3 d. ago Sanctuary by Marina Warner review – the power of stories in an age of migration

An ambitious meditation on the ability of narrative to shape our perceptions of one another and our experience of homeMarina Warner begins this dazzlingly protean book with a distinctly mundane memory. It is the 1950s, she is a young teen, and the highlight of her week is going to the Saturday morning “flicks” with a neighbour’s slightly older daughter. One particular movie scene has stayed with her: it involves a man dressed in a vaguely historical costume who is fleeing for his life. Face contorted with terror, he makes it as far as the door of a cathedral, whereupon he knocks loudly and cries “Sanctuary!” The door opens a crack, the man slides inside, and the Saturday morning audience breaths a collective sigh of relief. Even if the plot points remain hazy – is Robin Hood somehow involved? – the underlying principle needs no explaining. The fugitive has invoked the ancient right by gaining entrance to a designated sacred space. As long as he stays put his pursuers can’t touch him...

Events

1 week ago An adult dad posed as a high schooler for months — and even dated teen classmates. Here’s how his lie unraveled

Anthony Labrador-Sierra posed as a high school teen for over a year. Now furious parents demand answers, Rhian Lubin reports

Politics

2 w. ago And Just Like That season three review – finally! The Sex and the City spin off hits its stride

The series has given up trying to squeeze its characters into the modern age and is content to just be. Fans of the original will sink into it as if it is made of marshmallows and airIt all fell into place for me around the shoe montage. Roughly halfway through the third season of And Just Like That, there is an on-screen procession of footwear, strident and unapologetically far too long. Carrie has been accused by her downstairs neighbour of walking too loudly on the floor above his bed. A parade of sandals, boots and mules strut back and forth across a polished and expensive wooden floor. I watched this march of the stilettos and began to suspect that the storyline had been retrofitted to the idea of simply showing off the shoes. And I realised that, even if that is the case, I don’t mind at all, because And Just Like That has found its feet.It took a while for it to get there, but finally, the Sex and the City spin-off feels comfortable in its own skin. If the first two seasons w...

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3 w. ago 'Xbox Game Pass is finally hitting its stride but is it enough?'

Microsoft's subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, has grown into a must-have this year thanks to a whole host of big releases, but is it enough to help Xbox catch up to PlayStation?

Sport

4 w. ago ‘I’m less apologetic now’: Kelly Macdonald on her Trainspotting teen highs and hitting her stride in her 40s

She hid in the toilets during the Trainspotting shoot – yet became a screen sensation. As the star plays a police therapist in new Netflix thriller Dept Q, she explains why today’s young female actors leave her in aweOne of the good things about playing a therapist, says Kelly Macdonald with a laugh, is that you get to sit down a lot. There’s a fun scene in the new Netflix thriller Dept Q in which her character, Dr Rachel Irving, weary of her client DCI Carl Morck, plants herself down behind her desk to eat her packed lunch in front of him. Morck may be the kind of troubled detective we’re used to seeing in police dramas, but Irving isn’t a typical therapist. She’s blunt, antagonistic even. It’s a “shitty” job working with police officers, she tells him. Another time she describes him as “doolally”, which in my experience is not something a typical therapist would say; Macdonald, who has had therapy, “but not regularly”, may agree.In the show – adapted from novels by the Danish auth...

Events

4 w. ago Undocumented migrant, 24, is arrested after he pretended to be a teen to enroll in Ohio high school

Police made the discovery after they say the migrant’s baby mama revealed his secret

Events