portugal in Portimão.

“I’m disappointed about the result,” said the England manager, who also took time after the game to express her solidarity with Spain’s players after Luis Rubiales was convicted of sexual assault for kissing Jenni Hermoso after the World Cup final against England. “I stand with the Spanish players and it’s really sad they have this on their path. They are changing society, and they have so much courage to stand for this and themselves and we stand in solidarity with them. We have the Nations League starting tonight, we are talking about this but we should be talking about the Spanish team and how good they are at football.”

In a new book the scholar traces a line from reactionary tendencies in history to anti-trans feminists today

Is Donald Trump a feminist?

There was a time when anyone asking such a question could reasonably expect to be laughed out of the room. Yet, just three weeks into Trump’s second term, the man responsible for stripping women in the US of the right to an abortion was declared a “feminist kween”, “feminist hero” and “feminist icon” by several prominent feminist writers in the UK.

In Trump’s jungle, the powerful make decisions the weak must simply accept – international law and human rights be damned

It’s been quite a week for US foreign policy. Following a phone call last week between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Russian delegates met in Saudi Arabia to smooth relations between the two countries and discuss possible paths to ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine was not invited to the talks. Quite reasonably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country would not be bound by decisions taken without their participation. Trump responded to this by falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, and sought to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy by claiming in a Truth Social post that he “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls … A Dictator without Elections.”

Matt Duss is executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to the senator Bernie Sanders

JD Vance says Europe should not shun far-right parties. He seems to have forgotten 1933, but hits a key conundrum

In his speech last week at the Munich Security Conference, JD Vance pressed European leaders to stop excluding extremist parties from government. Alluding in particular to Germany’s neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, or AfD, he accused European leaders of “running in fear of your own voters”. The US vice-president underscored the point by then meeting with the AfD candidate for chancellor.

In his view, these extremist parties should be welcomed into the mainstream because they reflect voters’ concern about migration. He evidently was not troubled that the AfD also has a history of using Nazi rhetoric, making racist and antisemitic comments and plotting to overthrow the German government.

• British No 1 recovers to beat Jiri Lehecka 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3
• Russian teenager will face Clara Tauson in Dubai final

The British No 1, Jack Draper, produced another gutsy display to defeat Jiri Lehecka in three sets at the Qatar Open and reach the fifth ATP Tour final of his career. Lehecka had stunned Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals in Doha and looked on course to claim another scalp when he won the first set.

Draper required a tie-break to get the match back on level terms before he showed his class in the decider to take victory by a 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3 score.

Megafans fear tech company’s deal could mean an end to the films’ unique characteristics

The announcement that Amazon paid more than $1bn for creative control of the James Bond franchise has sent shock waves across the film world and fans fear it could mean the end of Bond as they know and love it.

David Lowbridge-Ellis, the founder of Licence to Queer, a community of queer Bond fans, expressed concerns that the move could mean an end to the unique characteristics that make Bond appeal to different audiences.

Kristen Crowley dismissed after blaming city’s budget cuts, while mayor claimed firefighters weren’t properly deployed

Six weeks after the most destructive wildfire in city history, Los Angeles’s mayor, Karen Bass, ousted the city’s fire chief on Friday following a public rift over preparations for a potential fire and finger-pointing between the chief and city hall over responsibility for the devastation.

Bass said in a statement that she was removing Chief Kristin Crowley immediately.

UK prime minister aiming to cool escalating transatlantic row over war in Ukraine

Keir Starmer will not risk riling Donald Trump by challenging him over his attack on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when the pair finally meet next week, as the prime minister seeks to cool an escalating transatlantic row.

Starmer will fly to the US in the coming days for what could be a defining moment for his leadership, as Europe and the US trade accusations and insults about the origins of the war in Ukraine and the best way to end it.

Case brought during Biden presidency accused space company of refusing, unlawfully, to hire certain immigrants

The US Department of Justice on Thursday said it would drop a case accusing Elon Musk’s space technology company SpaceX of refusing to hire certain immigrants.

The justice department last month signaled it could back away from the case, brought during Joe Biden’s term. Musk, a top adviser and donor to Donald Trump, is leading a commission tasked with identifying waste in the federal government, dubbed the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.

Tall buildings fare poorly in derechos, say experts, raising questions over their resilience as climate crisis worsens

Skyscrapers built to withstand major hurricanes fare much more poorly in less powerful windstorms known as derechos, researchers have found, raising questions for cities worldwide over the resilience of tall buildings as the climate emergency worsens.

A team from Florida International University’s (FIU) civil and environmental engineering department studied the unexpectedly severe damage caused to buildings in Houston, a city with 50 skyscrapers of 492ft (150 metres) or more, during the 16 May 2024 derecho.

A high-stakes campaign defined by anti-migration rhetoric has stoked fear instead of discussion of pressing structural problems

Flanked by market stalls selling everything from Turkish borëk pastries to bedazzled iPhone cases, Lina, 53, confessed that she was racked with worry about what may lie ahead for her three children once Sunday night’s election is over.

She has lived in Germany for decades, carving out a life for herself and her family after moving from Lebanon. Now – after a frenzied election campaign in which most politicians have scrambled to ward off the rise of the far right with tough talk on migrants – she wondered what the consequences would be for the lives they had painstakingly built.

From bats to moths, species working the night shift are suffering as light pollution soars

When we think about invertebrates, most of us picture bees, butterflies, worms, crabs or perhaps even a jellyfish. But did you know that at least two-thirds of invertebrates are active at night, meaning many are unlikely to be seen? Invertebrates carry out many of the same functions as their daytime counterparts, in some cases doing so with greater efficiency and variety.

For centuries, artificial light has been a symbol of progress. From the flickering flames of early fires to the dazzling LED displays of modern cities, light has shaped human civilisation. But while we celebrate its convenience, we often overlook the darker side of our obsession with illumination: light pollution.

The Guardian is running the invertebrate of the year competition 2025 – and this time it’s global. Nominate your favourite invertebrate, and then, in a few weeks time, we’ll vote on which is the best.

Experts warn victory for Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a Trump donor, could have a ‘chilling’ effect on free speech

A fossil fuel company’s $300m lawsuit against Greenpeace opens in rural North Dakota on Monday, in a case that has been widely condemned by constitutional rights experts as baseless, bad faith litigation that threatens free speech.

Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, accuses Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline (Dapl).

Telling Núñez off in public feels unnecessary at this late stage, like shoehorning a needless car chase into a film’s third act

Stop getting Darwin Núñez wrong! At the very least, can we please stop comparing him unfavourably with Andy Carroll. This should be taken as a general cease-and-desist plea from those of us with an interest in preserving the Carroll legacy. But it also feels like an important note of distinction in a week when Arne Slot has unexpectedly made Núñez into a person of interest in the Premier League title race by dwelling on his now-famous miss against Aston Villa.

There may be sound internal reasons for this. Slot is very shrewd. The season has so far been an exercise in control and smart judgment. But from the outside, telling Núñez off in public feels unnecessary at this late stage, like shoehorning jeopardy into the third act of a generic Hollywood movie, the needless car chase four-fifths of the way through Paddington 5: Paddington Harder.

German police have arrested a suspect after attack on Spanish tourist and say they have not yet found a motive

German police have arrested a man suspected in a stabbing attack at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that left a Spanish tourist seriously injured.

There was no immediate indication of a motive for the attack late on Friday, two days before Germans vote in a national election.