Table of contents for 1474 in The Week

What happened “If you harm an American, we will respond,” declared President Biden last Friday, as the US launched air strikes on more than 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and affiliated militia groups. The raids – carried out in retaliation for a recent drone attack that killed three American soldiers at a US base in Jordan – targeted command and control operations, intelligence centres, and logistics and weapon depots, killing nearly 40 civilians and militants. The White House warned that the air strikes were just the “start” of its response. Over the weekend, US and UK forces also carried out a further round of strikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, in response to their ongoing attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. The…

Dental services, after so many people queued up to register at a new NHS practice in the St Pauls area of Bristol that police were called in to manage the hundreds-strong crowd. The last practice in St Pauls closed seven months ago. Across England, 90% of dentists say they are not accepting any new NHS patients. Miss Japan, who was forced to hand back her crown. The award of the title last month to Karolina Shiino, a Ukrainian-born model, had caused disquiet, with some questioning whether she represented ideals of Japanese beauty. But it was revelations about her affair with a married doctor and online influencer known as “the muscle doctor” that cost her the crown.…

Paris SUVs targeted: In a referendum that has been closely scrutinised in other capitals, Parisians have voted narrowly in favour of trebling parking fees for SUV drivers. On a turnout of just 5.7% of eligible voters, 54.6% backed Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s plan to raise the cost of parking cars that weigh over 1.6 tonnes (or two tonnes in the case of electric cars) to €18 an hour on city-centre streets. Tradespeople will be exempt, as will Parisians with residential permits. Hidalgo says the plan is designed to improve air quality, and will target wealthy drivers of more polluting cars. It could be in force by September. Her critics dismissed the initiative as “simplistic”. Rome Farmers win concessions: The EU offered a series of concessions to the bloc’s farmers this week,…

1 Potato Head Blues by Louis Armstrong, performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven 2 Black, Brown and White, written and performed by Big Bill Broonzy 3 Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8 by Zoltán Kodály, performed by János Starker 4 The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, performed by Langston Hughes with Henry “Red” Allen et al 5 My Lovely Elizabeth, written and performed by S.E. Rogie 6* Criss-Cross, written and performed by Thelonious Monk 7 Dogon A.D., written and performed by Julius Hemphill 8 Love and Affection, written and performed by Joan Armatrading Book: The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes Luxury: nail scissors * Choice if allowed only one record…

Thousands of children were infected with contaminated blood, including 380 who contracted HIV, but one school in Hampshire has become emblematic of this scandal. The Lord Mayor Treloar College in Hampshire – known as Treloar’s – is a specialist boarding school for disabled young people. In the 1970s and 1980s, it gave many boys with haemophilia a chance of a normal education: it had a medical centre on site, where they could be treated. Yet in reality, they were in great danger: in all, 122 boys at the school were infected with HIV and/or hepatitis while receiving treatment for haemophilia; at least 90 have subsequently died from their infections. Dr Tony Aronstam was the director of Treloar’s haemophilia centre at the time. He was suspicious of the blood products he…

To win, Biden needs to “dump the elite” Ruy Teixeira Substack The polls look dire for President Biden, says Ruy Teixeira. He’s now trailing Donald Trump in every swing state. In presidential-preference polls, he’s three points behind Trump. By comparison, at this point in the 2020 campaign, he was five points ahead. What’s more, as the economy has become a less dominant issue among voters, the salience of immigration has grown – and swing voters favour Trump on this by a wide margin. Drastic “corrective action” is clearly in order, and Biden has lately been trying to deliver just that by vowing to “shut down the border right now and fix it quickly”. Problem is, it’s very late in the day to be promising to fix a problem he has…

The number of young people who will die from bowel cancer in the UK this year is expected to be a third higher than in 2018, owing to factors including poor diets and lack of exercise. A study of cancer trends concluded that deaths from the disease will rise by 39% in women aged 25 to 49, compared with the average from 2015-2019, and by 26% in men. This is a far bigger rise than the forecast for the other five European countries studied; in Italy, the only other one expected to record a rise in bowel cancer deaths in both sexes, rates are expected to increase by 2.6% in young women and 1.5% in men. Lead author Prof Carlo La Vecchia said governments need to do more to promote…

The Tories’ “last pale hope of victory” disappeared last week, said Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun – extinguished by the release of devastating new figures highlighting the scale of “uncontrolled immigration” in this country. According to the latest projections by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the population of the UK will hit 70 million by 2026 – a decade earlier than previously envisaged – and further expand to 73.7 million by 2036. That would represent an increase of 6.6 million people since 2021 – equivalent to adding five new cities the size of Birmingham in the space of 15 years. More than 90% of this rise is expected to come from net migration, as opposed to from natural population growth. So much for all the promises of the Tories,…

“If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”Katharine Hepburn, quoted on Today “Empire will leave behind it only two monuments: one is the game of Association Football, the other is the expression ‘Fuck off’.”Richard Turnbull, governor of Tanganyika (1958-1961), quoted in The Guardian “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some method in madness.”Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in Reader’s Digest “Memory is a poet, not a historian.”Attrib. Marie Howe, quoted in Big Think “Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.”Robert Byrne, quoted on AllPoetry.com “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me…

Arsenal hosted Liverpool last Sunday knowing that a victory was vital to their chances of claiming their first Premier League title in 20 years, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. A loss would have left the Gunners eight points adrift of leaders Liverpool – and “all but out” of the Premier race. Instead, they claimed a stunning statement victory, beating the Reds 3-1. Arsenal’s stand-out player was their Brazilian left-winger Gabriel Martinelli, whose electric pace rattled Liverpool’s defenders. Ibrahima Konaté “is no slouch”, but Martinelli was regularly too quick for him – and he also forced the usually rock-solid Virgil van Dijk into the uncharacteristic error that gifted Arsenal their second goal. This was surely the finest moment of Mikel Arteta’s managerial career to date, said Martin Samuel in…

To The Guardian As a disabled performer and director, I was disappointed by the Globe’s casting of Michelle Terry as Richard III. Richard III is one of the few disabled roles in the theatrical canon. Roles written for disabled people are very limited. Whether I’m performing or directing, many stages are inaccessible to me as a wheelchair user. To see this role given to a non-disabled actor represents the exclusion of disabled people even from those roles that explore the interiority of our lived experience. Jamie Hale, artistic director, CRIPtic Arts To The Guardian I have a severe scoliosis and was born on the date Richard III was killed, so have always felt an affinity with him. Yet I have no problem with a non-disabled actor playing him. I don’t…

by Madeleine Gray Weidenfeld & Nicolson 384pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 This “acutely witty debut” by the Australian literary critic Madeleine Gray charts the “affair between a disaffected millennial and her older, married boss”, said Madeleine Feeny in The Guardian. Hera, 24, is broke, overqualified, and “living in Sydney with her father” when she starts a job as an online community moderator. Exasperated by the “indignities of office life on the bottom rung”, she begins a flirtation with fortysomething Arthur – which develops into a full-blown affair. While it’s hardly an original story, Gray’s “parodist’s ear for the cadences, platitudes and jargon of modern speech” ensures that this is a convincing, propulsive work. There’s some “quite bad writing” on display in these pages, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday…

Seven Americans at JC Gallery According to traditional art history, until the 1940s, American painting was a sideshow to developments taking place in Paris. Yet while modernism may have taken a while to find a confident voice there, the US was no provincial backwater. This show, A Contemporary Exploration of American Modernism, brings together around a dozen paintings dating from the turn of the century to 1939, created by seven of the foremost practitioners of the period. Early works apply local colour to learnt European techniques: Oscar Bluemner, for instance, transplants Cézanne to New Jersey’s Passaic Valley in 1917. Subsequently, a painterly vernacular is born. Arthur B. Carles’s Reclining Nude (1920) is an odd hybrid of Sickert and the Blaue Reiter group, a nude model looking for all the world…

When sliced white is just right Nigella Lawson recently told an interviewer that there are times when only supermarket bread really hits the spot. And, as usual, she was absolutely right, says Silvana Franco in The Daily Telegraph. For instance, when it comes to a “proper bacon sarnie”, nothing beats the “soft squash of sliced white”. I make mine with thin-cut bacon that has been grilled at “full pelt” – to achieve a slight charring – butter, ketchup, mustard, and a grind of black pepper. Thickly sliced white is also just the thing for a fish finger sandwich. I use four or five fingers per butty, add mayo, a dash of hot sauce, and some gem lettuce. Because sliced white absorbs liquids so well, it’s ideal for bread and butter…

● Don’t fly long-haul on a Friday, as airlines know that business travellers want to head home for the weekend and are prepared to pay more to do so. Short-haul is different, as competition keeps prices lower. Booking last minute is almost always more costly. ● The 100ml hand-luggage liquids limit comes to an end this year in the UK, but beware on your return journey, as only a fraction of the EU’s airports are adopting the new technology for scanning at security. ● Avoid baggage disruptions by putting a tag in your suitcase. iPhone users can use AirTags for up-to-date locations; Android users should try the SmartTag or Tile Pro. ● Lounge passes are a good option for long stopovers or delays, as they offer unlimited dining and a…

Carl Andre 1935-2024 When the minimalist sculptor Carl Andre exhibited a piece called Equivalent VIII at a gallery in New York, it did not rile that city’s cognoscenti. The artist was, by then, highly regarded for his work, said The Times, which focused on unaltered industrial materials (copper, metal plate, and so on) arranged in geometric shapes on the gallery floor, and which he defined as “sculpture as space”. In London, however, the piece – consisting of 120 firebricks formed into a rectangle – caused one of the biggest furores the British art world had ever seen. Equivalent VIII was acquired by the Tate Gallery in 1972 for about £30,000 in today’s money. It attracted little attention at the time. But in 1976, The Sunday Times ran an article about…

Sir Lucian Grainge The chairman of Universal presides over the world’s largest music company, said The New Yorker. But there’s no mistaking his origins: Lucian Grainge “can sound more like a London taxi dispatcher than a chief executive”. In fact, his father ran a record shop. After 45 years in the business, Grainge, 63, is credited with monetising streaming without alienating too many artists. Now he faces another revolution: AI, which threatens to automate songwriting and upend copyright. Meanwhile, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail, Grainge has gone to war with TikTok. He accuses the Chinese-owned video platform of “bullying and intimidation” in licensing talks. He has unleashed a storm by removing from TikTok music by hundreds of artists, including Taylor Swift and Abba. One perk of working for…

What happened King Charles stepped back from public-facing duties this week to receive outpatient treatment for cancer. Buckingham Palace said that doctors had noted an “issue of concern” when the King was undergoing hospital treatment for benign prostate enlargement late last month. It gave no other details of his illness, other than to say that it was not prostate cancer. The King, 75, learnt of his diagnosis last week and notified his sons and siblings himself. This week he was said to be on his “usual good form”, even if a bit “frustrated” to have had to cancel plans. The Prince of Wales returned to work for the first time since his wife underwent abdominal surgery last month; Prince Harry flew to London and spent 45 minutes with his father…

A vegan restaurant in Macclesfield that introduced some meat onto its menu in an effort to stay afloat has been flooded with negative reviews by furious vegans. Adonis Norouznia, owner of Nomas Gastrobar, says that “fanatics” began to defame him with one-star reviews after he made the “difficult” decision to include “responsibly sourced meat and dairy options” on his menu. He said that only 4% of the market is vegan, and customers were walking out when they found only plant-based food on offer. 53% of undergraduates in the UK use AI programs to help them with their assignments, a survey has found. A third of students use it to explain concepts; only 5% say they paste unedited AI-generated text into essays.…

The Tory MP and Justice Minister Mike Freer has announced that he will step down at the next election owing to fears about his safety. Freer is MP for Finchley and Golders Green in north London, which has the highest proportion of Jewish residents of any constituency in the country. He is not Jewish, but is active in his support for Israel. Announcing his resignation, he said he’d received death threats and abuse since becoming an MP in 2010. Supporters of the group Muslims Against Crusades once stormed a mosque where he was holding an event, and denounced him as a “Jewish homosexual pig”. In 2021, he narrowly avoided an encounter with Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered MP David Amess a month later. This week, police arrested a man who…

Wilmington, Delaware Musk blow: A judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s $55.8bn pay package – the largest in US corporate history – is excessive. In 2018, Musk was promised the sum in stock options if his car firm Tesla met a number of ambitious targets. Most of these have since been met, but five years ago a group of Tesla investors filed a lawsuit challenging the deal. They argued that it unjustly enriched Musk; that he had been too closely involved in negotiating the package; and that the board had not acted independently. Musk denied orchestrating the terms of his plan, but last week Delaware judge Kathleen McCormick ruled that his position as the dominant shareholder had influenced a deal that was unfair to smaller shareholders. Tesla will now be…

“In order to show that our railway stations are ‘safe and inclusive’, Network Rail has just unveiled a ‘Pride pillar’ at London Bridge station. This is a concrete pillar decorated with dozens of colourful flags, each representing a different sexual minority. Intriguingly, there’s a flag for ‘demisexuals’: those who feel sexually attracted only to ‘people with whom they have formed an emotional bond’. Once upon a time, I can’t help thinking, that description would have fitted almost everyone in the country. Admittedly, such people are no doubt quite a small minority now. Even so, I wasn’t aware that they were being persecuted so badly that they need reassurance from Network Rail.” Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph…

Why it’s no longer summer in the City Robert Colvile The Sunday Times Capitalism is, at heart, a simple concept, says Robert Colvile. It’s about taking surplus money and investing it in things that make more money, leaving everyone better off. A virtuous circle, yes, but in Britain it has seized up due to a lack of available cash. The first chokepoint is our banks – the biggest source of capital. The strict regulations imposed on them after the 2008 financial crisis have so reduced their lending power, that since then most have flatlined or shrunk, while US banks have grown ever bigger. Then there’s our pension schemes, once “the bulwark” of our stock market. Thanks to limits set on the volume of risk-bearing assets they could buy, their funds…

An alarming surge in obesity Levels of childhood obesity have surged in the wake of the pandemic, a study has found, with school closures, lack of exercise, an increase in screen time and poorer diet all blamed for helping to fuel the increase. A team at the University of Southampton gathered data from the National Child Measurement Programme, which weighs and measures children when they start primary school, aged four to five, and in their final year (ten to 11), and used it to chart rates of obesity before, during and after the pandemic. This revealed that obesity rates in four- to five-year-olds rose 45% between 2019-20 and 2020-21, the first year of the pandemic, and 21% in ten-to 11-year-olds. The following year, the rates in younger children dropped back…

Peter Sellers once received a letter from a fan asking for a “singed photograph” of himself, The Times reports. Amused by the typo, he burnt the sides of a photo with a cigarette lighter and sent it. A few weeks later, another letter arrived from the fan, thanking him but asking: “Could I trouble you for another one as this is signed around the edge?” At 86, Susan Hampshire says she wouldn’t “dream” of getting Botox, but the actress has some anti-ageing tricks of her own. “I’m growing old at quite a fast rate, and in order to keep my eyes from dropping down so I can’t see out of them, I have to use Elastoplast to pull up my forehead,” she told an audience in St Albans. She also…

Every aspect of the Abdul Ezedi case is “shocking”, said The Times. Ezedi, a migrant from Afghanistan, arrived in Britain illegally in a lorry in 2016. In 2018, he was given a suspended sentence at Newcastle Crown Court for sexual assault and exposure. He was then twice refused asylum, but on his third attempt, after an apparent conversion to Christianity, he was given permanent leave to remain. Last week, Ezedi drove from Newcastle to Clapham, in London, to find a woman with whom he was acquainted. Witnesses allege that he threw a corrosive substance into her face; her injuries are said to be “life-changing”. Bystanders who tried to intervene were also injured, as were the woman’s two young daughters: he allegedly took one from a car, and twice smashed her…

The opening weekend of the 2024 Six Nations was one of the most memorable in the competition’s history, said Michael Aylwin in The Observer. Across the three games, there was a wealth of evidence that the modern sport of rugby union – so often denigrated for being boringly defensive – is “overflowing” with “drama and skill”. England took on the minnows of the competition – Italy – and were made to work surprisingly hard, said Stephen Jones in The Sunday Times. The Italians had a dismal World Cup in the autumn, but raced into a 17-8 lead. Steve Borthwick’s side, however, didn’t panic, and gradually wrested back control. In the end, they won more comfortably than the 27-24 scoreline suggested. If that game was somewhat topsy-turvy, Scotland vs. Wales was…

Formula 1 Lewis Hamilton announced that he will leave Mercedes and join Ferrari for the 2025 season. The 39-year-old has raced for Mercedes since 2013, and has won six of his seven titles with them. Football Chelsea suffered their tenth Premier League defeat of the season, losing 4-2 to Wolves. In the Women’s Super League, Arsenal suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to West Ham. Boxing Tyson Fury’s long-awaited clash with Oleksandr Usyk has been delayed after Tyson suffered an eye injury. The fight will now take place on 18 May in Riyadh.…

Running time: 2hrs 30mins “Too often, when working-class characters are allowed on stage, they speak in the voice of a socially conscious playwright who has just returned from a field trip,” said Clive Davis in The Times. But in this new play at the National – set in the former pit town of Mansfield – the characters’ “passions, jokes and prejudices” feel totally authentic. With three sisters at its centre and its regional setting, Beth Steel’s “unmissable” jewel of a play is like “Chekhov on Heineken”, said Sarah Crompton on What’s on Stage. It’s a blistering comedy, yet “full of the deepest, saddest truths about life and love” – and it reaches “the parts other plays don’t reach”. For theatregoers starved of top-class new drama, there’s a real feel of…

A painting by Gustav Klimt lost for nearly a century has recently been rediscovered. Portrait of Fräulein Lieser (1917), a late work by the painter of The Kiss, was found in Klimt’s studio when he died. It was then given to the family of the Jewish industrialist Adolf Lieser, whose niece may be depicted in the painting (the identity of the sitter is unclear). Some time after 1925 it vanished, says Melanie Gerlis in the Financial Times. But it was recently discovered after an Austrian citizen was bequeathed it by a relative. It will be auctioned in Vienna in April, with a restitution settlement in place: the proceeds will be split between its Austrian legal owner and the heirs of the Lieser family. There is no clear evidence that the…

Jolene and Kenton worry about lost income following The Bull’s power outage. Mia’s stressed about the fashion show and puts various noses out of joint. With Emma and Tracy’s help, Kenton and Jolene open up a beer garden and attract a crowd, including a rowdy group that Jolene nervously avoids. Neville is named the “longest drinker”. Mia fights with Brad when he refuses to model. After another busy night, Jolene notices men in the car park; when Kenton goes to investigate, a dog attacks him. Harrison pulls up the CCTV footage, but there’s none because of the power cut. In hospital, a shaken Kenton opens up to Shula about his ongoing terror; meanwhile, Jolene tells Vince that she recognised the attackers from a brawl years ago at one of her…

Solo specialist Friendship Travel has a Kenya Safari and Beach trip that includes time at two safari camps (seven nights from £2,550; friendshiptravel.com). Discover the World has a new solo travel collection, with some trips exclusively for women, such as the Polar Bear Adventure in the Churchill wilds in Canada (Oct, Nov; five days from £8,423; discover-the-world.com). The luxury small-ship cruise line Aqua Expeditions is waiving single-person supplements on select cruises, including some Amazon River Cruises in Peru (seven nights from £6,030; aquaexpeditions.com). Just You’s Discover Vietnam trip for solo travellers includes a tour of Hanoi and a visit to the Unesco-protected old town of Hoi An (13 days from £3,249; justyou.co.uk). Some 70% of Wild Frontiers’ customers are solo travellers. Its Togo & Benin: Voodoo Explorer trip includes a…

A Caribbean gem in Costa Rica A “dusty, ramshackle” town on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is a “glorious” place, says Mark Palmer in The Mail on Sunday. Its indigenous people, the Bribri tribe, are still going strong, and so is the Jamaican community that settled here around 1900, bringing “cricket, maypole dancing and an interest in Shakespeare”, among many other things. More recently, an international array of artists, hippies and surfers has joined the mix. Stay at Aguas Claras, a nearby hotel with “cabanas on stilts” beside a beach so beautiful and unspoilt, it made me think of “what Barbados might once have been like”. And don’t miss the Cahuita National Park, a nature reserve with an “important” coral reef and a forest where visitors often…

Carl Weathers 1948-2024 Carl Weathers, who has died aged 76, dreamed as a child of becoming an actor, but his first career was in American football, said The New York Times. Described as a “magnificent athlete”, he played seven games for the Oakland Raiders in 1970. Then at the start of the 1971 season, the coach told him he was being released, because “you’re just too sensitive”. It was a strange moment, he recalled – both wounding and motivating. The “last thing” a footballer wants is to be considered sensitive, he said. “On the other hand, without that sensitivity, how could I be an actor?” He pursued acting, and five years later, he found fame partly on account of his athleticism – starring as the world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed…

Just as bitcoin moves into the mainstream of Wall Street investing, with a market value nearing $840bn, a London court is “considering a mystery that’s been hanging over the sector for years”, said DealBook in The New York Times. Who is “Satoshi Nakamoto”, the crypto’s pseudonymous creator? The legal battle centres on an Australian computer programmer, Craig Wright, who has claimed since 2016 that he’s the man. “Sceptics say he’s lying” and have challenged him to produce “the private keys”, or code, to an original stash of bitcoin that today would be worth roughly $47bn. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (Copa), whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and the Coinbase Exchange, is seeking a declaration that Wright is not Nakamoto, said The Times. In opening arguments, their barrister accused…

The week’s best shares Concurrent Technologies The Mail on Sunday CT specialises in computers that protect service personnel in war zones, detecting danger and relaying critical messages. “Firing on all cylinders” under a new boss, with “soaring” profits. Revenues are set to climb 60%. Buy. 86p. GSK Investors’ Chronicle Patent cliffs and litigation risks remain, but the drug group’s revenues are expected to rise 5-7%, and profits by 7-10%, as it majors on immunisations. A new RSV vaccine, Arexvy, has already logged £1bn in sales. Buy. £15.82. Loungers The Times The all-day café-bar operator has opened its 250th site, insisting there’s scope for 600. Venues are community hubs in market towns and suburbs, where rents are lower and competition softer. Margins are building. Buy. 220p. Microsoft Corp. The Times Despite…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1400 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 19 February. Send it to The Week Crossword 1400, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Piano is frequently behind soprano (4) 3 Afternoon entertainment with music from French char? (3,7) 10 Section on ledge makes one sort of quail (9) 11 Start being awkward (5) 12 Have a drink and book a dance? (5) 13 Restricted miners to get half of…

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A 95-year-old former psychiatrist who decided to return to education following the death of his wife has now received a master’s degree in modern European philosophy. David Marjot was given a standing ovation by his peers at Kingston University in Surrey when he collected his degree last month. He is now contemplating a part-time doctorate. “My memory is not quite what it used to be, but I was lucky to have world-class teachers and it was a very positive experience,” he said. “I think it is important to always keep challenging yourself even as you get older.” A Japanese macaque that escaped from a wildlife park near Kingussie in the Highlands on 28 January was finally captured last week, after being spotted in a garden a couple of miles away.…

The Tory Right, with the arrival of a group called the Popular Conservatives, or PopCons, spearheaded by Liz Truss. At a launch event this week, Lee Anderson MP attacked net zero and called for coalmines to be reopened, Truss said institutions taken over by “left-wing extremists” should be torn down, while Jacob Rees-Mogg warned that the “age of Davos man is over”. Notable by his absence was former Truss ally Kwasi Kwarteng, who revealed this week that he will step down as an MP at the next election. Taylor Swift, who became the first person to win the album of the year Grammy four times. In a female-dominated ceremony, other top awards went to Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus. Breaking glass ceilings, with the appointment of the first female equerry…

43% of British Muslims say they intend to vote Labour at the next election. In a poll in 2021, 86% said they’d voted Labour at the last election in 2019. Survation/Labour Muslim Network 67% of British adults think that the Palace has revealed about the right amount of information about King Charles’s health in the wake of his cancer diagnosis. 7% think it has given the public too much detail, and 13% too little. YouGov Fewer than a quarter of voters say they would be “delighted” to see Keir Starmer in Downing Street. Only 11% say they’d be delighted to see Rishi Sunak back in No. 10 after the next election. YouGov/Times Radio…

Kidnapped by Hamas Around 30,000 Thais work in Israel, mostly in its agricultural sector; and among them – until recently – was Phonsawan Pinakalo. In 2019, he’d gone to work in a kibbutz three miles from the Gaza border. It was hard at first, but he knew the pay would give his family a better future, and in time, he became close to the other workers. “I was happy,” he told The Daily Telegraph. Then, on 7 October, his life in Israel came crashing down. The kibbutz was overrun by Hamas militants; Pinakalo, 30, was caught, slashed with a knife, and bundled into a van. For the next 50 days, he was chained to a wall. He had a bucket for a toilet, which was never emptied, and was given…

A pigeon suspected of spying for the Chinese government has been released into the wild by Indian authorities, after spending eight months in detention. The pigeon was captured by Mumbai police in May, when they noticed it had rings on its legs and what looked like Chinese writing under its wings. “Deep and proper inquiry and investigations” by the police revealed that the alleged secret agent was actually an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had probably lost its way during a race. An Australian toddler had to be rescued from an arcade claw machine, after he crawled up the prize-dispensing chute in search of soft toys. A video of Ethan, three, inside the machine in Queensland shows that he was in no rush to be rescued. Ethan’s father said…

UKRAINE A war between the president and the general Die Welt (Berlin) The bitter power struggle at the very pinnacle of Ukrainian politics could have a “devastating” impact on the outcome of the war with Russia, says Gregor Schwung. President Zelensky has been at loggerheads with his head of the armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, ever since the moment, last year, when Zaluzhnyi publicly undermined his boss by declaring that the war was at a stalemate. The general said Ukraine could only triumph if the army was granted another 500,000 troops, a totally unfeasible target in the president’s eyes. Now, Zelensky has admitted publicly that he’d like to replace Zaluzhnyi. He had already tried to move his general on last week; but the latter, it’s reported, refused. As it happens,…

During the pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon was seen by many as “a cut above the others”, said Katy Balls in The i Paper – a leader whose measured and compassionate response to the crisis was in contrast to that of the “bumbling” Boris Johnson in London. How far she has fallen since then. Already tarnished by her alleged involvement in a party-funding scandal, Sturgeon’s reputation for honesty and transparency now risks being shattered by the Covid Inquiry. In 2021, she promised to hand all her WhatsApp messages to the inquiry; yet while testifying last week, she eventually admitted that, in fact, she’d “not retained them”. So you deleted them, asked lead counsel Jamie Dawson KC. “Yes,” she replied. In her defence, she claimed that she had only used WhatsApp to discuss…

Nowadays, it’s not “elderly men in red cords and slippers huffing and puffing about feminism being out of control”, said Alice Thomson in The Times. “It’s young men.” Research by King’s College London published last week reveals that British males aged 16 to 29 – Generation Z – are much more likely than their baby-boomer fathers to believe that feminism has gone too far. And 16% of them believe that feminism has done more harm than good; among over-60s, the figure is 13%. One in four Gen Z males believe that it’s harder to be a man than a woman. This “seems insane”: after millennia of male domination, women have only just started to claim something like equality. But these figures “appear to be replicated across the world”. In Spain,…

England faced what looked to be a “near-impossible task” in the second innings of their second Test against India, said Mike Atherton in The Times. They needed 399 runs to win – a total that, had they achieved it, would have eclipsed by 21 runs their previous highest run-chase in a Test match. Yet it’s a measure of the “astonishing turnaround manufactured by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum in the past two years” that the England fans who arrived at the stadium at Visakhapatnam on Monday morning did so “filled with hope”. They had seen this team pull off plenty of “miracles” before. But it wasn’t to be, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. India ended up winning by a 106-run margin, to level the series 1-1. Although England set…

by Paula Byrne William Collins 656pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 The fame of the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy rested largely on the heroines he created, said Norma Clarke in Literary Review. With the likes of Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the d’Urbervilles) and Sue Bridehead (Jude the Obscure), he displayed, as one young reader wrote to him, a “complete understanding of a woman’s soul”. But as Paula Byrne shows in this fascinating book, the women Hardy knew in real life were less fortunate. Byrne doggedly details them all, from Hardy’s “strong-minded” mother, Jemima, to the “pretty girls” who “turned his head” in his youth, to his wives, Emma Gifford and Florence Dugdale (pictured, with Hardy). Hardy’s women, she concludes, “paid a large price” for the “magnificent fictional women he…

The strange and harrowing case of the “silent twins” has long fascinated the public, said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. Born to Barbadian parents who moved to west Wales in the 1970s, identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons had speech impediments which led them, ultimately, to refuse to talk to anyone except each other. They retreated into a private world, writing novels together and dreaming of becoming authors. In their teens, however, they went on a crime spree; they were convicted of petty theft and arson (for setting an empty building on fire), and, aged 19, they were committed to Broadmoor. There they remained for 11 years. Their story – and that of the “staggering miscarriage of justice” they suffered – has been told many times before. What sets…

At its peak, the Roman empire numbered some 60 million inhabitants and controlled everything "from Mesopotamia all the way to Hadrian's Wall", said Nick Clark in the Evening Standard. Stationed across it was a force of 300,000 soldiers (small by modern standards, but one of the largest ancient standing armies). It was tasked with defending borders, policing, and putting down rebellions. The job was dangerous: once a soldier began his 25-year term of service, "medical discharge, dishonour, retirement or death were the only exit routes" - and recruits had just "a 50% chance of making it to retirement". This "gripping" new exhibition explores how Rome built its vast empire "on military might", investigating what life was really like "for recruits at the sharp end of this fearsome war machine". Bringing…

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967 (Vintage £8.99). A fantasy novel set in Moscow about the devil and his henchman. It’s also a political satire that is surreal, full of supernatural events and dark humour. It accompanied me on my very first trip to Russia in 1996, while I was still a student. Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2011 (Orion £14.99). This is a gripping account of faith, architecture, power, war, slaughter, fanaticism and persecution. Montefiore is an absolute genius whose writing beautifully tells the stories of Jerusalem’s turbulent and troubled past, revealing the deep layers of history that make it one of the most complicated but fascinating places on Earth. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, 1988 (HarperCollins £9.99). I read this book when it was…

Programmes The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth Three-part docuseries about the ill-fated Columbia shuttle, which broke up on re-entry in 2003. Mon 12 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Storyville: The Eternal Memory Moving documentary about a highly respected Chilean writer and his wife, as they struggle with his Alzheimer’s. Tue 13 Feb, BBC4 22:00 (85mins). Bring the Drama Bill Bailey hosts a new show in which eight hopeful actors attempt to fulfil their dream on the sets of the nation’s soaps. Wed 14 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Alice & Jack New six-part drama starring Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson. Alice and Jack meet and form a seemingly unbreakable connection, until a past trauma resurfaces. Wed 14 and Thur 15 Feb, C4 21:00 (60mins each). Films How to Marry a Millionaire…

Three-night superyacht stay Experience all the luxury of a superyacht holiday on board the five-star Sunborn Gibraltar. From £269pp b&b (incl. flights). 020-3453 5501, elegantgetaways.co.uk. Depart 19 March. Cuba highlights An eight-day adventure begins in Havana, with a visit to a tobacco farm in Viñales and the Bay of Pigs. From £821pp b&b (excl. flights). 0808-274 5111, intrepidtravel.com. Arrive 2 March. Singapore to Mumbai cruise This 19-night getaway packs in five countries across Asia, including Thailand and Sri Lanka. From £1,799pp fullboard (incl. flights). 020-7183 0077, cruisekingdom.co.uk. Depart 8 November 2025. Seven nights in Tanzania Combine safari game drives with a four-night beach escape when you stay at the Zanzibar Bay Resort. From £1,899pp half-board (incl. flights). 020-3608 0135, secretescapes.com. Depart 24 April.…

Big Oil: cash gushers Who says BP can no longer move markets? Shares in the energy giant surged by 6% to a two-month high this week, said James Gard on Morningstar – dragging up the rest of the sluggish FTSE 100 – after it announced a dividend hike and “crowd-pleasing” share buybacks worth $3.5bn. Although full-year profits “effectively halved” from the $28bn chalked up in 2022 (when they were inflated by the Ukraine War), investors cheered a better-than-expected fourth quarter and the confidence of new CEO Murray Auchincloss. While pledging to continue BP’s strategy of transitioning to net zero, he has brought a “back to basics” approach, said Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown: aiming to generate lots of money and share it with investors. In the climate crisis era, “Fossil…

Asian heft is propping up Russia Banyan The Economist Following the invasion of Ukraine, more than three dozen countries slapped economic sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s Russia – including several Asian nations, says Banyan. Yet Russia’s “war economy” keeps on running. Putin’s pal, Xi Jinping, has done the most to secure this: trade between Russia and China jumped by 29% in 2022 and probably by more last year. Yet sanctions have proved leaky elsewhere in the region too, particularly when it comes to Russian oil. This happens to suit the West because it guards against a global supply crunch. But it shows that even if Western countries had wanted to stop the trade, they could not have done so. There is now speculation that the US “might ratchet up secondary sanctions”…