Dr Dan Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, says he could no longer look his NHS colleagues in the eye and remain a Tory

Since the Rwanda policy was proposed in April 2022, not a single flight has left for the east African nation

Refugees tell Holly Bancroft about the dangerous journeys they have taken to get to Northern France a and their hope of reaching the UK

Thousands of people demanding immediate ceasefire march through capital

Tory rival Susan Hall calls herself Sadiq Khanas abAate noirea but some Londoners would be unable to pick the Conservative candidate out of a lineup, Barney Davis writes

SNP leader wrote to other parties asking them to find acommon grounda

Defence secretary says MPs must give the Rishi Sunak space

Exclusive: Britain must properly fund prison system to ease current aimpossiblea situation a or else change how we punish criminals, warns veteran governor

The government is said to be considfering the move, but officials have said that no decision has yet been made

Average rents soared by nine per cent in the year to March a the biggest annual percentage increase since data collection began in 2015

Point of the advert in Clapham was lost on at least one concerned member of the public who reported it to council

Exclusive: aAn officer said to me that aif this goes to court your name will be blackened and dragged through the mud and you will be made out to be the biggest liar and slag goinga,a says Carol Higgins

Scotlandas under-fire first minister has insisted he will not resign, despite facing a vote of no confidence in his leadership.

The Rwanda bill finally became an act of parliament on Thursday after months of pushback and debate

TV personality urged fans to use sunscreen as summer approaches

Newsreader appeared to struggle with reading during Friday eveningas aNews at Tena broadcast

ITVas international affairs editor became unwell during Friday eveningas aNews at Tena broadcast

TV presenter has learned more about natural processes since working on aClarksonas Farma

Julie Andrews, the franchiseas aQueen of Genoviaa, previously speculated that the project was ashelveda

Veteran romance novelist did not name the man in question

Ellie Harrison and Annie Lord put together a list of truly awful cinema sex...

The aMillion Dollar Babya star defied the odds to become a double Oscar winner. She speaks to Annabel Nugent about her personal connection to her new heart-wrenching film, the tough lessons she learnt playing a young transgender man in aBoys Donat Crya a and the newfound joys of motherhood

Chinese mining giant Zijin is Goliath to a band of Serbian villagers who say they will up sticks as one, or not at all, writes Marko Djurica

If you have avoided organizing, baby/pet-proofing, deep cleaning, or some (worryingly necessary) odd jobs around the house, let these products be the boost you need to finally get to it.

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PSA there might be a lip gloss and lost sock stuck under your oven.

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The horrors of the internet can"t find you here. This is a safe space.

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Parenting is hard work, fortunately *we* know how fun we really are.

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In this house, we outfit repeat.

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Time to outfit the whole squad with self-heating foot masks, brown butter seasoning, and this cult-favorite set of "floating" headphones.

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Whether you"re giving or receiving this engagement ring, it"s clear your love was written in the stars. a"d

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"Broken tailbones. Apparently, thatas common, and it sure wasnat in What to Expect When You"re Expecting. "

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Men: Can"t live with "em, can"t live without "em.

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dP *Taylor Swift voice* Some guy said my aura"s moonstone just "cause he was hiiiiiigh dP

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All the top-tier resorts will soon be calling you for a consultation.

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There"s a ~cooler~ way to get the styles you crave.

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From fashion to skincare to home products, there"s no limit to how much $$$ you can save if you"re willing to get ~thrifty~ with it.

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Move over, Ty Pennington; you"ve got some competition.

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A smokeless fir pit, curated wine flight, AI-powered smartphone stabilizer, and 30 other unique, hit Mother"s Day gifts.

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New shoes are always a good idea.

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You probably thought your days of believing in magic were over... but these beauty products are about to change that.

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These "floating" earbuds are about to be bliss on your poor, tired ears.

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Complaining is fun, but solving some of the problems plaguing your life right now might be even more fun.

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Your home texted me and told me to ask you for these things.

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Exclusive: Ex-health minister Dan Poulter, who also works as a hospital doctor, says Conservatives have become anationalist party of the righta

Read more: aIam resigning as a Tory MP and crossing the floor. Only Labour wants to restore our NHSa

A Tory MP and former health minister has staged a dramatic defection to Labour, saying the Conservatives have become a anationalist party of the righta that has abandoned Acompassion and no longer prioritises the NHS.

Dr Dan Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, who works part-time as a mental health doctor in an NHS hospital, announced he was resigning as a Tory MP and would be taking the Labour whip until the next election in an exclusive interview with the Observer.

SNP leader wrote to other parties asking them to find acommon grounda before no confidence vote

Humza Yousaf has said he does not rule out a Holyrood election after writing to the leaders of Scotlandas political parties asking them to find acommon grounda ahead of a no confidence vote.

Yousaf has come under increasing pressure in recent days after his decision to axe the Scottish National partyas governing agreement with the Scottish Greens on Thursday morning.

Documents show officials were told blood plasma harvested from US convicts was contaminated with viruses

aC/ Read more: the true story of the UK infected blood scandal; plus: aMy mum gave the injections that killed my brothersa

A commercial blood product at the centre of the biggest treatment scandal in the history of the NHS was approved for use after government officials were told convicts were among the paid donors and virus contamination ashould be assumeda, corporate filings reveal.

The product, given to Ahaemophiliacs to enable their blood to clot, was injected into thousands of patients in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, Aincluding young children, who were infected with Aids and hepatitis C.

• Champions League semi-final, 5.30pm BST kick-off (first leg: 1-0)
• PSG v Lyon match preview | And send your thoughts to Will

2 mins: Itas been an intense start from both teams. Barcelona are not giving Chelsea a second on the ball, who are doing their best to knock it about.

Peep! Peep! Peep! Here we go!

International affairs editor became unwell while presenting News at Ten on Friday

The ITV News presenter Rageh Omaar is arecovering at home with his familya after being treated in hospital, a spokesperson for the broadcaster said.

The ITV News international affairs editor was presenting the News at Ten on Friday evening when he appeared shaky and to be having difficulty reading the news bulletins.

Cross-party MPs criticise protesters who waved Palestinian flags and shouted at former Tory minister who was flanked by security

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the protests against him at Cardiff University were alegitimate and peaceful, if noisya after he was chased off campus on Friday, as the incident received cross-party condemnation from elsewhere.

Footage showed the Conservative MP being followed by a small number of shouting demonstrators as he was escorted into a waiting car by eight security guards after speaking the universityas Conservative society.

Claim of parental alienation made to adistress and frightena, English court told

A man who raped his wife and was controlling and threatening towards her and their two children attempted to manipulate the family court into believing he was a victim of domestic abuse, a judge has ruled.

In a damning judgment Judge Middleton-Roy found the manas conduct a which included frequent filming of his family using a body-worn camera a had been areprehensible and unreasonablea after he pursued false claims against the mother and contested her allegations against him over a prolonged period.

Signs of renewed truce talks come as UN warns afamine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within six weeksa

Hamas has said it is studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after media reports said a delegation from Egypt had arrived in Israel in an attempt to jumpstart stalled negotiations.

The signs of renewed truce talks come as the UN warned that afamine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeksa unless massive food assistance arrives.

Concerned public contact council over safety fears after retailer erected askew billboard in Wandsworth

A Waitrose billboard erected in a wonky fashion as a marketing stunt was fenced off by council staff amid public safety fears.

The retailer erected an askew billboard on Lindore Road, in Wandsworth, south-west London, in a nod to its falling prices.

Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm

A 13-year-old boy has discovered a aholy graila Lego octopus which spilled into the sea from a shipping container in the 1990s.

The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Landas End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.

As an MP and psychiatrist, I see the burden that a service near breaking point takes on patients, their families and healthcare colleagues

aC/ Read more: Tory former health minister Dan Poulter defects to Labour in fury at NHS crisis

Alongside serving my Aconstituents as their MP, during the junior doctorsa strike I have spent more than 20 night shifts over the past year or so Aworking as a mental health doctor in a busy hospital A&E department. It has been a truly life-changing experience.

Working on the frontline of a health service under great strain left me at times, as an MP, struggling to look my NHS colleagues, my patients and my constituents in the eye. Throughout the small hours, my clinical colleagues and I cared for many patients suffering from serious psychosis who would routinely be waiting several days, rather than hours, in a windowless room in A&E for a mental health bed.

As an inquiry into the infected blood scandal that has claimed 3,000 lives in Britain prepares to report on its findings, victims and families who have lost loved ones tell their stories

aC/ Read more: government was warned of infected blood risks in 1970s; plus the true story of the UK infected blood scandal

When Roger Newman was just 10 years old, doctors told his Aparents that his haemophilia could now be treated with a commercial blood product promoted by the drug industry as a wonder treatment.

Instead of regular trips to the Ahospital, the freeze-dried plasma concentrate could be kept in the fridge and administered at home. Parents were given training on mixing the white powder with purified water and injecting their children.

The main partiesa strengths and vulnerabilities will be starkly on show in the capital, the West Midlands, Tees Valley, the north-east and Dorset

On 4 May, Rishi Sunak faces a set of local elections that risk further destabilising his premiership and emboldening his critics. Here are five contests that will reveal how the main parties are shaping up, just months before a general election.

The celebrated US photographeras haunting new series, documenting the locations where people have died in encounters with police, is a quietly devastating commemoration and a critique of modern American culture

In their monochrome starkness, Diana Mataras images of modern America possess a melancholic undertow that is both familiar and unsettling. Whether a deserted backroad fringed with sun-burnished grass in rural Texas or a single-storey liquor store in a sprawling Californian suburb, there is the sense that these often nondescript places are not where locals tend to linger, never mind gather to mourn and to remember.

And yet the 110 photographs in her new book, My America, are of sites where civilians were killed by law enforcement officers across Texas, California, Oklahoma and New Mexico in 2015 and 2016. aI chose those four states because Texas and California are where most people die in encounters with law enforcement,a she says, awhile Oklahoma and New Mexico have the highest per capita deaths. I would have liked to have photographed in other places like Chicago and Georgia, but I simply ran out of money.a

Four families torn apart by Chileas illegal adoption scandal finally found each other decades later. They describe the emotional moment they met a and how they pieced together the lives they had spent apart

For Sara Melgarejo, the wait at Santiago airport was agonising. The 65-year-old had travelled about 30km north from San Bernardo, a working-class suburb of the Chilean capital, for the reunion. She walked the length of the building trying to calm her nerves, holding her breath for the arrival of the two children she had spent the last 40 years believing were dead. aMy heart was racing and my body was trembling,a she says, abut I felt pure joy.a

Siblings Sean Ours, 40, and Emily Reid, 39, walked into arrivals together, having arrived on a flight from the US. Even though they had never met Sara in person, there was no question that she was their biological mother a they share the same eyes, the same infectious smile.

Austrian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger has spent her life hunting for signs of life in the universe. Here she talks about aliens, space exploration and why studying cosmology is like eating pizza

Staring into the abyssa| Am I really reaching anyone out there?a Lisa Kaltenegger is laughing about the unsatisfactory experience of teaching astrophysics over Zoom during Covid lockdowns, but she could be talking about her vocation: trying to discover if thereas life beyond our solar system.

Kaltenegger founded the Carl Sagan Institute in 2015 to investigate just that. A burst of sunny energy and infectious enthusiasm on a grey day, sheas speaking to me from the legendary extraterrestrial life researcheras old office, now hers, overlooking the leafy Cornell campus in upstate New York. The institute brings together researchers across a range of disciplines to work out what signs of life on other planets might look like from here, so that we recognise them if (or when) we find them.

Sort of: this week will see inspections of some goods. But the hit to businesses and inflation will be inescapable

When Michael Gove announced the first delay to post-Brexit checks on plant and animal products coming into the UK from the EU, he was keen to make one thing clear.

aAlthough we recognise that many in the border industry and many businesses have been investing time and energy to be ready on time, and indeed we in government were confident of being ready on time,a the then minister for the Cabinet Office said, awe have listened to businesses who have made a strong case that they need more time to prepare.a

The former Top Gear presenter claims his controversialist persona was just a caricature, and heas really a reformed character living the good life. But do old habits die hard?

aAre you happy?a I ask Jeremy Clarkson. A few times on Clarksonas Farm, you said were happy. His thick eyebrows seem low, like storm clouds gathering. aI said that in season one, episode one,a he replies. aAnd I meant it then. Lockdown was a blessed relief. You thought: no oneas inviting me out, I donat have to go anywhere. Lisa would say, aLetas go on holiday again next weekend.a And I could say, aNo! We canat!a It was brilliant. We were stuck here. So I was very happy at work then.a Didnat he say he was happy at another point, while building his pigpen or sowing on his tractor? He looks at me, eyebrows locking, lips pursed in thought. He has perfect recall of the entire Clarksonas Farm archive. He was pleased when he did those things, but it wasnat a blanket expression of happiness. Pleased? aWell, what did I do for 25 years? I drove around corners shouting and achieved nothing. Nothing! And then you plant a field of mustard, which I did last year, and some of it grew. Not as much as Iad been hoping, but some. So you have a sense of achievement.a

Could we allow for the possibility that he might be contented, then? Clarkson concedes that springtime is nice. aThis is going to sound awfully pretentious, but Iave never noticed the buds coming on the trees before. I spent a good 20 minutes yesterday staring at buds, going, is that too early? Or is that later than normal?a

The feature-free phone, launched at Milan design week, is the latest device to tap into young peopleas concerns about attention-harvesting and data privacy

Itas almost enough to make you stop doomscrolling: dull devices are now cool.

The Boring Phone is a new, featureless flip phone that is feeding the growing appetites of younger people who want to bin their smartphones in favour of a dumbphone.

Scientific studies cannot agree on the relative importance of genes and environment on how we turn out as adults

The eternal mystery of how much we are shaped by our parents a or how much we shape our children a was stirred again last week with the publication of a study that suggests that we are less like our parents than we had previously thought.

Led by RenA(c) MAuttus of Edinburgh Universityas department of psychology, the study looked at more than 1,000 pairs of relatives to establish how likely children are to inherit what psychologists call the abig fivea or aOceana personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

A devil-may-care culture led to the UKas highest drinking rates. Are we now paying the price for years of excess?

Most people can foggily recall where they were as the clock struck midnight on 1 January 2000. Me? I hugged the jaundiced rim of a village hall toilet, vomiting 10 shades of bile. I had attempted to complete Team 2000 a a challenge set by 20 friends who endeavoured to consume 2,000 units of alcohol, 100 units each, throughout December.

Seasoned soaks might consider this eminently Aachievable a especially around the Afestive Aseason a but I was just 15 years old. Later that night, in the grim depths of morning, I defecated while Aunconscious in my friendas sleeping bag. Welcome to generation peak booze.

• Six Nations updates from the 4.45pm BST kick-off in Bordeaux
• Sign up for The Breakdown | And send your thoughts to Alex

John Mitchell speaks to BBC TV. The Red Roses coach urges his side: aWe must keep the emotions calm so people can be decisive under pressure.a But heas also keen for a challenge. aToday will be a different story [than against Ireland]. Today will be an arm-wrestle and weare ready for it. We canat wait.a

Itas dry in Bordeaux! (insert wine pun of your choice here). The rain has stopped and the tricolour flags are being waved fervently inside the Stade Chaban-Delmas.

• Premier League updates, 5.30pm BST kick-off at Goodison Park
• Live scoreboard | West Ham 2-2 Liverpool | And drop Barry a mail

Sean Dyche: In an interview with Sky Sports, the Everton manager explains that Dominic Calvert-Lewin is ill and carrying a couple of knocks. Vitaly Mykolenko is out with an ankle injury that aheall take a bit of time to recover froma.

On the similarities between Brentford and Evertonas form coming into this game: aI jusat spoke to Thomas and heas somebody I respect and know reasonably well. We were saying that one of the conundrums of how we both hadnat won games for long periods despite pretty decent performances and itas just one of those things you have to come out of. Weave both done that in our own ways and now weave parked that, we want to take these on and try to win the game.a

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By the end, Sheffield United were probably relieved that their next league assignment in the north-east will be at Sunderland or Middlesbrough. Long before the final whistle brought confirmation of a relegation to the Championship that the visiting manager, Chris Wilder, had already deemed ainevitablea, his players had seen more than enough of Newcastle and Alexander Isak in particular.

Eddie Howeas side have now scored 13 Premier League goals this season against the Blades. This latest quintet, with two registered by the excellent Isak, enhanced their hopes of hosting European nights at St Jamesa Park next season.

• Liverpool forward was pulled away from coach by Darwin NAoA+-ez
• Klopp: aWe spoke in the dressing room a| it is done for mea

Mohamed Salah ruined JA1/4rgen Kloppas attempt to play down his touchline row with the winger by saying there would be afirea if he stopped to speak after Liverpoolas faltering title challenge suffered another blow in their 2-2 draw at West Ham.

Salah, who was dropped after Liverpoolas midweek defeat at Everton, cut a disgruntled figure while he was waiting to come off the bench at the London Stadium. The winger reacted badly after Klopp, whose side were chasing a late winner after squandering a 2-1 lead, tried to speak to him. The incident ended with Darwin NAoA+-ez, another substitute, having to pull Salah away from Liverpoolas manager.

The current Manchester United side, representing English footballas 20-time record champions, seriously struggle to hold on to a lead. It is the puzzle of Erik ten Hagas vintage, an unwanted leitmotif of this lost season under the Dutchman as, once more, it happened here in yet another late capitulation.

A careening Antony, close to tumbling over, appeared to be Unitedas hero, his strike beyond Arijanet Muric kissing the back of the Burnley net with the clock showing 79 minutes. But no. United hit self-destruct via the hapless act of AndrA(c) Onana, who wiped out Zeki Amdouni near his goal when Aaron Wan-Bissaka had already headed the ball clear.

• Harlequins 41-32 Northampton
• Quins score six tries to boost Premiership playoff push

These two will be representing English rugby in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup next weekend. If this is anything to go by they will do not just do their country proud, they will astonish.

It almost goes without saying in the Premiership, certainly when considering either of these two, that this was extraordinary rugby. Where to start? Ten tries, 73 points, bonus points all round and a contest that seesawed with the wind. Right up to the end. The speed and precision with which these two ran free across Twickenhamas wide open spaces was breathtaking. And that was just to watch.

• 2019 champion beats Tom Ford 13-7 to book spot in last eight
• Trump admits to struggling with conditions of Crucible table

Judd Trump has revealed he rejected offers to join a rival snooker tour after cruising into the quarter-finals of the world championship with a 13-7 win over Tom Ford at the Crucible.

Trump says he has no interest in the prospective LIV-style breakaway, which is understood to emanate from east Asia and requires a commitment to play in eight regular events plus a grand final in exchange for a six-figure sign-on fee.

Englandas white-ball coach, Matthew Mott, needs a strong campaign and availability for Pakistan series could hinder him once more

As Dukes balls whistle around the shires and white Kookaburras are carted to all parts in the Indian Premier League, Englandas thoughts turn to the Caribbean and a T20 World Cup title defence that can ill-afford to go the way of its 50-over equivalent last year.

T20 is probably too capricious a format to dub it a case of silverware or bust but it is clear Jos Buttler and Matthew Mott need a strong campaign a semi-finals minimum, perhaps a after the grisly one-day international abdication in India. England stumbled out of the traps there, with six defeats in their first seven games. aI feel this actually should be the making of those two as a partnership,a said Rob Key, the team director, at the time, before adding: aIf it isnat, it isnat, and you move on.a

It says a lot about our turbulent times that weave started seeking omens in random events

Woah there, cried the nation. Easy, boy. This weekas most arresting visuals came on Wednesday morning when runaway horses brought central London to a standstill. Five working animals from the Household Cavalry, based at Hyde Park barracks, were on exercise when they were spooked by noises from a building site and dramatically broke loose.

The equine escapees caused chaos bolting through the capital, colliding with vehicles and startling pedestrians. They galloped for six miles, making it as far as Limehouse in the East End. Four people were taken to hospital. Two horses were left in serious condition. The footage was mesmerising, the images indelible. It elicited a giddy mix of fear and excitement, reminiscent of when a bird flies through an open window.

If the former president regains the White House in November, America faces a far worse dystopian future than being shown in cinemas

Director, cast and critics all agree: Civil War, the movie depicting America tearing itself to bloody bits while a cowardly, authoritarian president skulks in the White House, is not about Donald Trump. But it is, really.

Likewise, the first ever criminal trial of a US president, now playing to huge audiences in New York, is ostensibly about claims that Trump fraudulently bought the silence of a former porn star called Stormy after a tacky Lake Tahoe tryst. But it isnat, really.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

When even the Met police and National Trust scones are apparently apeak wokeratia, itas become the establishment norm

Is woke dead? Is it over? Has it apeakeda, run its course before weave even properly agreed on what this endlessly controversial but somehow never quite defined social justice movement actually was? Though American rightwingers have been hopefully pronouncing its last rites for a while now, until very recently rumours of its death seemed exaggerated in Britain.

Sure, some vegan restaurants have gone bust lately, but sadly so have plenty of other restaurants in the face of a cost of living crisis. And yes, oat milk sales are down. But is that because it has been toxified by political association, or because it has fallen out of favour with the wellness lobby, or just because itas expensive? Even reports of a YouTube-fuelled anti-feminist backlash among some young men, or of young women lapping up the original (not very woke) Sex and the City series on Netflix didnat feel like much of a tipping point. But then came the paediatrician Dr Hilary Cassas landmark review on treating transgender children, which found that medical interventions have been underpinned by aremarkably weak evidencea and made clear treatment should be holistic, seeking a full understanding of everything going on in childrenas lives.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Even grandees are bracing for the very worst. But remember, such apocalyptic language around the party is nothing new

There is a morose mood in the Conservative party. It isnat just that the Tories expect to lose the next election a they fear that the coming defeat might be definitive, a result from which they never recover. One recent multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) poll forecasts that the Tories could be reduced to fewer than 100 seats a their lowest ever haul a with Labour predicted to secure an unprecedented 250-plus seat majority. Tory grandees are consequently gloomy. The former Brexit negotiator David Frost has called it a adesperate situationa. Charles Moore, the former Telegraph editor and Thatcher biographer, tells me the partyas condition is aprobably worse than Iave ever seen ita. Some are billing the next election as an aextinction-level eventa. Rishi Sunakas single-minded obsession on forcing through the Rwanda scheme appears, in this light, like a desperate attempt to distract himself and his party from the approaching abyss.

Some Tories may feel the party has reached its nadir as an electoral force, but such apocalyptic language is nothing new. In fact, fear of extinction is part of a long Conservative tradition. aIt will be interesting to be the last of the Conservatives,a Lord Salisbury, one of the partyas longest-serving leaders, wrote glumly in 1882, as the age of mass suffrage loomed. aI foresee that will be our fate.a (Almost a century and a half later, head be relieved to learn that his great-great-grandson is leader of the House of Lords.) In 1945, on the brink of an unprecedented landslide victory, Labour candidates spoke openly about wanting athe complete extinction of the Tory partya. Then, six years later, the Tories returned to power and stayed there for the next 13. In 1974, amid the broadly progressive contours of the postwar consensus, the political scientist Andrew Gamble foresaw a future in which the Conservatives could be condemned to athe museum of Fantastic Zoologya. And here we are. aPeople often talk about the death of the Tory party, and it doesnat happen,a Lord Moore told me.

Samuel Earle is a writer based in London and the author of Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over

In New York, areservation scalpersa are making $80,000 a year, but Iam banking on a neighbouras generosity

The land of restaurants is increasingly paradoxical. Every day, good ones close. Running costs are punitive and broke customers are eating at home more often. Yet still there are places where itas next to impossible to bag a table; where to have even the remotest chance of doing so requires near superhuman levels of patience and determination, as well as no other demands whatsoever on your time a including paid employment.

I laughed when I read in the New Yorkeras annual food issue of the areservation scalpersa who make $80,000 a year by hoarding bookings to then sell them on to the desperate-to-be-there rich. Only in Manhattan, I thought. But this didnat stop me. Just moments later, I was urging my neighbour, Sue, who is to restaurants what Harry Houdini once was to padlocks and straitjackets a just you watch her bust her way in! a to try to get us a table at X (I wonat say its name, for obvious reasons). Sue is also a hoarder of reservations, with the key difference that she then shares them with (I flatter myself) beloved friends at no extra charge. So now weare on tenterhooks, waiting and hoping a and hoping and waiting a for the hottest Sunday lunch in town.

The liberal justice has been called the supreme courtas conscience but we canat afford a repeat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A month ago Josh Barro (a man) at the Atlantic wrote a piece headlined Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now. Around the same time the Guardianas Mehdi Hasan (a man) similarly opined that afor the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court.a The University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos (a man) also went on CNN to argue that 69-year-old Sotomayor should consider stepping down as a justice in order to give Joe Biden time to fill the seat with another liberal judge should the worst happen. And pundit Nate Silver (you guessed it a| another man) said much the same thing.

Managing the barrage of upsetting material online is a challenge that service providers are struggling to meet, even if they try

Way back in the mid-1990s, when the web was young and the online world was buzzing with blogs, a worrying problem loomed. If you were an ISP that hosted blogs, and one of them contained material that was illegal or defamatory, you could be held legally responsible and sued into bankruptcy. Fearing that this would dramatically slow the expansion of a vital technology, two US lawmakers, Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, inserted 26 words into the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which eventually became section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of the same year. The words in question were: aNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.a The implications were profound: from now on you bore no liability for content published on your platform.

The result was the exponential increase in user-generated content on the internet. The problem was that some of that content was vile, defamatory or downright horrible. Even if it was, though, the hosting site bore no liability for it. At times, some of that content caused public outrage to the point where it became a PR problem for the platforms hosting it and they began engaging in amoderationa.

The law is badly lagging behind when it comes to rights for LGBTQ+ families. We need urgent root-and-branch reform

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act is 10 years old. In the UK, any couple can marry. Likewise, thanks to this courageous pair, any couple can now get a civil partnership. On marriage, the law has kept pace with the diversifying society it exists to regulate and protect.

If you reflect on what was updated a the religious institution of marriage a and how long it had been the way it was, it hits you afresh how monumental this step forward was. Yet here we are. The equality of love has become a cliche. Young children have only known a world where every auntie and uncle theyall ever have could get married. It is meticulous and slow but ultimately, whether through parliament or the courts, the law moves forward.

Freddy McConnell is a freelance journalist

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As mayor aims to win third term, what has he achieved so far on air pollution, the climate crisis and nature?

When Sadiq Khan launched his campaign for a third term as Labour mayor of London, he put his green policies front and centre, highlighting his work on air pollution, the climate crisis and nature.

For seasoned Khan watchers, this came as little surprise. The mayor, who last year published a book called Breathe: Seven Ways to Win a Greener World, has been widely praised for his work tackling air pollution, as well as his efforts on nature restoration and getting London to net zero by 2030.

The introduction and expansion of the ultra-low emission zone, which excludes the most polluting vehicles from the capital and has contributed to roadside N0₂ emissions dropping by 50%.

The introduction of thousands of new electric buses and taxis, and the continued expansion of the cycle network and promotion of walking.

A rewilding programme that has reintroduced a range of species, including beavers, expanded green spaces, and included a mass tree-planting programme.

Keane Duncan is trying to win the mayorship of North Yorks with policies such as nationalising a hotel. But is there substance behind the headline-grabbing stunts?

Keane Duncanas highest profile success, prior to being chosen as the Conservative candidate aiming to be the first elected mayor of York and North Yorkshire, was as the journalist who broke the news that Morrisons would not sell meat pies to people in Middlesbrough before 9am.

aThat went off the charts, with millions and millions of views,a recalls the 29-year-old, who worked for a number of local news outlets in the north of England before quitting to focus on politics.

Defence secretary says MPs must give the PM space as Tory figures appear to be vying for leadership

Conservative MPs looking for a new party leader need to allow Rishi Sunak to aget on with the joba, Grant Shapps has said.

Amid speculation that Sunak could announce an election next week in order to stave off potential challengers for the top job, the defence secretary said now was not athe time or placea to try to put another Conservative leader in place. The party is on its fifth leader since 2015.

Rana Mitter, vice president for public engagement, keen to move on from colonial guilt and post-Brexit introspection

Britainas most revered academic institutions ought to stop worrying about their outdated image, since they now offer the best route to global influence, according to British historian Professor Rana Mitter. The renowned China expert, now based at Harvardas Kennedy School, told the Observer that educational prestige is an increasingly important tool for tackling challenges to trust and fresh threats to the world order a and he wants a newly revamped British Academy in London, where he is vice-president for public engagement, to play a key role.

aOutside our concerns with Brexit and decolonisation, the wider world has moved on and it still wants Britain to play a big part.

Vida and Quaker from the Household Cavalry are recovering from surgery after four horses broke loose in London

The army has said it is too early to know for sure if two military horses that suffered serious injuries after running loose through London will return to duties.

Seven horses and six soldiers from the Household Cavalry were on an extended exercise in Belgravia on Wednesday when the horses were spooked by builders moving rubble.

London mayor says residents need a law protecting them from unfair and unexplained increases in levies by landlords

Leaseholders hit with large and unjust service charges should have the right to refuse to pay up, Sadiq Khan has said, amid concerns that the government has backed away from its promises to boost the rights of tenants.

There are 1.4m leasehold properties in London, a quarter of all such properties in the country. The London mayor said that many of the residents affected were suffering from a ashameful abuse of powera by their landlords.

Eight others taken to hospital and four arrested on suspicion of supply of controlled substance, say police

A man has died and eight others have been taken to hospital after an aunusually strong batcha of heroin circulated across north Devon, police have said.

Four people were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the supply of a controlled substance.

Joint UK-French investigation alleges group advertised small-boat crossings of Channel on social media

Four Vietnamese nationals have been arrested in London after an investigation into alleged people smugglers advertising small-boat crossings of the Channel on Facebook.

The joint UK-French investigation alleges the group shared posts aimed at the Vietnamese community and charged migrants thousands of pounds to make the crossing.

Home workers aim to tackle smelly athleisure clothing, save money and be kinder to the environment

For years, laundry detergents have focused their cleaning power on stain removal and getting whites white but now a new invisible enemy has emerged in the shape of the musty smell that clings to your gym gear.

The shift to remote working has fuelled the popularity of aathleisurea clothing such as T-shirts, joggers and leggings which, rather than shirts and dresses, are now the default work wardrobe of many Britons.

Stephen Timms says DWP letting unpaid carers incur aenormous accidental overpaymentsa

Ministers have been told to aimmediatelya fix the issues causing tens of thousands of unpaid carers to incur aenormous accidental overpaymentsa amid growing anger over the careras allowance scandal.

Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was avery troubleda that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the governmentas mistakes.

The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of amutual respecta, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch

Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraineas eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes.

Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraineas commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what aMasloa, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unitas first battalion, described as aconstant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hoursa. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.

Revelation in new book that possible Trump running mate killed auntrainablea hunting dog prompts widespread revulsion

Conservative pundits have condemned the South Dakota governor and possible Trump running mate Kristi Noem, amid widespread horror over her admission in a new book that she killed both an auntrainablea dog and an unruly goat during a single day in hunting season.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump White House staffer turned critic, said: aIam a dog lover and I am honestly horrified by the Kristi Noem excerpt. I wish I hadnat even read it. A 14-month-old dog is still a puppy and can be trained. A large part of bad behaviour in dogs is not having proper training from humans.

Man, 64, being treated for injuries to arm, leg and stomach after attack in shallow waters

A British man is in intensive care after an aunusuala shark attack on the Caribbean island of Tobago.

The 64-year-old man was receiving critical care after the bull shark attack left him with injuries to his left arm, left leg and stomach, Tobagoas Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation said.

Fall in Denali national park witnessed by another climbing party who dug snow cave and tended to hurt climber

A climber is dead and another seriously injured after falling about 1,000ft (305 metres) while on a steep, technical route on Mount Johnson in Alaskaas Denali national park and preserve, authorities said Friday.

The fall Thursday night was witnessed by another climbing party, who reported it at about 10.45pm and descended to where the climbers had fallen. They confirmed one of the climbers had died, and dug a snow cave and tended to the hurt climber, according to a statement from the park.

Total deaths reach 76 and more than 130,000 displaced as weeks of flooding also affects east African neighbours

Seventy-six people in Kenya have died because of flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the government has said, warning residents ato brace for even heavier rainfalla.

Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than usual rain in recent weeks, compounded by the El NiA+-o weather system.

Ex-soldier, conspiracy theorist, astrologer and anti-vaxxer among the first of 27 people on trial for trying to violently topple the German government a led by Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss

One of the largest legal proceedings in German history is due to start on Monday with the first of three trials of a group of far-right conspiracists who planned to violently overthrow the countryas parliament.

So sprawling is the network, so extensive their plans, that for a mixture of logistical and security reasons, the 27 people due in the dock have been split into three separate groups.

Singeras attorney says agreement gives his client the afreedoma that ashe desireda

Britney Spears and her estranged father have agreed to settle a legal dispute that continued between them even though it had been more than two years since a court had terminated the conservatorship that put him in control of the US pop staras life.

Terms of the settlement between the singer of chart-topping hit Womanizer and Jamie Spears werenat disclosed in statements that their attorneys distributed to media outlets on Friday.

US senator says Israeli prime minister using antisemitism to distract attention from aextremist and racist governmenta policies

Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime ministeras claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont a who is Jewish a accused Netanyahu of ainsult[ing] the intelligence of the American peoplea by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his aextremist and racist governmenta in the military offensive in Gaza.

US senator says Israeli prime minister using antisemitism to distract attention from aextremist and racist governmenta policies

Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime ministeras claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont a who is Jewish a accused Netanyahu of ainsult[ing] the intelligence of the American peoplea by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his aextremist and racist governmenta in the military offensive in Gaza.

Tornadoes collapsed buildings and flattened homes in Nebraska and Iowa on Friday as warnings continued to be issued

Tornadoes wreaked havoc Friday in the midwestern US, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and destroying and damaging hundreds of homes, many around Omaha, Nebraska.

As of Friday night, there were several reports of injuries but no deaths were immediately reported. Tornado warnings continued to be issued into the night in Iowa.

The university has said it wonat give in to studentsa demands a but it has budged before

Rows of tents line the steps at Sproul Hall, the grand neoclassical administration building that soars up nine stories near the main entrance to the University of California, Berkeley.

Thursday marked the fourth day of the Free Palestine camp, one of dozens of sit-ins that have sprung up on campuses across the US as symbols of protests for a student-led pro-Palestinian movement.

Peter Bernegger has brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices over alleged fraud a now he faces criminal charges

Peter Bernegger has spent the last three and a half years bombarding local election offices in Wisconsin with litigation and accusations of fraud. Heas brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices in state court, and on social media, he has relentlessly promoted his litigation and circulated false claims about election fraud in the swing state.

His campaign has recently landed him in legal trouble a Bernegger now faces criminal charges for allegedly falsifying a subpoena in connection with a lawsuit against the stateas top election office.

Revelation in new book that possible Trump running mate killed auntrainablea hunting dog prompts widespread revulsion

Conservative pundits have condemned the South Dakota governor and possible Trump running mate Kristi Noem, amid widespread horror over her admission in a new book that she killed both an auntrainablea dog and an unruly goat during a single day in hunting season.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump White House staffer turned critic, said: aIam a dog lover and I am honestly horrified by the Kristi Noem excerpt. I wish I hadnat even read it. A 14-month-old dog is still a puppy and can be trained. A large part of bad behaviour in dogs is not having proper training from humans.

Ex-soldier, conspiracy theorist, astrologer and anti-vaxxer among the first of 27 people on trial for trying to violently topple the German government a led by Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss

One of the largest legal proceedings in German history is due to start on Monday with the first of three trials of a group of far-right conspiracists who planned to violently overthrow the countryas parliament.

So sprawling is the network, so extensive their plans, that for a mixture of logistical and security reasons, the 27 people due in the dock have been split into three separate groups.

Fall in Denali national park witnessed by another climbing party who dug snow cave and tended to hurt climber

A climber is dead and another seriously injured after falling about 1,000ft (305 metres) while on a steep, technical route on Mount Johnson in Alaskaas Denali national park and preserve, authorities said on Friday.

The fall Thursday night was witnessed by another climbing party, who reported it at about 10.45pm and descended to where the climbers had fallen. They confirmed one of the climbers had died, and dug a snow cave and tended to the hurt climber, according to a statement from the park.

Officials say unidentified man killed influencer who had previously been imprisoned over dancing videos

A man on a motorbike has shot dead a social media influencer known as Om Fahad outside her Baghdad home, Iraqi security officials have said.

The unidentified attacker shot Om Fahad in her car in the Zayouna district on Friday, a security official said, requesting anonymity because he was not cleared to speak to the media.

New room would give thousands of daily visitors better experience, says museum president

The Mona Lisa, the worldas most famous portrait, could get a room of its own in the Louvre, the museumas president said.

Such a move would give visitors, many of whom visit the Louvre for the famous painting alone, a better experience, Laurence des Cars told the broadcaster France Inter.

Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm

A 13-year-old boy has discovered a aholy graila Lego octopus which spilled into the sea from a shipping container in the 1990s.

The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Landas End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.

Singeras attorney says agreement gives his client the afreedoma that ashe desireda

Britney Spears and her estranged father have agreed to settle a legal dispute that continued between them even though it had been more than two years since a court had terminated the conservatorship that put him in control of the US pop staras life.

Terms of the settlement between the singer of chart-topping hit Womanizer and Jamie Spears werenat disclosed in statements that their attorneys distributed to media outlets on Friday.

The hush-money criminal trial receives less prominence in conservative media, and when Trump-friendly networks do turn to the trial, they give viewers an alternative narrative

In one America, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure during coverage that runs from morn till night. aHe seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry,a said broadcaster Rachel Maddow after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. aHe seems like a man who is miserable to be here.a

But in the other America a that of Fox News, far-right podcasts and the Make America Great Again (Maga) base a the trial of the former president over a case involving a hush-money payment to an adult film performer is playing out very differently.

Four families torn apart by Chileas illegal adoption scandal finally found each other decades later. They describe the emotional moment they met a and how they pieced together the lives they had spent apart

For Sara Melgarejo, the wait at Santiago airport was agonising. The 65-year-old had travelled about 30km north from San Bernardo, a working-class suburb of the Chilean capital, for the reunion. She walked the length of the building trying to calm her nerves, holding her breath for the arrival of the two children she had spent the last 40 years believing were dead. aMy heart was racing and my body was trembling,a she says, abut I felt pure joy.a

Siblings Sean Ours, 40, and Emily Reid, 39, walked into arrivals together, having arrived on a flight from the US. Even though they had never met Sara in person, there was no question that she was their biological mother a they share the same eyes, the same infectious smile.

With a new indictment this week, 36 have been criminally charged and 10 face a civil lawsuit a but seven hold office

With the indictment announced in Arizona this week, 36 out of 84 people who signed certificates falsely alleging they were electors for Donald Trump have now been criminally charged.

Kris Mayes is the third state attorney general to indict part of the slate of people who signed the false documents with plans to turn them over to Mike Pence, the US vice-president, to steal the election from Joe Biden. Attorneys general in Michigan and Nevada have also brought charges, and in Wisconsin, fake electors face a civil lawsuit.

36 have been criminally indicted (one has had charges dropped)

10 face a civil lawsuit

14 have been subpoenaed by Congress as part of the January 6 investigation

Seven have been elected to office

Seven have lost elections

Four have been appointed or nominated to positions of power

One is currently running for federal office

Documentary Bad Faith looks at the history of a group trying to affect and corrupt politics under the guise of religion

Bad Faith, a new documentary on the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States, opens with an obvious, ominous scene a the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 a though trained on details drowned out by the deluge of horror and easily recognizable images of chaos. That Paula White, Donald Trumpas faith adviser, led the Save America rally in a prayer to overturn the results for aa free and fair electiona. That mixed among Trump flags, American flags and militia symbols were numerous banners with Christian crosses; on the steps of the Capitol, a aJESUS SAVESa sign blares mere feet from aLock Them UP!a

The movement to overturn the 2020 election for Donald Trump was, as the documentary underscores, inextricable from a certain strain of belief in America as a fundamentally Christian nation, separation of church and state be damned. In fact, as Bad Faith argues, Christian nationalism a a political movement to shape the United States according a certain interpretation of evangelical Christianity, by vote or, more recently, by coercion a was the agalvanizing forcea behind the attempted hijacking of the democratic process three years ago.

The feature-free phone, launched at Milan design week, is the latest device to tap into young peopleas concerns about attention-harvesting and data privacy

Itas almost enough to make you stop doomscrolling: dull devices are now cool.

The Boring Phone is a new, featureless flip phone that is feeding the growing appetites of younger people who want to bin their smartphones in favour of a dumbphone.

Austrian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger has spent her life hunting for signs of life in the universe. Here she talks about aliens, space exploration and why studying cosmology is like eating pizza

Staring into the abyssa| Am I really reaching anyone out there?a Lisa Kaltenegger is laughing about the unsatisfactory experience of teaching astrophysics over Zoom during Covid lockdowns, but she could be talking about her vocation: trying to discover if thereas life beyond our solar system.

Kaltenegger founded the Carl Sagan Institute in 2015 to investigate just that. A burst of sunny energy and infectious enthusiasm on a grey day, sheas speaking to me from the legendary extraterrestrial life researcheras old office, now hers, overlooking the leafy Cornell campus in upstate New York. The institute brings together researchers across a range of disciplines to work out what signs of life on other planets might look like from here, so that we recognise them if (or when) we find them.

They had only been married for 11 months when the world-famous novelist was attacked by a frenzied knifeman. His wife remembers the intense drama of hearing the news, and the traumatic aftermath

I woke early and alone on the sunny morning of Friday 12 August 2022. I was having coffee at the moment my husband, the Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, was nearly killed in a stabbing on stage in Chautauqua, New York.

This was the last morning, innocent and ordinary, before my life was shattered by the 27 seconds Salmanas attacker took to stab him more than a dozen times, driving a knife into his right eye until it nearly touched his optic nerve.

A home in an old office block clocks on a new look

How do Europeans live in such grey, beige places? Iam happy waking up in a pink room. Vibrant colours make you joyful; you will never be sad with pink and red,a laughs artist and gallery owner Carlos Rittner from his apartment in Mexico City.

From the exterior, the 1940s converted office block, which is a stoneas throw from the ZA3calo plaza, the worldas largest city square, is modest, but step through the banana-yellow front door and you are instantly transported into an art installation.

The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of amutual respecta, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch

Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraineas eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes.

Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraineas commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what aMasloa, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unitas first battalion, described as aconstant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hoursa. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.

With penetrative sex no longer an option, Sebastian and Teresa have found different ways to satisfy one other
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I was really worried about how it would affect Teresa. Thereas this whole stigma that a areala man has a working penis

The former Top Gear presenter claims his controversialist persona was just a caricature, and heas really a reformed character living the good life. But do old habits die hard?

aAre you happy?a I ask Jeremy Clarkson. A few times on Clarksonas Farm, you said were happy. His thick eyebrows seem low, like storm clouds gathering. aI said that in season one, episode one,a he replies. aAnd I meant it then. Lockdown was a blessed relief. You thought: no oneas inviting me out, I donat have to go anywhere. Lisa would say, aLetas go on holiday again next weekend.a And I could say, aNo! We canat!a It was brilliant. We were stuck here. So I was very happy at work then.a Didnat he say he was happy at another point, while building his pigpen or sowing on his tractor? He looks at me, eyebrows locking, lips pursed in thought. He has perfect recall of the entire Clarksonas Farm archive. He was pleased when he did those things, but it wasnat a blanket expression of happiness. Pleased? aWell, what did I do for 25 years? I drove around corners shouting and achieved nothing. Nothing! And then you plant a field of mustard, which I did last year, and some of it grew. Not as much as Iad been hoping, but some. So you have a sense of achievement.a

Could we allow for the possibility that he might be contented, then? Clarkson concedes that springtime is nice. aThis is going to sound awfully pretentious, but Iave never noticed the buds coming on the trees before. I spent a good 20 minutes yesterday staring at buds, going, is that too early? Or is that later than normal?a

If the former president regains the White House in November, America faces a far worse dystopian future than being shown in cinemas

Director, cast and critics all agree: Civil War, the movie depicting America tearing itself to bloody bits while a cowardly, authoritarian president skulks in the White House, is not about Donald Trump. But it is, really.

Likewise, the first ever criminal trial of a US president, now playing to huge audiences in New York, is ostensibly about claims that Trump fraudulently bought the silence of a former porn star called Stormy after a tacky Lake Tahoe tryst. But it isnat, really.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

The liberal justice has been called the supreme courtas conscience but we canat afford a repeat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A month ago Josh Barro (a man) at the Atlantic wrote a piece headlined Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now. Around the same time the Guardianas Mehdi Hasan (a man) similarly opined that afor the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court.a The University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos (a man) also went on CNN to argue that 69-year-old Sotomayor should consider stepping down as a justice in order to give Joe Biden time to fill the seat with another liberal judge should the worst happen. And pundit Nate Silver (you guessed it a| another man) said much the same thing.

#MeTooas real legacy may not be ending predatorsa impunity so much as highlighting the tenacity of that impunity

Usually, rape isnat reported. When it is reported, it is often not charged. And when it is charged, it rarely leads to a conviction. These facts shape both our cultural understanding of sexual violence and womenas sense of their own embodied lives, clarifying something many of us already know a that while sexual violence is technically illegal and officially abhorred, it is also tolerated in practice, with actual arrests and convictions being so rare that most sexual violence is de facto decriminalized.

Only occasionally does a notable rape conviction come to pass; when it does, its very rarity highlights this dissonance, making plain the gulf between how rape is officially talked about and how it is usually treated. Now, that gulf has come to the fore again, because on Thursday one of the most high-profile rape convictions in American history was overturned.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Americans are recognizing we must do more for Palestine and are signaling dissatisfaction with the party, as they did in 2008

The US is just months away from the 2024 election, and the prospect of a second Trump presidency grows each day as he evades repercussions for the expansive list of indictments heas accrued. With this reality looming, many Democratic party loyalists are panicked about the aleave it blanka movement, in which hundreds of thousands of voters have marked auncommitteda on their primary ballots to protest against US support of Israelas war on Gaza.

Some worry that a protest vote at the ballot box is an automatic vote for Trump. Theyare sure that even during times of mass dissent, harm reduction is the only moral voting strategy. Theyare afraid that this election will mean the end of democracy, or that the re-election of Trump will guarantee unprecedented disharmony.

Camonghne Felix is an assistant professor of creative writing at The New School

In New York, areservation scalpersa are making $80,000 a year, but Iam banking on a neighbouras generosity

The land of restaurants is increasingly paradoxical. Every day, good ones close. Running costs are punitive and broke customers are eating at home more often. Yet still there are places where itas next to impossible to bag a table; where to have even the remotest chance of doing so requires near superhuman levels of patience and determination, as well as no other demands whatsoever on your time a including paid employment.

I laughed when I read in the New Yorkeras annual food issue of the areservation scalpersa who make $80,000 a year by hoarding bookings to then sell them on to the desperate-to-be-there rich. Only in Manhattan, I thought. But this didnat stop me. Just moments later, I was urging my neighbour, Sue, who is to restaurants what Harry Houdini once was to padlocks and straitjackets a just you watch her bust her way in! a to try to get us a table at X (I wonat say its name, for obvious reasons). Sue is also a hoarder of reservations, with the key difference that she then shares them with (I flatter myself) beloved friends at no extra charge. So now weare on tenterhooks, waiting and hoping a and hoping and waiting a for the hottest Sunday lunch in town.

Managing the barrage of upsetting material online is a challenge that service providers are struggling to meet, even if they try

Way back in the mid-1990s, when the web was young and the online world was buzzing with blogs, a worrying problem loomed. If you were an ISP that hosted blogs, and one of them contained material that was illegal or defamatory, you could be held legally responsible and sued into bankruptcy. Fearing that this would dramatically slow the expansion of a vital technology, two US lawmakers, Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, inserted 26 words into the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which eventually became section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of the same year. The words in question were: aNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.a The implications were profound: from now on you bore no liability for content published on your platform.

The result was the exponential increase in user-generated content on the internet. The problem was that some of that content was vile, defamatory or downright horrible. Even if it was, though, the hosting site bore no liability for it. At times, some of that content caused public outrage to the point where it became a PR problem for the platforms hosting it and they began engaging in amoderationa.

When even the Met police and National Trust scones are apparently apeak wokeratia, itas become the establishment norm

Is woke dead? Is it over? Has it apeakeda, run its course before weave even properly agreed on what this endlessly controversial but somehow never quite defined social justice movement actually was? Though American rightwingers have been hopefully pronouncing its last rites for a while now, until very recently rumours of its death seemed exaggerated in Britain.

Sure, some vegan restaurants have gone bust lately, but sadly so have plenty of other restaurants in the face of a cost of living crisis. And yes, oat milk sales are down. But is that because it has been toxified by political association, or because it has fallen out of favour with the wellness lobby, or just because itas expensive? Even reports of a YouTube-fuelled anti-feminist backlash among some young men, or of young women lapping up the original (not very woke) Sex and the City series on Netflix didnat feel like much of a tipping point. But then came the paediatrician Dr Hilary Cassas landmark review on treating transgender children, which found that medical interventions have been underpinned by aremarkably weak evidencea and made clear treatment should be holistic, seeking a full understanding of everything going on in childrenas lives.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Thereas no doubt about the mental health crisis facing young people. Jonathan Haidt blames our devices a which oversimplifies the problem

In the introduction to his new book The Anxious Generation, titled aGrowing up on Marsa, Jonathan Haidt tells a fanciful piece of science fiction about a child conscripted into a dangerous mission to the red planet that will deform the young person as they grow. The journey is undertaken without the parentsa consent. The ham-fisted metaphor is that technology companies have done the same to children and teenagers by putting smartphones into their hands.

Haidt, a New York University professor of ethical leadership who researches social psychology and morality, goes on to argue that smartphones ignited a wildfire of anxiety and depression in gen Z around the world, by granting them acontinuous access to social media, online video games, and other internet-based activitiesa. He says there are four foundational harms in this degradation of youth: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.

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Sean Dyche: In an interview with Sky Sports, the Everton manager explains that Dominic Calvert-Lewin is ill and carrying a couple of knocks. Vitaly Mykolenko is out with an ankle injury that aheall take a bit of time to recover froma.

On the similarities between Brentford and Evertonas form coming into this game: aI jusat spoke to Thomas and heas somebody I respect and know reasonably well. We were saying that one of the conundrums of how we both hadnat won games for long periods despite pretty decent performances and itas just one of those things you have to come out of. Weave both done that in our own ways and now weave parked that, we want to take these on and try to win the game.a

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