News, culture and style

Books

A love that wasn’t enough

In a new memoir, writer Siri Hustvedt documents the joy and sorrow of a 40-year relationship with fellow acclaimed author Paul Auster, who died of lung cancer in 2024

By Erica Wagner

Tech

Messages in a bottle

We have become so reliant on our smartphones that we’re in danger of forgetting the joy of the unexpected, Melanie Reid writes

Deepfakes

Synthetic reality

AI-facilitated fakery can do real damage, but it also exposes the existing structures and attitudes that degrade women, Eva Wiseman explains

Peter Capaldi

Crying, Caravaggio and musical cousins

The Scottish actor, known in many households as sweary Malcolm Tucker and the 12th Doctor Who, speaks to Rich Pelley about his latest return to the small screen

News in brief

Health

Canary Islands demur at plan to allow rat virus ship to dock

Politics

Local elections promise fragmentation and record low vote shares

Media

Ted Turner, CNN founder and titan of modern America, dies age 87

Travel

Airlines cut 13,000 flights with fuel shortages looming

For today

Iran reviews US-based framework for ending the war

Middle east

Ruth Michaelson

Iran reviews US-based framework for ending the war

Pope backs investigative journalists against Trumpian ‘Tower of Babel’

Truth tellers summit

Lily Isaacs

Pope backs investigative journalists against Trumpian ‘Tower of Babel’

Essay

Natasha Walter

A manifesto for a new feminism

Seafood tart and cucumber buttermilk salad

Recipe

Nigel Slater

Seafood tart and cucumber buttermilk salad

Ministry of Defence

Fighting on two fronts

A member of the armed forces terrorised his wife for years. A family court later awarded him unsupervised access to his daughter – in a case the government hoped would never be made public

Local elections

Analysis

Rob Ford

Britain’s fragmented future: why this year’s local elections will be the messiest yet

‘You’re a mug for playing by the rules’: disillusioned voters split left and right

Party politics

Rachel Sylvester

‘You’re a mug for playing by the rules’: disillusioned voters split left and right

Labour is braced for what fatalists are calling ‘Starmerggedon’

Polling

Andrew Rawnsley

Labour is braced for what fatalists are calling ‘Starmerggedon’

A famous fishmonger says politicians aren’t reading the room, just like ten years ago

Brexit

Giles Whittell

A famous fishmonger says politicians aren’t reading the room, just like ten years ago

John Robins

‘Alcohol was more important to me than showing up’

On a walk through the wet fields of Amersham, the comedian and presenter talks about drinking lager aged three, his dad’s excuse for abandoning his family and why leaving Oxford University was like being thrown from a boat