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Sound system on parliament grounds plays vaccine messages, Macarena and the crooner’s 1970s hits

Whatever happened to stumbling across the love of your life? The radical shift in coupledom created by dating appsHow do couples meet and fall in love in the 21st century? It is a question that sociologist Dr Marie Bergström has spent a long time pondering. “Online dating is changing the way we think about love,” she says. “One idea that has been really strong in the past – certainly in Hollywood movies – is that love is something you can bump into, unexpectedly, during a random encounter.” Another strong narrative is the idea that “love is blind, that a princess can fall in love with a peasant and love can cross social boundaries. But that is seriously challenged when you’re online dating, because it’s so obvious to everyone that you have search criteria. You’re not bumping into love – you’re searching for it.”Falling in love today tracks a different trajectory. “There is a third narrative about love – this idea that there’s someone out there for you, someone made for you, a soulmate,” says Bergström. “And you just need to find that person.” That idea is very compatible with online dating. “It pushes you to be proactive – to go and search for this person. You shouldn’t just sit at home and wait for this person.” Continue reading...

Family of teenager advised that one parent could sit in overspill room shared with alleged rapist’s familyThe parents of a schoolgirl who has accused a stranger of rape have been told by police that there is not enough space in a Nightingale court for them to attend the alleged attacker’s trial.Instead, the family of the teenager have been advised that only one of her parents should sit in an overspill room that would be shared with two members of the alleged rapist’s family. Continue reading...

More babies are born by C-section than ever, causing alarm at the WHO. But some believe the option should always be offered. So what are the risks and benefits?When Elizabeth Chloe Romanis first considered the ethics of chosen caesarean sections, she was listening to a radio programme her husband had sent her. The programme was about how some NHS trusts refused to give medically unnecessary C-sections to people who wanted them. “He sent it to me like: ‘Have you heard this?’ and obviously I got very annoyed,” says the biolaw researcher at Durham University.Someone phoned in and asked, why should the NHS offer the choice when childbirth is natural and surgery costs money? Irritated, Romanis thought someone from her field ought to argue for the right to choose. “So that’s what I did,” she says. Continue reading...

Dispute over archipelago in Indian Ocean involves neighbouring Maldives and UK historical claim

The unique Gladys Palmera archive may cross the Atlantic from Madrid to secure a permanent baseOn a hillside an hour from Madrid, not far from the sepulchral splendour of the Escorial monastery, with its royal tombs, imperial maps and sacred relics, lies another, rather less austere, treasure house.The Gladys Palmera collection, kept in a sprawling, tropical-hued complex crammed with 1950s Mexican film posters and prowled by the odd decorative monkey and jaguar, is the largest private archive of Latin American music in the world. Continue reading...

Patsy Stevenson says Cressida Dick presided over a force where misogyny and racism had thrivedA student whose photograph went viral after her arrest at a vigil following the murder of Sarah Everard said she “almost cried” when she heard Dame Cressida Dick had resigned as Metropolitan police commissioner.Patsy Stevenson was pinned to the ground at the vigil on 13 March at Clapham Common, south London, for Everard, who had been kidnapped while walking home before being raped and murdered by the serving Met officer Wayne Couzens. Continue reading...

The musical theatre star on her new tribute show to Stephen Sondheim, her unconventional upbringing, and her happiest song…Maria Friedman, 61, is a singer, actor and director who has a natural musicality (her parents were classical musicians) and knows how to get inside a song and make it her own – and ours – with emotional precision. An eight-time Olivier nominee (she has won the prize three times), she is known for her interpretations of Stephen Sondheim’s songbook, and is about to celebrate him and the composers Marvin Hamlisch and Michel Legrand in Legacy, a show at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. Friedman is married to the actor Adrian Der Gregorian and has two sons.Tell me about the first time you met Stephen Sondheim…

For increasing numbers of people finding ‘the one’ is no longer the ideal, and there are different, equally valid, ways to connectI have spent much of the past decade talking to people about love. I make it clear that any type of love is a welcome topic but when I ask what love is, my interviewees often shoot straight to romantic love. This is partly down to the inadequacy of our language: that small word has to do a lot of heavy lifting. But it is also because of the multibillion-pound industry that has convinced us the search for “the one” is the be-all and end-all. Mention love and that’s where we immediately go.But does this obsession with romantic love still reflect the lives we lead? In my new book, Why We Love: The New Science Behind our Closest Relationships, I have spoken to people from different backgrounds who have made me rethink our acceptance of romantic love as the dominant narrative. For some it is not a priority, for others it is a restrictive stereotype, while for others it can be a source of risk. As Valentine’s Day comes round again maybe it’s time for a different perspective. Continue reading...

Vets are no strangers to pressure, but Covid and the huge boom in pets means they have never been busier – or experienced so much stressBy the summer of 2020, veterinary practices were beginning to feel the effects of the pandemic pet boom. That was the time that Melanie, a small-animal vet from the southeast of England, realised she no longer wanted to be in the profession. The feeling left her at a loss. All she’d ever done was eat, breathe and sleep veterinary medicine. Like many vets she had been inspired since she was a child: religiously watching TV shows such as Animal Hospital and Vets in Practice, mucking out stables to embellish her university application and completing a five-year degree before finding work at a busy practice. It was a vocation, not a job: she simply loved animals. “Ever since I knew what a vet was, I wanted to be one,” she says. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do that – until now.”But for Melanie, the pressure of lockdown was just the start. During the initial mayhem, practices were forced to work within strict Covid restrictions. Many team members were off sick, isolating or furloughed. Melanie worked three shifts on, three shifts off with a skeleton staff, clocking two hours’ overtime every evening out of a sense of duty. The busiest day in the practice calendar was usually Boxing Day. But between March and July 2020, says Melanie, every day felt as if it was Boxing Day “if the toilet was flooded and the lab was on fire”. Staff bounced from the reception to operations, from remote appointments to emergencies, shepherding animals in for treatment from the street while brushing off abuse from stressed-out owners who were unhappy about wearing masks, didn’t want to wait outside or refused to accept that they couldn’t receive a home visit to have their cat’s claws clipped. Continue reading...

Telegram posts show far-right groups ‘emboldened’ by physical attack on Labour leaderThe Metropolitan Police is investigating death threats against Keir Starmer made in the wake of Boris Johnson’s accusation that he “failed to prosecute” Jimmy Savile.A cache of evidence documenting the threats was sent to Scotland Yard on Friday afternoon, including a number of apparently identifiable users on the messaging app Telegram who called for the Labour party leader to be hung or “executed”. Continue reading...

Liza Minnelli gives a towering performance in a loose adaptation of the stage musical that broaches tough subject matter with deft easeCabaret opens with a Nazi getting kicked out of the Kit Kat Klub, a Berlin nightspot catering to the prurient whims of a well-heeled audience in 1931. It ends with the entire club populated by Nazis, as if it were under occupation. In between, the show goes on with minor changes to accommodate a different clientele, and the country, too, slips inexorably into darkness, engulfing characters who are powerless to stop it, even if they’re inclined to do so. It is an utterly bone-chilling movie musical, yet seductive, witty and delightful – an unbearable lightness of being.The contradictory tensions of Cabaret are managed with such deftness by director Bob Fosse that it remains, 50 years later, a rare film that feels like only one person could have pulled it off. How people continue to live their lives in the face of encroaching authoritarianism and violence is an endlessly renewable and relevant subject for movies, but Fosse choreographs the foreground and background of historic change with as much care as he brings to the song-and-dance at the Kit Kat Klub. “Leave your troubles outside,” beckons Joel Grey’s Master of Ceremonies to the audience in the opening number. Easier said than done. Continue reading...

The famously dogged political reporter has quit TV, but shows no signs of slowing down, having written a rollicking biography of Nigel Farage – and, surprisingly, taken up a role at the Daily Mail’s new project, Mail+It feels like an inversion of the natural order of things to be on Michael Crick’s doorstep. In almost 40 years as a political reporter Crick has made the kerbside ambush of his subjects, outsize furry microphone to hand, something of a personal art form. During his long stints as political editor of BBC’s Newsnight and as political correspondent at Channel 4 News it was said that there was no more alarming sentence for a government minister than “Michael Crick is waiting for you outside”. For a select few – Jeffrey Archer, Michael Heseltine, Michael Howard – those words have only been eclipsed for anxiety by “Michael Crick is writing your biography”.Crick’s house is a friendly double-fronted Edwardian terrace just off Clapham Common, south London. He bought it with his mother, Pat, 31 years ago, moved in with her for a while when his first marriage ended and since her death in 2010 has lived here with his partner, Lucy Hetherington (daughter of the former Guardian editor Alastair), and their daughter, who is now 15. He greets me grinning and a bit stir-crazy from 10 days of asymptomatic Covid quarantine, the itinerant gumshoe confined to quarters. We sit at opposite ends of a sofa in the bay window of a book-crammed through room. Crick, a boyish 63, is an obsessive collector not just of uncomfortable facts, but of much else besides. He has “just about” (said through gritted teeth) every Manchester United match day programme since the war. He also hoards political toby jugs. A lineup of the latter on his mantelpiece includes, prominently, the subject of his latest book, Nigel Farage, gurning in a spivvy suit and a gangster’s fedora. Continue reading...

The blockade of Ottawa has sparked copycat action around the globe, and such disparate demonstrations of grievance may prove hard to shut downIt only took six dozen trucks, and a few hundred protesters to bring Canada’s capital to a standstill and close a critical border crossing with the US, throttling the car industry that straddles the line between both countries and relies on a constant flow of trade.On Saturday, Canadian authorities finally began taking action to clear the Ambassador Bridge into the US, the busiest land crossing in North America, which had been blockaded by just over a dozen trucks and smaller vehicles, and a crowd a few hundred strong. Continue reading...

Joint statement from US, Japan and South Korea urges Pyongyang to return to negotiations and stop its recent spate of ‘destabilising’ missile launchesThe top diplomats of Japan, South Korea and the United States declared their unity against North Korea on Saturday after a series of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang.After a day of meetings in Honolulu, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong, and Japanese foreign minister Hayashi Yoshimasa condemned the series of seven launches as “destabilising” in a joint statement. Continue reading...

Former model Jack Guinness caught up in furore over Mississippi mayor’s attempt to withhold funding for library until ‘homosexual materials’ are withdrawnA British writer, presenter and former model says he is shocked to find himself at the centre of an unprecedented wave of book banning in the US.A Mississippi mayor has told the Madison County Library to remove LGBTQ+ books from its shelves or lose funding. One of the books singled out as an example was The Queer Bible, a collection of LGBTQ+ history essays edited by Jack Guinness. Ridgeland’s Republican mayor, Gene McGee, has refused to release funds to the library until “homosexual materials” are withdrawn. Continue reading...

US president and Russia’s leader make call after Macron tells Putin sincere negotiations are incompatible with an escalation in tensions; UK troops training Ukrainian army to leave this weekend

Emergency services at scene of partial building collapse in Hackney Wick, east LondonSeven people have been rescued from the Two More Years bar in east London, and a number of people have been treated at the scene and taken to hospital after a mezzanine floor collapsed at the venue.Emergency services are dealing with the incident. London fire brigade (LFB) said firefighters were called to a ceiling collapse at a pub in Roach Road, Hackney Wick. Continue reading...

As Australia slips down in global rankings, maths experts are divided on which teaching method is best for studentsAustralia’s sliding mathematics ranking and disagreements around how the subject should be taught remain key sticking points preventing a consensus on the proposed national curriculum.The nation’s eduction ministers met earlier this month to discuss the proposed curriculum and almost reached a consensus, but while most of the state and territories were happy with the latest revisions, the federal and Western Australian education ministers held out. Continue reading...

Not only did the mountains seem to watch us, they stimulated a hunger to scour the forest floors and decipher codes stamped in lichen

Hour long call between US and Russian presidents widely seen as last-ditch attempt to stop invasion of UkraineJoe Biden and Vladimir Putin talked by phone for over an hour on Saturday in what is widely seen as a last-ditch effort to fend off a Russian invasion of Ukraine which the US has warned could start as early as Wednesday.The call brought “no fundamental change” to the worsening crisis according to a senior US official, briefing reporters. The official said two leaders agreed to stay engaged in the coming days “but Russia may decide to proceed with military action anyway,” adding there was no evidence of “meaningful” de-escalation on the Ukrainian border. Continue reading...

Fifty years since they were deported to Mauritius by the UK, Chagossians are still fighting for their homelandReturning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the pale sand and stood – hands joined together – in thanksgiving prayers.For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close monitoring by British officials. Continue reading...

Fifty years after the UK forcibly deported them, five Chagossians have visited the disputed archipelago with Mauritius’s helpReturning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the sand and stood – hands joined together – in prayer.For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close close monitoring by British officials. It is 50 years since they were forcibly deported to Mauritius by the UK, which cleared the archipelago of its entire population to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. Continue reading...

The massive military buildup could be a bluff, or a political ploy designed for a Russian audience. Either way, the US is digging inRussian spokespeople daily deny any intention to invade. So, too, did Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, when he met the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, last week, and when he spoke to US president Joe Biden on the phone. There are two problems with this. First, given Putin’s Johnsonian relationship with truth, few western governments believe the denials. Second, Putin has not explained why, if his intentions are peaceful, more than half of Russia’s armed forces, including 130,000 troops, are massed on Ukraine’s borders. It could all be a bluff. But who would bet the house on that? Continue reading...

Ukrainians rallied in Kyiv on Saturday to show unity as international warnings of a Russian invasion sharpened.Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told people not to panic, but more than 100,000 Russian troops are positioned near Ukraine and have carried out large-scale exercises, increasing tensions.The US said on Friday an invasion could start at any moment, but Russia denied having any plans to launch one.

Many demonstrators drove away from Ambassador Bridge as scores of police approached shortly before dawnA tense standoff at a US-Canadian border crossing crucial to both countries’ economies appeared to be dissolving peacefully Saturday as Canadian police moved in to disperse the nearly weeklong blockade and demonstrators began leaving without resistance.Many demonstrators drove away from the Ambassador Bridge spanning the river between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, as scores of police approached shortly after dawn. Continue reading...

Tests are no longer required to enter country and children under 12 are exempt from vaccination requirements

Warnings of an imminent Russian invasion do help Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in a press conference on 12 February.Zelenskiy said he has 'a lot of information' that he would analyse without sowing panic as countries, including the UK and the US, issued warnings for their citizens to leave Ukraine.Tensions have been mounting for weeks during the Russian military buildup near its ex-Soviet neighbour

After that initial attraction, what keeps a couple together? And as we change and grow over the years, how do we make sure we move in the same direction? Philippa Perry and five other relationship experts on how to keep that loving feelingHim: “What are you doing?”

MP says police seem to be punishing people for challenging them during clashes in the city last yearDozens of mainly young “kill the bill” protesters have been charged with riot – the most serious public order offence – following clashes in Bristol last year. The decision by Avon and Somerset police and the Crown Prosecution Service appears to be the biggest use of riot charges against demonstrators since the 1980s.The force launched one of its largest investigations after a confrontation between riot police and protesters opposed to the police and crime bill – which will allow the police to curb protests – spiralled into violent clashes outside a police station in Bristol on 21 March last year. Continue reading...

F Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is the latest title to appear in a cheap modern version after copyright expires“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” It is one of the most memorable literary payoffs in history, the end of F Scott Fitzgerald’s defining novel of the 20th century, The Great Gatsby.Yet this famous ending will be lost to many readers thanks to the proliferation of substandard editions, one of which loses the last three pages and instead finishes tantalisingly halfway through a paragraph. Continue reading...

It is not clear if China is in talks with drugmaker to procure treatment, the first oral pill cleared in country

The chess grandmaster, 58, on growing up in Baku, Putin’s bloody dictatorship and losing to Deep BlueMy mother was Armenian, my father Jewish. My father died when I was seven and my mother never remarried. She lived the rest of her 50 years for me. It’s the greatest thing that happened to me – I had a mother who dedicated her entire life to her only son.I grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the deep south of the USSR. Everybody spoke Russian because it was an imperial city. At 10, I was sent to the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku to learn how to play chess. It didn’t take long for me to see the gap between reality and propaganda. Continue reading...

Four-year-old Gracie-Ann Wheaton, from Tredegar, died the following day after huge emergency services responseA “wonderful” three-year-old boy has died in hospital almost a week after a crash on a motorway in Wales that also killed a four-year-old girl.The child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been travelling in a car on the M4’s westbound carriageway, near Newport, when it was hit by a van on 5 February. Continue reading...

The secretary of state was speaking during a trip to Fiji as the US seeks to stem China’s influence in the Pacific regionThe United States government used its first trip to the South Pacific by a secretary of state in almost 40 years to warn Russia to back off Ukraine.Antony Blinken told reporters in Fiji he would speak to his Russian counterpart, the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to advise that the US was prepared for either diplomacy or “aggression” and warned of economic sanctions in the event of an invasion. Continue reading...

Scotland Yard said the 31-year-old victim sustained facial injuries in the prolonged racially aggravated attackPolice have released a photograph of a man they want to speak to after a woman had hair torn from her scalp in a racially aggravated attack.The assault took place outside East Croydon Railway Station, south London, at about 6.45pm on 18 December when the 31-year-old victim got off a Route 119 bus. Continue reading...

Labor and Coalition likely to win two Super Saturday contests each, but final result unlikely to be known for at least a week

Ex-commissioner says PM should recuse himself from process of finding Cressida Dick’s replacement while under police investigationBoris Johnson should not be involved in selecting the new head of the Metropolitan police while he remains under investigation for alleged lockdown breaches, a former force commissioner has said.Ian Blair, a former Met commissioner, called on the prime minister to recuse himself from involvement in the process, describing the decision about Cressida Dick’s replacement as “an enormously important choice”. Continue reading...

UK PM asked about lockdown parties; thousands of protesters block roads in Canberra and Wellington

The green fruit has become less ubiquitous on local tables as criminal gangs fight over the trade, driving diners to distractionThe citric kick of the limes which grow abundantly across Mexico – the world’s largest producer of the fruit – help give the country’s cuisine its distinctive flavour.But aggressive price-fixing by criminal groups has sent prices soaring, prompting some eateries to stop offering limes with their tacos – and leaving diners in a sour twist. Continue reading...

Looking for kitchen inspiration to spur romance? Try these swoonworthy recipes from Guardian and Observer food writers• Read more tips for easy date-night dishesThomasina Miers suggests a lie-in to work up an appetite for this creative recipe of green brunch eggs. Continue reading...

Milton Keynes College says incident was witnessed by staff and students, some of whom administered first aidA boy has been stabbed to death outside a college in Milton Keynes.Police were called to Milton Keynes College, Chaffron Way, at about 1.30pm on Friday after reports of a boy being stabbed. Continue reading...

Epic split between Kim Kardashian and rapper now known as Ye, with wealth, parenting disputes and trolling is perfect divorce for the Instagram AgeIt promises to be the celebrity separation of the year, unfolding in a dizzying hybrid of IRL (In Real Life) and virtual spheres.The epic split between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, with its generous cast of plus-ones, parenting responsibilities, brand fortunes, a family TV franchise, political and racial trolling, is a perfect divorce for the Instagram age. Continue reading...

Lottie, 35, teacher, meets Tim, 33, doctorLottie on TimWhat were you hoping for?

Hours after the injunction order to end the blockade, protesters opposing pandemic restrictions stayed at the bridge entranceProtesters opposing pandemic restrictions were still occupying a vital Canada-US trade corridor hours after an injunction order to end the blockade that has disrupted North America’s auto industry took effect.Prime minister Justin Trudeau has promised president Joe Biden quick action to end the crisis and earlier on Friday a Canadian judge ordered an end to the four-daylong blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, North America’s busiest land border crossing. Continue reading...

Prime minister says Australia ‘a free country’ and blames states for Covid vaccine mandates

The Austrian director torments everyone, including the audience, in this grotesque tale set in the Italian resort out of seasonWretchedness, sadness and confrontational grotesquerie once again come together in a movie by Ulrich Seidl, although it’s leavened by something almost – but not quite – like ordinary human compassion. If you’ve seen Seidl’s other movies you’ll know what to expect and you’ll know to steel yourself for horror. Perhaps this one doesn’t take Seidl’s creative career much further down the road to (or away from) perdition, but it is managed with unflinching conviction, a tremendous compositional sense and an amazing flair for discovering extraordinary locations.The Italian coastal resort of Rimini in winter is an eerie, melancholy place; Seidl shows it in freezing mist and actual snow. Refugees huddle on the street and some groups of German and Austrian tourists take what must be bargain-basement package vacations at off-season rates in the tackiest hotels. It is here that Ritchie Bravo, played by Seidl regular Michael Thomas, plies his dismal trade. He is an ageing lounge singer with a drinking problem, a cheery, bleary style, an Islamophobic attitude, a bleached-blond hairdo of 80s vintage and a spreading paunch. Ritchie makes a living crooning to his adoring senior-female fanbase, who show up in their coach parties to catch his act. (You could compare him to Nick Apollo Forte in Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose or Gerard Dépardieu in Xavier Giannoli’s The Singer – except much, much more horrible.) He also tops up his income by having sex with some of the fans for money – truly gruesome scenes in the starkly unforgiving Seidl style. Continue reading...

Court grants an injunction to remove protesters from the bridge between Windsor and DetroitThe province of Ontario has invoked a state of emergency and says it will use the threat of hefty fines, jail time and vehicle licence seizures to end a blockade that has crippled trade between Canada and the United States.Border traffic at the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor to Detroit, has been shut down since Monday as part of a nationwide protest against pandemic restrictions, snarling nearly C$300m (US$235m) of trade each day. Continue reading...

For 10 years successive Australian governments have known the world famous species is in trouble, but neglected to do something about it

Students say LGBTQ+ safe spaces at Australian school help them grow confidence and be proud of their identitiesQuinn Clements, 16, is gender fluid. The pronouns they use can change but they prefer they/them.In year 10 they came out at their all-girls religious school in Melbourne. Continue reading...