The Week

A thief who held up a wine shop in Brussels handed back the cash he’d stolen, after being told about the crises that had blighted the business. The armed robber, who was wearing a motorbike helmet, rushed into Le Cellier de Vinalgros and told staff to empty the till. When he was given €110, he demanded more – only to be told there was none, as the shop’s takings were so depleted. At that point, he returned the money and left. I think “he felt sorry for us”, the shop’s owner reflected. A four-year-old from Somerset has become Mensa’s youngest UK member. Teddy Hobbs taught himself to read at the age of two; he can count to 100 in seven languages (including Mandarin and Welsh); and he has the word recognition…

What happened Rishi Sunak faced renewed accusations of Tory sleaze this week as two separate ethics rows engulfed his party. The first involved Tory party chair Nadhim Zahawi, who is under pressure to resign after admitting that he had to settle a dispute with HMRC over unpaid tax during his stint as chancellor last year. According to reports, the settlement required him to hand over a sum close to £5m, which included a £1m penalty. Zahawi described the late tax payment, which was related to his shareholding in YouGov, the polling company he co-founded, as a “careless and not deliberate” error. Labour called for him to publish his correspondence with HMRC. On Monday, Sunak asked his ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, to look into Zahawi’s tax affairs, saying there were “questions that…

What happened Germany announced on Wednesday that it will send tanks to Ukraine, a development hailed as a crucial breakthrough in Western efforts to help Kyiv defend itself from Russia. Berlin said it would send 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks, and allow other countries to offer their own stocks of the German-made tanks. The decision could trigger a wave of commitments by other countries, including Norway, Poland and Spain, to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. The US also confirmed that it would provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks of its own. Discord over Berlin’s reluctance to supply tanks to Kyiv had overshadowed last week’s meeting of defence ministers at the US’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Ukraine’s President Zelensky welcomed Berlin’s “timely decision”, and said he was “sincerely grateful” to German…

It was “the biggest setback for LGBT+ rights” since Margaret Thatcher’s time, said Iain Anderson in The Independent. Last week, the UK Government blocked Scotland’s new Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR) by invoking Section 35 of the Scotland Act. The GRR would allow trans men and women in Scotland to self-certify: to legally define their gender, without “years of arduous medical consultations and dehumanising bureaucratic hoops”; it would also lower the age for certification from the UK standard of 18 to 16. It had been passed “resoundingly” in the Scottish Parliament, by 86 to 39 MSPs, after intensive public scrutiny and 36 hours of debate in Holyrood. Ireland passed similar laws in 2015, “with no adverse consequences”, as have Canada, Argentina, New Zealand, Norway and Malta. Yet in Scotland, thanks…

When Cambridge City Council voted last year to serve only or mainly vegan food at its meetings and events, it was praised for taking bold action on climate change. But it seems there is a problem: people don’t like it. At a buffet last year that was used as a trial for the policy, only one in ten of the 80 attendees tried the vegan options – despite them being “fresh” and “visually appealing” – a situation that gave rise to “significant food waste”, according to a report. Defending the policy, a Green councillor said that the council had set the vegan menu “up to fail” by “othering” it. She said that it should be mixed up with the non-plant-based foods, to encourage people to try it, but this was rejected…

Beyoncé, with reports that she was paid more than £19m for a one-off concert in Dubai, to mark the opening of a new hotel. The US star put on an 85-minute set, in front of an invitation-only crowd of 1,500 celebrities, influencers and journalists. Bill Nighy, 73, who received his first Oscar nomination, for his role in the period drama Living. Other British nominees included Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie – a low-budget film set in Texas. It made just $27,000 at the US box office, but a celebrity-backed social media campaign succeeded in raising its profile. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, who tied the knot for a fourth time. Aldrin, 93, said he and his bride, chemical engineer Dr Anca Faur, 63, were “as excited as…