The baby books promised so much, but failed to help at all – so I started making cartoons about the sweaty, sweary and often naked truth about new motherhood• Read an extract from Cry When the Baby CriesI was one week into parenthood, and in the worst physical condition of my life: greasy, bleeding, exhausted, with a swollen, purple wound across my abdomen. I was tired to the point of dissociation, but also performing a new role with impressive conviction. Smiling at my baby, moving him assuredly towards my nipple: I was playing the part of a mother who knows what she is doing and is loving it.There was love, or at least a disorienting swell of emotion. It was all so very blurry. Tears streamed from my eyes in satisfying gushes, as I discovered the “smile” a newborn makes after drinking milk. I was happy – these were happy tears. Could I just have a moment to take all of this in? Could someone take the baby for a few days while I recover? No? Continue reading...

Politics

A comic artist illustrates the screamy horror of first-time parenthood• Read Becky Barnicoat on turning motherhood into cartoons Continue reading...

Events

After the death of her father, the writer took refuge in the kinds of stories she had once written off – discovering a comforting world of funny heroines and happy endingsGrief is an intensifier. It doesn’t often – despite what films and television would have you believe – cause you to act massively out of character. Like motherhood or any other huge life upheaval, its actual effect is to strip away the nonsense and leave your essential nature, your core, not just intact but now unobscured by everyday concerns and frivolities.So it was no real surprise to find myself, in the immediate weeks after the death of my beloved dad in 2023, flinging myself into books. I would have done so literally, if I could. I wanted to gather my physical books into a wall – or better yet, a cave – around me that would both protect me from this new reality and let me cry in peace within it. Failing that, I took mental refuge in them instead. Continue reading...

Politics

Half a century on from the sublimely ridiculous Tommy, the passionate abandon that distinguished Russell’s films – from composer biopics to the infamous The Devils, among other bonkers oddities – is needed now more than everThis month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of one of the most important and groundbreaking pop movies of all time: Ken Russell’s psychedelic screen adaptation of the Who’s rock opera Tommy (1975). Marketed with the eye-catching tag lines “Your senses will never be the same” and “He will tear your soul apart”, the film starred Roger Daltrey as the traumatised kid who becomes a Pinball Wizard and (more importantly) a cult messiah.Blending themes to which Russell would return throughout his career (the transformative power of music; the alchemical madness of genius; the dark power of false religion), Tommy was a typically wild ride that swung between the sublime and the ridiculous. Among its most memorable set pieces were Elton John in mile-high bovver boo...

Politics

For more than 50 years I’ve revelled in the epic courage of boxing. But deaths, gangsterism and sportswashing have made it much harder to loveWhen I was a boy, living in South Africa, I fell for Muhammad Ali. As graceful as he was provocative, Ali amazed me with his uncanny ability, despite apartheid, to entrance black and white South Africans. He made us laugh and dazzled us with his outrageous skill and courage. I have followed boxing ever since, often obsessively, for more than 50 years.In 1996, after I spent five years tracking Mike Tyson, James Toney, Roy Jones Jr, Chris Eubank Sr and Naseem Hamed, my book Dark Trade allowed me to become a full-time writer. I owe this gift to boxing but our relationship is not easy. Boxing is as crooked and destructive as it is magnificent and transformative. Continue reading...

Sport

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Politics

Moss can be a common problem in lawns and gardens, thriving in damp, shaded areas. It forms thick, carpet-like patches and competes with grass for nutrients and moisture.

Politics

Prada’s Fall/Winter 2025 runway debuted messy, bedhead hair, which is dividing fashion critics; some love it, but others aren’t convinced. Will this dishevelled trend take over?

Culture

The exchange contributes around three per cent of annual revenues of its parent group

Politics

Here are some of the actor’s best looks since her hair transformation.

Politics

Classic Italian novel “The Leopard” has been transformed into a sumptuous period piece by Netflix

Events

Jurgen Klopp took over at Liverpool in October 2015 and would transform the club during his six-and-a-half years in charge, but was left less than impressed with one thing at Anfield

Politics

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Events

'These results highlight the quality of our businesses and effectiveness of our strategy, underpinned by the successful execution of our transformation programme across the group'

Society

Presidents have always used sports to further their own agendas. The current incumbent has identified exactly where he can boost himself the mostDonald Trump’s appearance at this year’s Daytona 500 was not subtle.Named the race’s grand marshal, the president buzzed the speedway from aboard Air Force One, dangling the world’s most advanced airliner above 150,000 Nascar fans the way a parent humors an infant with a spoonful of baby food. Later, from the backseat of the presidential limousine, AKA The Beast, he paced the 41-car field around the oval track before the race. The sight of that 20,000lb machine sticking to the track’s banked lanes at 70 mph blew away the crowd all over again. “This is your favorite president,” he told the drivers via their in-car radio system. “I’m a really big fan of you people. You’re talented people and great people and great Americans.” The shock and awe spectacle couldn’t have been more fitting of a man who has been taking the country for a ride since ...

Economics

For the first time in English, the sensational memoirs of Josephine Baker – cabaret star, activist and spy‘Who else could ever have had a story like hers?” writes Ijeoma Oluo in the foreword to Josephine Baker’s memoir. “The dancer, the singer, the ingenue, the scandal maker, the activist, the spy – Josephine Baker lived at least 10 lives in one.” Translated gorgeously into English for the first time by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis, Fearless and Free comprises stories and reflections in Baker’s own voice, drawn from conversations with the French writer Marcel Sauvage that began in 1926 and continued for more than 20 years afterwards. They cover her early life in St Louis, her adventures in Europe and eventual transformation into, as Sauvage puts it, an “actress and French citizen of worldwide renown”.Memoirs that span a lifetime can lack narrative drive. “Life, when you think about it later,” says Baker, “is a series of images a film in your heart.” And yet Baker’s matchless characte...

Politics

For decades, the Swiss city has been transforming its skyline, and now boasts some of the greenest rooftops in EuropeSusanne Hablützel breaks up her work day by staring out the window at a rooftop garden. The view is not spectacular: a pile of dead wood sits atop an untidy plot that houses chicory, toadflax, thistle and moss.But Hablützel, a biologist in charge of nature projects in Basel, is enthralled by the plants and creatures the roof has brought in. “Tree fungi have settled in the trunks, and they are great to see – I love mushrooms. You can also see birds now – that wasn’t the case before.” Continue reading...

Politics

After giving birth to her own child, Helen Jukes turns to Nature to understand how other species approach motherhood.

Politics

Geo Group, an Ice partner, is moving at ‘unprecedented speed’ to build out its monitoring, executive chair saysThe Geo Group, the largest single private contractor to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), said it is building out its surveillance business to be able to monitor hundreds of thousands or millions more immigrants than it already does.The Geo Group, a private prison corporation and parent company of BI Inc, has contracted with Ice for nearly 20 years to manage the agency’s electronic monitoring program. It currently tracks approximately 186,000 immigrants using devices such as ankle monitors, smart watches and a facial recognition app, according to public Ice data. Due to increasing demand from Donald Trump’s administration, which has promised mass deportations, company executives said that they expect that number to grow past its previous peak of 370,000 to 450,000 immigrants within the next year. The remarks were made during the company’s fourth quarter earnings...

Events

Geo Group, an Ice partner, is moving at ‘unprecedented speed’ to build out its monitoring, executive chair saysThe Geo Group, the largest single private contractor to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), said it was building out its surveillance business to be able to monitor hundreds of thousands or millions more immigrants than it already does.The Geo Group, a private prison corporation and parent company of BI Inc, has contracted with Ice for nearly 20 years to manage the agency’s electronic monitoring program. It currently tracks approximately 186,000 immigrants using devices such as ankle monitors, smart watches and a facial recognition app, according to public Ice data. Due to increasing demand from Donald Trump’s administration, which has promised mass deportations, company executives said that they expect that number to grow past its previous peak of 370,000 to 450,000 immigrants within the next year. The remarks were made during the company’s fourth-quarter earning...

Politics