37 h. ago Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter review – a headlong rush through the turbulent Aids era

Porter’s urgent prose propels the reader into the gay scene of the 1980s and early 90s as his protagonist’s life is torn apart by the HIV crisisThe humble comma, normally so easily overlooked within a page of text, is clearly Charlie Porter’s weapon of choice for his debut novel. Here, he wields it to propel his narrative forward in the kind of urgent, endless staccato rush that sometimes requires the reader to look briefly up and away, if only to gulp at some fresh air.Nova Scotia House, the 51-year-old journalist’s first work of fiction after two books on fashion, tells the story of living through the Aids crisis of the 1980s and early 90s, and how those who survived it will be forever accompanied by the ghostly presence of those who didn’t.Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter is published by Particular Books (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading...

Politics

62 h. ago Brit tourist in horror death plunge from Segovia aqueduct in Spain

The Briton fell to his death from the Segovia aqueduct in Spain. Horrified witnesses reported the man tumbling from an observation deck and police are investigating

Events

64 h. ago The Determined Spy: Frank Wisner, the CIA and a covert career cut short

New biography tells story of operative who directed coups in Iran and Guatemala and grappled with mental illnessFrank Wisner was a leading light of the early CIA, a director of clandestine operations who came of age in the second world war then fought the cold war by fair means or foul, from funding American cultural outreach to orchestrating coups in Iran and Guatemala.Before becoming a biographer, Douglas Waller reported for Newsweek and Time. His new book, The Determined Spy, is about Wisner, a man who lived an extraordinary life but came to be buried at Arlington national cemetery, under a simple headstone, identified merely as a commander in the US naval reserve. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer films gritty new ITV drama about Sarah Ferguson's killer nanny

EXCLUSIVE: Brand new ITV drama The Lady is set to tell the story of the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson's dresser Jane Andrews, who was convicted of brutally killing her lover

Events

3 d. ago Bon Iver swerves subject of Kanye West amid rapper’s ongoing scandals

Indie-folk musician, who has just released a new album, worked with the controversial rapper on records including ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’

Politics

4 d. ago Doctor Foster actor Bertie Carvel revealed as Walking With Dinosaurs narrator

Each of the six episodes will tell the prehistoric story of an individual dinosaur whose remains are being unearthed by palaeontologists.

Politics

4 d. ago Paulo Fonseca: ‘They want to make an example of me for French football’

Lyon’s manager reflects on his nine-month domestic ban for confronting a referee and his Europa League hopes against Manchester United“This kind of motivation can make miracles,” says Paulo Fonseca as he describes the glint in his Lyon players’ eyes before the visit of Manchester United. It is a clash of two giants who have lost their way – although something, at least, is stirring in France’s second city. They have won eight of their 11 games since Fonseca’s arrival less than two and a half months ago and that tells only part of a story with little precedent.The Europa League quarter‑final first leg on Thursday will be a rare opportunity for Fonseca to do what he enjoys best: manage his team from the technical area, cajoling and tweaking from the sidelines. Early in March he was given a nine-month ban from domestic games for aggressively confronting the referee Benoît Millot towards the end of a win against Brest. He is barred from the dugout and from communicating with his bench u...

Politics

5 d. ago Natalia Grace's boyfriend who helped her escape from 'terrifying' adoptive family

Natalia Grace, the Ukrainian orphan whose story inspired new Hulu drama Good American Family, has shared how she fell in love with a man over Facebook, who helped her plot to escape her adoptive parents

Events

5 d. ago Holy Cow review – warmhearted story of smalltown teen turned champion cheesemaker

An 18-year-old from a family of comté-makers is left alone to look after his little sister in Louise Courvoisier’s warm-hearted and optimistic dramaIt doesn’t get more French than a drama about cheese. Holy Cow is the feature debut from director (and part-time farmer) Louise Courvoisier; it’s a social-realist drama that is the opposite of grim and miserable in its warm and often funny telling of a coming-of-age story about a teenager from a struggling family of comté-makers in the remote region of Jura. Courvoisier warms things up nicely with her idealism and optimism, and she gets brilliant performances from her non-professional cast, cows included. The opening scene features a calf sitting in the driver’s seat of a car staring out of the window.Newcomer Clément Faveau (a poultry farmer in real-life) plays 18-year-old Totone, first shown at a country fair so drunk that he jumps on a table and strips naked. Totone lives with his dad, a cheesemaker who drinks heavily, and his wise se...

Events

5 d. ago Holy Cow review – warmhearted story of smalltown teen turned competition cheesemaker

An 18-year-old from a family of comté-makers is left alone to look after his little sister in Louise Courvoisier’s warm-hearted and optimistic dramaIt doesn’t get more French than a drama about cheese. Holy Cow is the feature debut from director (and part-time farmer) Louise Courvoisier; it’s a social-realist drama that is the opposite of grim and miserable in its warm and often funny telling of a coming-of-age story about a teenager from a struggling family of comté-makers in the remote region of Jura. Courvoisier warms things up nicely with her idealism and optimism, and she gets brilliant performances from her non-professional cast, cows included. The opening scene features a calf sitting in the driver’s seat of a car staring out of the window.Newcomer Clément Faveau (a poultry farmer in real-life) plays 18-year-old Totone, first shown at a country fair so drunk that he jumps on a table and strips naked. Totone lives with his dad, a cheesemaker who drinks heavily, and his wise se...

Events

6 d. ago The King of Kings review – Charles Dickens retelling of the Jesus story does a serviceable job

The famous author tells his son and their cat the story of Jesus in this mixed-bag family animation, voiced by an impressive cast This syrupy cartoon account of the life of Jesus (voiced by Oscar Isaac) is narrated, with consummate weirdness, by Charles Dickens (Kenneth Branagh). It’s in fact based on a story Dickens wrote for his children (and wasn’t published until 1934, decades after his death). The idea is that Dickens is telling the story of the New Testament to his young son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) and Walter’s impish cat, explaining to the King Arthur-obsessed Walter how Jesus was the real King of Kings and all that. And so we see Walter and Charles, in their mid-19th-century garb, wandering through scenes of JC’s life nearly two thousand years earlier, from the nativity to the crucifixion – much like Scrooge and his spectral buddies in A Christmas Carol as they wander through past, present and future Christmases. It rather drags out what is already a pretty long running...

Politics

7 d. ago Joe Rogan fled 'violent' father for San Francisco's gay scene... now his estranged sister breaks her silence to tell a very different story about his path to $200m superstardom

Of all the controversial men Joe Rogan has encountered over the years, one appears to have had a darker impact than most.

Politics

7 d. ago SXSW London: What to expect as special musical guests confirmed

SXSW (South by South West) is coming to London this June, showcasing top musical acts like Mabel, Alice Glass, and NAO for the first European host city edition

Politics

7 d. ago Igor Tudor injects fury into Juventus to rev up race for Champions League | Nicky Bandini

New manager has transformed mood and on Sunday halted the seven-match winning streak of Claudio Ranieri’s RomaIgor Tudor was on the pitch, stepping out of his technical area and on to the playing field as he gestured frantically at his defenders, jabbing a pointed finger so close to Stephan El Shaarawy that it appeared he might tap the Roma forward on the shoulder. It has been a little over 20 years since Tudor played his last game for Juventus, but all that time away does not appear to have lessened his passion.The Bianconeri had needed this, needed something, an injection of purpose, of fury, of life. All their energies seemed to have expired under Thiago Motta, four defeats in six games telling only a part of the story. Anyone could lose a match to Atalanta, but 4-0? At home? And to follow that up with a 3-0 thrashing by one of your club’s favourite victims, Fiorentina? Continue reading...

Sport

7 d. ago Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne review – complicity, courage and cowardice examined in a slippery marvel

The Submarine author employs that novel’s warmth and wit in his investigation into whether his great-grandfather knowingly helped to make chemical weapons for the Nazis Joe Dunthorne tells us he originally envisaged this book as a story of his grandmother’s childhood escape from the Nazis; the reality turned out to be more complex. Narrated with the twists and turns of a detective story, Children of Radium is a family memoir that records the mazy path by which the prize-winning Welsh novelist discovered just how little he knew of his German Jewish heritage. His journey begins with “a foot-high block of A4”: a 2,000-page unpublished memoir by his great-grandfather, Siegfried, a Jewish scientist who worked at a secret chemical weapons laboratory near Berlin before he and his family left for Turkey – not the panicky flit Dunthorne imagined, but a relocation bankrolled by employers with plans for what he could yet do.Hunches, tip-offs, false trails and dead ends abound in Dunthorne’s qu...

Events

8 d. ago Australia is in an extinction crisis – why isn’t it an issue at this election?

Some of the country’s most loved native species, including the koala and the hairy-nosed wombat, are on the brink. Is this their last chance at survival?Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this electionGet Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an emailMost parliamentarians might be surprised to learn it, but Australians care about nature. Late last year, the not-for-profit Biodiversity Council commissioned a survey of 3,500 Australians – three times the size of the oft-cited Newspoll and representative of the entire population – to gauge what they thought about the environment. The results tell a striking story at odds with the prevailing political and media debate.A vast majority of people – 96% – said more action was needed to look after Australia’s natural environment. Nearly two-thirds were between moderately and extremely concerned about the loss of plants and animals around where they live.Get Guardian Austral...

Politics

9 d. ago Streaming: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and the best older women age

The recent Bridget Jones sequel, a big hit at the UK box office, celebrates the romance between its middle-aged star and her gen-Z lover, but from Babygirl to The Mother, how do women on screen with younger partners usually fare?At this admittedly early stage of 2025, with all the noisy blockbusters of summer still ahead of us, the UK’s box-office report tells a nostalgic story. The year’s highest-grossing new release, raking in more than double its nearest rival, Captain America, is Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy – a sequel in which its American distributors had so little confidence that they booted it straight to streaming. Brits who missed it in cinemas can finally access it on VOD this week. The film itself is something of a pleasant surprise too: a tender-hearted, flannel-cosy romcom – easily the best in the series since the first, 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary – now suffused with the gentle melancholy of middle age.Age, of course, is a critical concern of this instalment, whi...

Politics

1 week ago From burger wrappers to masks, bird nests tell story of throwaway culture

Nests on Amsterdam canals provide archive of plastic waste and show how the material ‘is really here to stay’One day in 1996, someone ate a McDonald’s McChicken burger in Amsterdam.Perhaps it was a quick bite after work? A leisurely stroll down the canals? A family outing? These details are lost to time, but others are hard to erase completely. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Kanye West appears to confirm Bianca Censori left him after disturbing social media rants

Rapper is infamous for spewing hateful messages on X and Instagram

Politics

1 week ago Kanye West and Bianca Censori bombshell: 'Leaked track claims to tell rapper's story of how he was dumped and she had panic attacks over his tweets'

The controversial rapper, 47, who recently denied 'absurd' rumours he was 'battering his wife', has now dedicated a song to Bianca, 30, which will be on his new album WW3.

Events