Table of contents for 1581 in The Week

The Baftas, which were plunged into controversy when audience member John Davidson – who has Tourette syndrome – blurted out the N-word while two black actors, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, were on stage. Tourette’s campaigner Davidson, the subject of the film I Swear, apologised for his involuntary outburst, but questioned why, given his disability, the BBC had left a mic in front of him. Others criticised the BBC for failing to edit out the offensive words in the two hours before transmission, and Bafta for not apologising more fully to the actors. Roaming charges, after a small-business owner inadvertently ran up a £42,000 bill on a family holiday in Morocco. Andrew Alty received a bill from O2 for £22,000 while still in Marrakech, and a later one for…

The Hague, the Netherlands Duterte case: In a case likely to have major implications for the enforcement of global human rights, the International Criminal Court, after four days of hearings, has now to decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to try the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, for crimes against humanity. Prosecutors hold him personally culpable for the slaughter of up to 30,000 people, many of them just bystanders during the infamous “war on drugs” he unleashed during his third stint as mayor of Davao City in the 2010s, and when he was president, from 2016. He’s held to have urged the summary execution of countless drug dealers and users by police and vigilante death squads. Duterte, now 80, was arrested in Manila last year. He has declined…

1 Misunderstanding by Phil Collins, performed by Genesis 2 Dernière Danse by Skalpovich and Indila, performed by Indila 3 Oghneyat Al Bostah, written and performed by Ziad Rahbani 4 Feeling Good by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, performed by Nina Simone 5 Zina by Amine Mohamed Djemal, Rahim El Hadi and Ramzy Ayadi, performed by Babylone 6* Ya Laure Hobouki by Assi and Mansour Rahbani, performed by Fairuz 7 Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), written and performed by Green Day 8 7 Seconds by Neneh Cherry, Youssou N’Dour, Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp, performed by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry Book: A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin Luxury: a notebook and pen * Choice if allowed only one record…

The idea of funding universities with a graduate tax has been mooted since the 1960s, when economists pointed out that a relatively small group of people were getting an expensive benefit paid for out of general taxation. The idea came up again during the expansion of higher education in the 1990s, and at one time or another it has been backed by the likes of Gordon Brown and Vince Cable. In practice, the loans function much like a tax – repayments are collected through the tax system – and proponents argue that presenting them with a future tax obligation is less stressful than being saddled with a large debt. Implementing a tax would raise major administrative issues, though. There is no register of graduates. And might it incentivise students not…

California is damaging faith in democracy Editorial The New York Times America used to be good at counting votes, says The New York Times. When telegraphs came along in the 1880s, people would read election results in the next day’s newspaper. And until recently, it was the norm for voters to know the outcome within 24 hours or so. But in each of the past three congressional election cycles, we’ve had to wait at least a week to find out whether the Republicans or Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. Blame California, America’s most populous state. It allows postal votes to arrive up to a week after election day, and counts ballots “with agonising slowness”. It introduced the grace period with the noble intention of maximising voting access and ensuring…

Chikungunya virus, a tropical disease that causes excruciating pain, is able to spread in most European countries, scientists have warned. The virus is transmitted by the Asian tiger mosquito, which is moving northwards across the continent as temperatures rise. In 2025, there were outbreaks of chikungunya in France and Italy. It had been thought that the virus needed temperatures of at least 16-18°C to spread, but an analysis of 49 existing studies has revised cut-off for transmission to just 13-14°C. This means the virus poses a potential threat for more than six months of the year in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece; and for three to five months in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and a dozen other European nations. In theory, it could spread in southeast England in July and…

Keir Starmer has performed plenty of U-turns since coming to office, said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph, but he’s holding firm on one issue. He remains stubbornly, unaccountably determined “to give away British territory”. Under the terms of a treaty struck last year – but not yet ratified – the UK is set to hand Diego Garcia and the other Chagos islands to Mauritius, in return for a 99-year lease on the joint UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia. The deal is projected to cost British taxpayers as much as £35bn over the coming century. It’s madness. We’re doing this in response to a resolution of the International Court of Justice criticising Britain’s “colonial” rule that even the Government concedes is non-binding. Starmer has been presented with many opportunities to…

“With a series of gravity-defying spins, somersaults and flips”, Zoe Atkin secured bronze in the freeski halfpipe on the final day in Milano Cortina, said Jeremy Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. And in doing so, the 23-year-old “put the seal on Team GB’s greatest Winter Olympics”. While the overall tally (five medals) merely equalled the previous best – achieved in both 2014 and 2018 – the haul this time included a “trio of gold medals”, which is “three times more than Britain has previously achieved in a single Games”. And with five fourth-placed finishes, and 24 in the top ten, the medal count could easily have been significantly higher. For a nation that historically has had “precious little success on snow and ice”, these Games could mark a “watershed moment”.…

Cricket England beat Pakistan by two wickets with five balls to spare and have qualified for the semi-finals of the 2026 T20 World Cup. Six Nations Leaders France beat Italy 33-8. Scotland are in second place after beating Wales 26-23. Winter Olympics The US beat Canada 2-1 to win their first men’s ice hockey gold since 1980. USA’s women’s team beat the Canadians 2-1 too. Tennis World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz followed up his win at the Austrian Open with victory in the Qatar Open. He beat Arthur Fils in the final.…

“Drawing is much more to an artist than just another medium,” said Mark Hudson in The Independent. For painters in particular, it’s a means of evolving ideas long before brush touches canvas; and in some cases, like Lucian Freud’s, it’s an abiding obsession. The artist (1922-2011) was “almost pathologically preoccupied with the act of drawing”, producing thousands of etchings and pictures in pencil or charcoal across the breadth of his long career. This exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is an exhaustive trawl through Freud’s life in drawings, featuring everything from childhood doodles to pictures executed in his final years – and exploring their relationship to his portraiture. It’s “full of great things”: sketchbooks, etchings and portraits of sitters, family and friends; preparatory sketches, and several of the paintings for…

The Hart 56 Blandford Street, London W1 (020-3468 1647) This Marylebone boozer “is exactly the sort of place you want to be” on a glum winter’s night in London, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. After battling through the hordes in the pub bar downstairs, you climb a precipitous, narrow staircase and emerge in a “smallish, wood-panelled room that feels like a mix between a Swiss chalet and an Edwardian chop house. Tablecloths are pristine white paper, napkins thick, and candles flicker on every table”; at one end, a fire blazes. Owned by the Public House Group, which has a string of successful pubs to its name, The Hart serves “a mix of exalted bar snacks and no-nonsense British comfort food”, from cheese straws with “just the right…

● Accountability is key, so keep weighing yourself every day. Tracking your daily calories on an app is tedious, but it works. ● Walking is crucial, and it can be threaded into your day relatively easily. Add extra steps into your routine by strolling to the shops or to meetings, for instance. ● Focus on training harder with weights, rather than more often. Hit the gym, or invest in a dumbbell starter kit. Don’t bother doing more cardio than you need to. ● Eat plenty of healthy proteins, such as chicken, Greek yoghurt and pulses. Aim for 0.35g a day per pound of bodyweight. ● Eat more healthy fats, such as olive oil, avocado and nuts, and avoid reduced-fat foods, which are often high in sugar. ● Give yourself a…

It’s Anthropic vs. the Pentagon… Dave Lee Bloomberg “They say your values aren’t truly values until they cost you something,” says Dave Lee. Anthropic’s safety-conscious boss is being tested. Summoned to a meeting with the US secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, this week, Dario Amodei was threatened with “severe sanctions” unless he agrees to allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s Claude AI tools as it sees fit. When the company struck a $200m deal to supply the software last July, Amodei insisted that Claude shouldn’t be used for “mass surveillance” or controlling “autonomous weapons” – on grounds the technology isn’t yet reliable enough to make life-or-death decisions without human supervision. If the Pentagon is unhappy with those conditions, it has every right to cancel the contract. But trying to ostracise…

A crisis for the royals What happened Days after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in Norfolk, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, MPs backed the release of files relating to his appointment as a UK trade envoy in 2001. The Government promised to comply with the motion as promptly as it could without undermining police investigations into the former prince, who is suspected of passing sensitive information to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein during his decade in the envoy role (see page 18). Downing Street said it might also introduce a bill to remove Andrew – the first member of the royal family to be arrested for more than 350 years – from the royal line of succession. This would then require the approval of the Commonwealth nations that have…

Stressed out residents of Tokyo are being offered the chance to relax in “cute coffins”, reports The Times. In sessions costing from £9.50 for 30 minutes, they can lie in either a closed or open casket designed by a company called Grave Tokyo. They can listen to “healing music”, watch a video projected onto the ceiling, snooze or meditate. Grave Tokyo says that people emerge from the sessions refreshed and better able to appreciate their lives. A majority of British parents (64%) support a ban on social media for under-16s, but half say they would ignore it, and still allow their children access to social media platforms such as Instagram. The Public First survey also found that 68% thought their children would find ways around a ban.…

Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into a Labour MP who has been accused of smearing journalists in his former job at a left-wing think-tank. As head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, now a Cabinet Office minister, paid the PR firm APCO more than £30,000 to look into “the sourcing, funding and origins” of a Sunday Times article, which had revealed that his organisation had been fined by the Electoral Commission for failing to declare £730,000 in donations between 2017 and 2020. The resulting 58-page report falsely claimed that the journalists may have used information gained by Russian hackers. It also contained extensive personal details, some of them inaccurate, about one of the journalists, Gabriel Pogrund. Labour Together sent parts of the report to GCHQ. Last week, Simons said APCO…

Washington DC Board of Peace meets: The US president hosted the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington DC last week. When Donald Trump unveiled the initiative last September, he said that its purpose would be to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, as part of his UN-endorsed peace plan; but its charter gives it a much wider conflict-resolution remit, leading to fears that it could undermine the UN, and questions about its non-treaty-based structure. As a result, many of the US’s Western allies have declined to join it, as has the Vatican. At the meeting, Trump heaped praise on the 27 nations that have joined. They had, he said, pledged $7bn for the Strip’s reconstruction, while the US would give $10bn. However, the total cost has been estimated…

“There is endless talk about the effects of phone use on the young, but it poses perhaps less obvious threats to my generation. Conversation, in boomer circles, has been profoundly damaged by the relatively recent introduction of facts. In my experience, the best conversations are the ones where no one really knows what they’re talking about. I’ve participated in many debates about, say, football or politics, so gloriously unhindered by evidence, so recklessly inventive, that they constitute a sort of folk art. In the past, knowledgeable people were very thin on the ground, but now the smartphone has given everyone the chance to be a killjoy.” Frank Skinner in The Observer…

The shrinking value of a British degree John Burn-Murdoch Financial Times Is it still worth getting a university degree? Doubts are growing, says John Burn-Murdoch. In 1999, British graduates earned 80% more, on average, than non-graduates; now the gap is just 45%, and that’s before factoring in student loans. You may view this as an inevitable result of the expansion of higher education – more than 40% of Britain’s workers now have a degree compared with 20% in 1999 – an increase in supply entailing a decrease in price. But here’s the thing: this isn’t the case elsewhere. In the US, France, Spain and other nations, graduate premiums have held up or increased even as university enrolment has grown. Clearly, it’s a “particularly British problem”, and it says more about…

Doubts about intermittent fasting Intermittent fasting regimes have become very popular: examples include the 5:2 diet, under which people eat as usual five days a week but restrict calorie intake on the other two; and time-restricted eating, which only allows eating between certain hours, say between noon and 8pm. But it seems that they do little to help people lose weight. A Cochrane review – considered the gold standard for assessing the quality of the evidence behind medical treatments – examined the existing research. The analysis of 22 clinical trials, involving 1,995 overweight and obese people aged 18 to 80 from around the world, found that intermittent fasting did not appear to deliver meaningful extra weight loss compared with standard dieting based on a daily calorie restriction. Intermittent fasters, in…

In February 2010, Prince Andrew celebrated his 50th birthday with a glittering reception at St James’s Palace. Jeffrey Epstein, recently released from jail for soliciting sex with a 14-year-old girl, declined an invitation. But hundreds attended, including the model Naomi Campbell and the banker Evelyn de Rothschild, said Alexi Mostrous in The Observer. Sixteen years on, the man now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor marked his 66th birthday in radically altered circumstances. At around 8am last Thursday, a fleet of unmarked police cars arrived at the former duke’s temporary residence on the Sandringham Estate, and arrested him on suspicion of misconduct in public office. While Andrew was detained in custody, officers searched his homes. Eleven hours later, as he was driven away from Aylsham police station, a photographer snapped him sitting…

The job numbers released last week are “the starkest and most sobering I’ve seen in decades”, said Alan Milburn in The Independent. The unemployment rate has climbed to 5.2%, the highest since the pandemic. One in six young people are unemployed – an 11-year high – and almost one million of them are not in education, employment or training (so-called Neets). That’s enough people to fill Wembley Stadium 11 times over. The most “horrifying” statistic is that 45% of 24-year-olds who are Neet have never had a job. If you haven’t had a job by the age of 24, the chances are that “you will spend a lifetime relying on the state”. Something terrible is happening in the labour market, and as a result the country is now “facing the…

When England opened their Six Nations campaign with a victory over Wales, there was much excited talk of the competition being a “tight two-horse race” between Steve Borthwick’s men and France, said Robert Kitson in The Guardian. What has happened since then has made a mockery of such expectations. First came a 31-20 defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield; then, last Sunday, England were crushed 42-21 by the Irish at Twickenham. While the Scottish defeat could just about be dismissed as a “one-off” against a team who were “virtually unplayable”, that logic cannot be applied to this latest disaster, said Michael Aylwin in the same paper. England’s performance was devoid of the “confidence and panache” that had built up over a 12-match winning streak. After Ireland scored their first try, Borthwick’s…

Discipline by Larissa Pham Serpent’s Tail 224pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 This “spare” debut tells of a “lapsed art student”, Christine, who’s touring America to promote her own first novel, said Alexandra Jacobs in the New York Times. That book is a revenge fantasy about the former art school professor who seduced her, discarded her and destroyed her confidence as a painter. On her travels she shares her story with a variety of interesting characters. But all roads lead to a confrontation with the professor on an island off Maine, at which point the book “acquires Stephen King vibes”. Will Christine, like her protagonist, resort to murder? “Thickly pigmented” with suspense, Discipline shows that Larissa Pham “is a writer to keep a close eye on”. Pham’s “spiky” novel provides…

Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime at Sadie Coles HQ Taking place over several floors of a vast Mayfair townhouse, this group show is a sprawling and highly entertaining affair. The premise revolves around Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, the Oscar Wilde short story, which gives the exhibition its title. In a theatrical turn, the galleries have been decked out with rugs and period furniture that give them the air of Belle Époque salons; and the art, too, hints at the story’s themes of faded glamour and decadence. Caragh Thuring provides a comedic double portrait of a ruddy-cheeked dandy and a society lady, both rendered as paintings-within-paintings; Kati Heck gives us a fabulously languid likeness of the restaurateur Fergus Henderson sprawled over a wooden chair. Sarah Lucas fields her customarily ribald blend of…

The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 1992 (Penguin £10.99). Falling in love with a book is often about when you first encounter it. I read this at 13, the ideal age for being intoxicated by such cleverness and menace. Tartt’s snow-globe world of classics students, beauty and transgression felt like everything I wanted from the future. The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, 1980 (Virago £10.99). I return to this often – Hazzard writes about love in a way that makes you feel adolescent again. Her sentences glow and shimmer. Few novels register so clearly how desire persists through misjudgement and delay, how loss can be both an event and a permanent condition. A Perfect Spy by John le Carré, 1986 (Penguin £12.99). Philip Roth called it the finest English…

I first made pineapple kimchi when celebrating Thanksgiving in Hawaii, says Linda Shiue. I wanted something to make our turkey dinners taste more “local” – and came up with the idea of combining chunks of pineapple with kimchi to use in place of cranberry sauce. Here, it makes a super accompaniment to teriyaki salmon. Serves 4 500g salmon fillet, skin on, cut into four pieces pinch of salt 1 tbsp rapeseed oil 3 small garlic cloves, mashed 1 tsp honey 1 tbsp tamari or light soy sauce 2 spring onions, cut on diagonal into 5cm lengths For the kimchi: 2 tbsp grated garlic (about 6-9 cloves) 1 tbsp peeled and grated ginger 1 tsp granulated sugar 4 tbsp gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes) or Aleppo chilli flakes, or 2 tbsp crushed chilli…

The Paris Métro, famous for its iron-and-glass art nouveau station entrances, opened in 1900, and now has 49 more stops than London, but only 60% of the track. Rome Metro has just three lines and 77 stations, but there are two new “museum stations”, which showcase artefacts uncovered during their construction. With about 554 miles of track, Beijing Subway is the longest in the world. Look out for the futuristic maglev line, S1, which has electromagnetic trains capable of 65mph. The Buenos Aires Subte, opened in 1913, is the oldest in the southern hemisphere. Many stations are de facto art galleries; look out for the stained glass on Line B. Tokyo Metro is crowded, but efficient and punctual. It whizzes around the metropolis in a gratifying Blade Runner blur. And, of course,…

Verina Astra Sifnos, Greece Sifnos is “possibly the perfect Greek island” – “quietly authentic but effortlessly chic” – and Verina Astra is its finest boutique hotel, says Rachel Howard in Condé Nast Traveller. The hotel’s 16 rooms and suites have huge verandas, and are set around terraced gardens that spill down a cliff on the island’s wild east coast. Decor is “soothing”, with wildflowers in locally made urns set off against pale stone, linen and rattan, and there’s a gorgeous saltwater infinity pool, a spa, and a “dreamy” restaurant, Bostani, that draws heavily on produce from the kitchen garden and has huge sea views. Doubles from £264; verinahotelsifnos.com.…

Matt Pohlson The co-founder of Omaze – the prize company whose multimillion-pound house draws have soared in popularity in Britain – attributes its rapid growth to a “fundamentally appealing product”, said the FT. “Everybody wants a nice house on the water,” says Matt Pohlson. And consumers like feelgood stories: Omaze gives a cut of the profits to charity. A Californian entrepreneur who set up Omaze in Los Angeles in 2012, Pohlson has a feelgood story of his own: a near-death experience – a cardiac arrest in 2018 – convinced him to shift from selling raffles for celebrity experiences to something more meaningful. In 2019, he improbably organised a charity auction for a Lamborghini, and convinced Pope Francis to bless the car. A year later, he moved to the UK to…

What happened The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson this week announced sweeping reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England. Currently, nearly 20% of all pupils (1.7 million) are officially identified as having special educational needs. Under the proposals, outlined in a White Paper, an extra £4bn would be spent on Send up to 2029; but the number of young people receiving Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), which give legal rights to Send support, would gradually be reduced. By 2035, only children with the most complex needs would qualify for EHCPs, which are expensive to fund and have doubled in number in the past decade. Instead, most pupils with Send would have new “individual support plans”. This is designed to lower Send spending, which will reach…

Ageing naturally, with news that when Woody the cowboy returns to the screen in Toy Story 5, he will have a bald patch. In a trailer, a character suggests he use a brown marker to cover it. Robert Aramayo, after the relatively little-known actor from Hull beat off two Hollywood megastars – Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet – to win the best actor award at the Baftas, for his role in the homegrown drama I Swear (see below). Birch Coffee, on the Isle of Skye, which was named one of the world’s best coffee shops at the annual CoffeeFest. The only other UK café in the top 100 was Glasgow’s Ottoman Coffeehouse.…

48% of Britons delayed or avoided calling their GP surgery when they were ill in the past year. 30% thought they would not get an appointment at a suitable time, and 17% thought they would not be able to get through to the practice. Only 32% think the NHS provides a good service nationally. Ipsos/Health Foundation 76% of Greek citizens express discontent with how democracy works in their country, compared with 68% in France, 66% in Romania, 42% in the UK, and 32% in Sweden. Progressive Lab/Politico Only 26% of UK adults say they would engage with streamed content if they knew it was created or co-created by AI. 53% say they would not. YouGov…

Emin’s newfound happiness These days, life is far from straightforward for Tracey Emin. After being diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer in 2020, the artist had major surgery, removing her bladder and urethra, and leaving her with a stoma – an opening in her stomach. She now relies on a urostomy bag which must be emptied “every 15 to 20 minutes”. She also suffers from bowel trouble. All of this, she says, “really can get you down, because you can’t be free. Nothing can be improvised. Nothing can be spontaneous. When I go away, half my suitcase is full of medical supplies.” Emin is vulnerable to infections: she was struck down with sepsis in the autumn, and worries about catching a cold or the flu. Yet for all that, she…

A traffic warden in Tenterden in Kent issued a parking ticket to a bus parked at a bus stop on the town’s high street. The Arriva bus had broken down and could not be moved until recovery teams came to tow it away, but the warden issued a ticket nevertheless. Ashford Borough Council stood by its decision. A spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a Penalty Charge Notice was issued because the bus had been left unattended at a bus stop” – which was “a clear breach” of parking regulations. Bangkok police shadowed a suspect by dressing up in a red-and-gold lion dance costume during Lunar New Year celebrations and sidling up to him at a temple. Then an officer emerged from the costume’s head and, with help from colleagues,…

GERMANY The dawn of Europe’s third nuclear power? Bloomberg (New York) Who’d have thought it? Germany is now considering the “unthinkable”, says Katja Hoyer. It hasn’t had a nuclear bomb programme since the Nazis were in power, but atomic weapons are, at long last, being discussed in earnest. Germany can’t just sit on its hands watching Russia invade Ukraine and listening to the US state its determination to play a smaller role in European security: it should acquire its own tactical nuclear weapons, argues Bundeswehr Brigadier General Frank Pieper. And he’s not alone. His proposal is even backed by ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer, whose party, the Greens, until now have been largely pro-pacifist. Sadly, the proposal is unlikely to become a reality any time soon, as it would require major…

The Australian TV reporter Danika Mason has apologised for rambling drunkenly live on air at the Winter Olympics. Mason was doing a sports update when she went off piste, slurring her words, discussing the price of coffee and remarking cryptically that she was “not sure about the iguanas”; she then lay on the ground to make snow angels. Host Karl Stefanovic tried to cover for her, suggesting that the “cold air” might have affected her speech. But Mason later apologised, saying she shouldn’t have drunk on an empty stomach, and that she’d failed to meet “the standard I set myself”. In 2011, David Attenborough attended a charity reception full of beans about his day’s work, making a film about pterosaurs – flying reptiles that lived some 66 million years ago…

“The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”William Blake, quoted in The Washington Post “Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.”Andy Rooney, quoted on SummitPost “The prime purpose of eloquence is to keep other people from talking.”Louis Vermeil, quoted in Prospect “I never met anyone who didn’t have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?”Fran Lebowitz, quoted on Culled Culture “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”G.K. Chesterton, quoted in The New York Times “I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals. I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants.”A. Whitney Brown, quoted…

To The Economist I think your optimism about the future for white-collar jobs is wrong. You lean on the idea that AI has to match the full complexity of a role before it threatens that job. But jobs are bundles of tasks, and you don’t have to automate the whole bundle to wreck the economics. I run a business. The last time I wrote code was in high school around 2000. And yet, in the past few months, puttering around in my spare time, I have used Claude to build software that replaced a contractor we had been paying to produce our advertising media. The work looks good, and I didn’t need a computer degree to get there. Then my home air-conditioning broke. I used ChatGPT to go through the…

The Australian writer-director Kip Williams was behind 2024’s hit West End staging of The Picture of Dorian Gray, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Starring the Succession actress Sarah Snook, who played all the parts, Williams used “head-turning live-capture wizardry”, giant screens and pre-filmed sections to mesmeric effect. Now he is back with a “radical” Dracula, in which the British film star Cynthia Erivo plays all 23 characters. It’s not “flawless” – not quite as frightening as you’d hope – but it’s a “tour de force” even so. Erivo is “extraordinary”, said Nick Curtis in The London Standard. Juggling costumes, wigs and accents, and interacting with “onscreen versions of herself”, she has to walk “a knife edge between virtuosity and absurdity”, and pulls it off triumphantly. This Dracula is…

Programmes Bill Bailey’s Vietnam The comedian embarks on a journey exploring Vietnam’s culture, food and history, and the legacy of the war, 50 years on. Sat 28 Feb, C4 21:15 (60mins). Europe on the Edge with Katya Adler The BBC’s Europe editor visits European countries to see how they are adapting to the changing world order, starting in Italy and Germany. Tue 3 Mar, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Hostage Three-part docuseries. In 2012, as the Syrian conflict unfolds, two photojournalists chase a scoop – but also attract the attention of jihadists. Wed 4 Mar, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Crufts 2026 Claudia Winkleman joins Clare Balding to present live coverage of the dog show from Birmingham’s NEC. Thu 5 Mar, C4 15:00 and 19:30 (60mins and 90mins respectively). Films Little Women (2019) Greta Gerwig…

Jesse Jackson 1941-2026 On the night that Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, Jesse Jackson, who has died aged 84, was there among the vast crowds that gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park, tears streaming down his face, said The Times. Growing up in the segregated Deep South, Jackson “could never have dreamt that he would one day see a black American winning the highest office in the land”. But he, as much as anyone else, “had blazed the trail for Obama’s victory”. A civil rights leader in the 1960s, Jackson became the most influential African-American leader in the decades after Martin Luther King Jr’s death; he ran for president twice in the 1980s, and though unsuccessful on each occasion, he won millions of votes and went “further than…

The “grind culture” of Wall Street is in the spotlight again, says Bloomberg. Boutique investment bank Centerview was sued by a former analyst, Kathryn Shiber, who claimed she was wrongfully fired for “asking to be able to sleep more than eight hours a night” because of anxiety disorders that required “a consistent schedule”. She sought $5m in damages. Centerview countered that the demand was incompatible with “the essential functions of the analyst role”. So how much sleep should young traders and analysts be allowed? Sadly, the answer remains elusive. At the 11th hour, just as the jury was being selected, Centerview settled – “to put this distraction behind us”.…

Citrini sensation The “AI scare trade” is back. Tech stock bears inflicted another mauling this week – inspired by a viral Substack post by research firm Citrini, conjuring up the disruption that “abundant intelligence” might wreak on sectors ranging from e-commerce to private credit and insurance, said Louisa Clarence-Smith in The Times. Shares in many firms mentioned by name fell sharply: including Visa, Mastercard and food delivery platform DoorDash. Adapt or die Among the hardest hit were enterprise software stocks, said the FT. IBM tumbled 13% in its “biggest one-day decline since 2000”. Salesforce, Oracle, Workday, CrowdStrike and Datadog were whacked in what some describe as an “adapt or die” moment. The malaise spread to US private capital giants – including Ares, Apollo, KKR and Blackstone – which have extended…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares AG Barr The Times The Irn-Bru maker has gained new sparkle by moving into posh adult soft drinks – seeking to capitalise on the move away from alcohol via acquisitions like “vintage-recipe” specialist Fentimans. Cost pressures are easing too. Buy. 689p. BHP Group Investors’ Chronicle The mining giant plans to increase copper output by 40% within a decade, as its profits overtake iron ore. Boosted by “byproduct” sales of gold, silver and uranium, the dividend is ahead of expectations. Buy. £27.89. IG Group Holdings Citywire The online trading platform is “a windfall beneficiary of volatility” in an increasingly volatile investment world, says Deutsche Bank, which has reiterated its “buy” recommendation and increased target price to £14. Buy. £13.61. Keystone Law Group Citywire This…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1505 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 9 March. Send it to The Week Crossword 1505, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 In all honesty fireboat failed (2,2,4) 9 Polish handle in US railroad (6) 10 Girl of the month with diamonds (6) 11 Truthfulness of lady close to London? (8) 12 What’s shown in archaeological exhibition? We can’t tell yet (7,2,2,4) 14 First indication of congestion on expressway? (4) 16 Nothing in small department warehouse…

At The King’s Trust, we help young people from disadvantaged communities and those facing the greatest adversity by supporting them to build the confidence and skills to live, learn and earn. Our courses, resources and other support help people aged 11 to 30 to develop essential life skills, get ready for work and access job opportunities. Over the last five years, 3 in 4 young people supported by The Trust moved into work, education or training. We know that by helping young people today, the benefits will be felt for years to come. Visit kingstrust.org.uk for more information.…