Commissioner expresses grave concern after Rishi Sunakas asylum policy passes parliamentary stages

The Council of Europeas human rights watchdog has condemned Rishi Sunakas Rwanda scheme, saying it raises amajor issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of lawa.

The bodyas human rights commissioner, Michael OaFlaherty, said the bill, expected to be signed into law on Tuesday after passing its parliamentary stages on Monday night, was a grave concern and should not be used to remove asylum seekers or infringe on judgesa independence.

Johnny Timpson says he wants to atake a standa after revelations thousands of carers are being forced to pay huge fines

One of Rishi Sunakas dementia advisers has resigned over the governmentas approach towards unpaid carers, describing the prosecutions of vulnerable people as abeyond the palea.

Johnny Timpson, who advised No 10 on its dementia strategy, said he wanted to atake a standa after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers were being fined huge sums and in some cases prosecuted for minor infringements of earnings rules.

Emergency services said bodies found at Nasser hospital as Volker Turk says he is ahorrifieda by destruction at al-Shifa medical facilities

• See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage

A source close to Hezbollah said an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon killed a fighter of the Iran-backed militant group on Tuesday as he was travelling in a vehicle, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The strike hit the Abu al-Aswad area near the coastal city of Tyre, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the border, an AFP journalist reported.

The chart-topping singeras career has been on hold since she was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition in 2022

Celine Dion has opened up about life with stiff person syndrome (SPS), a debilitating condition that she was diagnosed with in 2022.

SPS, an extremely rare autoimmune neurological disorder affecting an estimated 8,000 people worldwide, causes muscle spasms and stiffness and can cause a loss of mobility. In Dionas case, she has previously said that the illness is acausing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way Iam used toa.

Anthony Albanese responds to X owner who criticised Australian authorities demanding videos of a Sydney church stabbing be removed

Australiaas prime minister has labelled Xas owner, Elon Musk, an aarrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the lawa as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.

On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.

UKas blue-chip index reaches 8,076, surpassing previous high of 8,047 in February 2023

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The UK stock market hit a record high on Tuesday, as shares were lifted by hopes of interest rate cuts and an easing of geopolitical tensions.

The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks listed in London hit 8,076 points on Tuesday, surpassing a previous high of 8,047 in February 2023.

Exclusive: Mark Rowley says sergeant will not be disciplined and warns of afakerya by activists at other protests

The commissioner of the Metropolitan police has praised the aprofessionala conduct of the sergeant who stopped an antisemitism campaigner at a pro-Palestinian march and warned that officers at other protests had been aset upa by activists using afakerya to undermine the force.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mark Rowley said the sergeant involved in the incident with Gideon Falter would not be disciplined and vigorously defended the Metas handling of the six months of protests since the 7 October attacks on Israel.

Claire OaNeill, a former climate minister, says PMas move was to atry and create political division and dividing linesa

The UK governmentas decision to weaken some of its climate commitments was a aretrograde stepa that will set back vital cross-party action to cut carbon emissions, Claire OaNeill, a former Conservative climate minister, has said.

OaNeill, who was known as Claire Perry when she served as a minister under David Cameron and Theresa May, said the rolling back of emission reduction efforts by Rishi Sunak appeared to be a ploy for political advantage.

In move seen by the opposition as an attempt to de-sinocise Taiwan, the ruling party is pushing ahead with plans to rid the island of monuments to the dictator

Taiwanas government has pledged to remove almost 800 statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese military dictator who ruled the island for decades under martial law, but whose legacy remains a point of contentious debate.

In 2018 the government established a transitional justice committee to investigate the rule of the former generalissimo, who was president of the Republic of China (ROC) a in China and then in Taiwan a until his death in 1975. Among its recommendations was to remove the thousands of statues from public spaces.

Chris Columbus will direct film adaptation of Pointless presenteras bestselling mystery book about a group of septuagenarian sleuths

Three of the four leading roles in the film adaptation of Richard Osmanas bestselling mystery book have now been cast, with A-listers Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley set to play septuagenarian sleuths in a retirement community.

Chris Columbus, whose previous credits include Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter films, is set to direct.

The university is to hold virtual classes after protests on campus culminated in the arrest of more than 100 students

Over 100 students at Columbia were arrested last week after refusing to leave a pro-Palestine protest encampment set up on the universityas main campus. The arrests have since set off a chain of events, including the re-establishing of the encampment and solidarity protests on other US college campuses.

On Monday, Columbia announced it will hold classes virtually to try to areseta the situation on campus. Hereas what we know so far about whatas happening at Columbia.

As one of the largest atraininga datasets has been found to contain child sexual abuse material, can bans on creating such imagery be feasible?

Child abusers are creating AI-generated adeepfakesa of their targets in order to blackmail them into filming their own abuse, beginning a cycle of sextortion that can last for years.

Creating simulated child abuse imagery is illegal in the UK, and Labour and the Conservatives have aligned on the desire to ban all explicit AI-generated images of real people.

The ex-president appeared uncomfortable at times as his criminal trial finally got under way in New York on Monday

• Hush-money was aelection fraud pure and simplea, prosecutors say

Donald Trump was confronted on Monday with the unsavory details of his alleged attempt to illegally influence the 2016 election by covering up his hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, as the first criminal trial for a former US president got under way in New York.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records a where the hush-money payments were recorded as legal expenses a to cover up the affair just weeks before the election.

He had barely started his career when abuse left him mentally ill. But he went on to phenomenal success a and has just been made president of the UKas leading drama school

This is the first time David Harewood has stepped through the doors of Radaas London headquarters since he became its president in mid-February, and heas immediately struck by flashbacks of his time as a student here. aStunning memories,a he says. aMemories of my audition, the paintings a| and that staircase will always be memorable because you walk in and go: aOh my God, Iam at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts!a Itas very evocative.a

Harewood, 58, is the first person of colour to lead Rada, and he follows in the footsteps of such luminaries as Kenneth Branagh, Richard Attenborough, Princess Diana and John Gielgud. It is the most prestigious of acting schools a some would say the luvviest of them all a and has been a training ground for everyone from Anthony Hopkins to Tom Hiddleston, Fiona Shaw to Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But like many British drama schools, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Rada issued an apology acknowledging that it ahas been and currently is institutionally racista.

Replacing red meat with fish could prevent diabetes, reduce our carbon footprint and save lives. So whoas for spaghetti and fishballs?

aWhatas for supper?a my wife asks. We are watching the six oaclock news and the pause I leave before answering is longer than I mean it to be. Iam trying to find the words.

aFish wellington,a I say, finally. The silence that follows is longer still.

Future, Rick Ross and Kanye West are among those currently being drawn into one of the fieriest disputes in rap history. Is it good for the culture a and could it depose Drake from the top?

One rapper is accused of being derivative while another is mocked for his height. This jibe leads another to join in and accuse the taller man of having buttock implants. A fourth man decides to join in, but quickly retracts his comments for the sake of an easier life. And so it goes on, a feud labelled as a acivil wara in US rap, despite many of the lyrics (so far) leaning towards playground-level insults.

It would be noteworthy enough to have even two of Americaas biggest rappers embroiled in a spat a but around a dozen are currently engaged in this feud, with new beefs cropping up seemingly daily. Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Future, the Weeknd and Rick Ross are among the combatants; Kanye West entered the fray over the weekend, while a separate squabble between R&B singer Chris Brown and rapper Quavo has also sprung into life, seemingly sparked in the heat of the current conflagration.

Every genre of music has made its mark on Manchester, including dialect ballads, classical, TV theme tunes and all the strands of post-punk. Welcome to the north-west sound

Myth distorts any cityas musical history, and in Manchester myth looms as large as the new Co-op Live, a APS365m, 23,500-capacity mega-venue that opens today and will soon be staging big-name acts, including Take That. So, for every occasion a music fan mentions the hit-making boy band or, for that matter, 10cc or the Hollies, a thousand more bark back: Joy Division, the Fall, Happy Mondays. Not that 10cc were a small Manc band, but they peaked before punk and a wall went up at the end of the 1970s that relegated all that had passed prior to 4 June 1976 a the night the Sex Pistols performed at the Lesser Free Trade Hall a to prehistory, as in dinosaurs, fossils, folk musicians. New hagiographies about music impresario Tony Wilson (1950-2007) are no doubt at the printers as I write. But how about we spend half an hour mooching round the Rainy City aboard the free buses and trams in search of the underplayed, surprising and tangential a with a few Gen X/6 Music standards for when weare stuck at the lights.

You might not think Coronation Street a promising departure point, but it gives us an in to Bowtonas Yard. Itas one of those ditties that may prompt unpleasant memories of the BBC TV series Sit Thi Deawn, but listen carefully and youall hear it is in fact a Victorian reality show made song. Written by Marsden-born, Stalybridge-based Samuel Laycock, it inspired Tony Warren when he was devising the characters for his Weatherfield/Salford-set soap opera. Granada Studios on Quay Street also played a leading role in disseminating the north-western sound, from regional accents to theme tunes to the Beatlesa first TV appearance, in October 1962.

In the past 10 years the idea that trees communicate with and look after each other has gained widespread currency. But have these claims outstripped the evidence?

There are a lot of humans. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves on to a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins a it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought.

And yet, humans are not Earthas chief occupants. Trees are. There are three trillion of them, with a collective biomass thousands of times that of humanity. But although they are the preponderant beings on Earth a outnumbering us by nearly 400 to one a theyare easy to miss. Show someone a photograph of a forest with a doe peeking out from behind a maple and ask what they see. aA deer,a theyall triumphantly exclaim, as if the green matter occupying most of the frame were mere scenery. aPlant blindnessa is the name for this. It describes the many who can confidently distinguish hybrid dog breeds a chiweenies, cavapoos, pomskies a yet cannot identify an apple tree.

From the thrice-daily Swan Lake to a tragedy in an asbestos factory, Guardian photographer David Levene went behind the scenes at the aArt Olympicsa

I love her and my children, but have fallen for another man. What can I do? Iam now suffering from gastrointestinal problems and using alcohol to get to sleep

Iam a 41-year-old man and I have been married to my wife for 10 years. I have always been bisexual, but because I wanted a family (we have two young children) I turned a blind eye to my gay side. I thought I could keep it up for ever, but after hiding it for so long I developed insomnia and other ailments. A year ago I decided to explore my sexuality. After a few meet ups with random men, I met a man who is 20 years my senior and quickly fell in love. I am now in a loving sexual relationship with him. I feel so much more sexually confident and have a happiness Iave never felt before. However Iam beginning to suffer from gastrointestinal problems due to the stress of cheating on my wife and being disloyal to my kids. The insomnia has got worse and I have begun to use alcohol to get to sleep. I love my wife dearly, but my attraction to her fizzled out soon after our second child was born. I donat want to break up our family but I canat live without a man in my life. Should I seek therapy? Moral guidance would be appreciated.

Therapy would probably be very helpful. You need a lot of support, although amoral guidancea is not called for at all. You are who you are a a person who is awireda in a certain way a and that is very unlikely to change, even if you want it to. Only you know if there is a possibility that your wife will accept the truth of who you really are, and I can understand you may not want to risk telling her in case it is unacceptable. But the toll this is taking on you is enormous. Perhaps, after some individual therapeutic help, you could also use a couples therapist to find a way to talk to your wife about your distressing situation in a safe and palatable manner.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please donat send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

Tate Modern, London
Tate Modernas survey of Kandinsky, MA1/4nter and the rest of the avant garde Blue Rider group is an exhilarating riot of colour a but also abounds with anxieties about the coming conflicts of the 20th century

Within the bright colours of this exhilarating survey of the Blue Rider group of avant garde artists, who worked in Munich and the Bavarian Alps in the years before the first world war, horror lurks. Look at Wassily Kandinskyas paintings of the medieval Bavarian town Murnau, and you might wonder if thereas any connection with the film director FW Murnau who made the silent vampire film Nosferatu? Yes a he took the townas name after befriending the Blue Rider artists there. So welcome to the land of spectres.

Marianne von Werefkinas eyes, for instance, blaze red from her self-portrait. Green, yellow and pink duke it out for dominance of her skin. Her ochre hat with a violet flower collides with a swirling vortex of turquoise and sapphire sky. Sheas an expressionist and no mistake.

After last nightas Commons vote, they want a aproof of concepta journey to get the tawdry policy back on track. But itas too flawed for that

There will be a sigh of relief in No 10 with the passing of the Rwanda bill, as well as a degree of frustration. Having to steward another migration bill through parliament was not part of the governmentas plan.

With the Rwanda bill passing on to the statute book, overriding the supreme court judgment that Rwanda is not a safe country to which to send people seeking sanctuary, the government now hopes it can finally get on with locking up and then removing those seeking safety on our shores. The prime minister told a hastily arranged press conference on Monday morning that the first flight would not take off for a10 or 12 weeksa (having previously said it would be in spring). Officials are privately describing it as a aproof of concepta flight a this means focusing on having an initial flight to test how legally watertight the new laws are.

Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council

With his claims of a asicknote culturea, the prime minister is scapegoating those worst affected by 14 years of Conservative rule

When a prime minister knows he is heading for electoral wipeout, he has one of two options. He can choose dignified statesmanship, using his remaining months in power to bring about as much unity and stability as possible. Or he can choose desperation, grasping for votes by scapegoating marginalised people, and leaving division and misery in his wake.

Rishi Sunak has gone for the second option. On Friday, he announced a new crackdown on disability benefits that has been described by charities as aa full-on assault on disabled peoplea. The country has a asicknote culturea that needs to be tackled, the prime minister said. Britain acanat afforda its record levels of welfare spending and itas anot faira on the taxpayer.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People

We seek peace in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, the DRC and elsewhere, but weare ignored. History will damn the warmongers

aThe protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.a

Christopher Clarkas The Sleepwalkers retells the story of the outbreak of the first world war. Mapping a multipolar world enthralled by imperialism and paranoia, Clark refuses to pin the blame on a single power. Instead, he explains how political leaders narrowed the prospects for peace one misstep at a time, and sleepwalked into a global catastrophe that left around 20 million people dead.

Jeremy Corbyn MP is the independent MP for Islington North and a former leader of the Labour party

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.

AI models take every toxic gendered beauty norm and bundle them up into completely unrealistic package

Meet Madame Potato. She doesnat actually exist, but, if things go my way, sheas going to be the worldas first aMiss AIa. I recently created her image on a website that generates AI faces and then entered her into a beauty pageant. Now I am sitting back in anticipation of netting the $20,000 grand prize.

What fresh hell is this, you ask? Well, I regret to inform you that AI beauty pageants are a thing now. A company called Fanvue, which is a subscription-based content creator platform along the same lines as OnlyFans, recently teamed up with the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) to launch the worldas first aMiss AIa competition. A team of judges a comprising two humans and two virtual models a will sort through AI-generated pictures of women and choose one to crown as aMiss AIa. The winner gets a cash prize along with the chance to monetize their creation on Fanvue.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist

On a visit to a combined nursery and primary school, I saw how early years provision can really be transformed

Panic and a screeching U-turn. The prime minister dismissed claims there were too few nursery places for every two-year-old in England (with working parents) on 1 April, the day that entitlement to 15 hours a week began. He even said: aStaffing levels have increased and more people are at work in the sector and the number of places has also increased over the past year.a Outside the Commons, you might call that an untruth. Ofstedas registers show a fall in early years places every year since 2016: 17,800 places were lost in the year to November 2023 alone.

As usual with the Conservativesa un-evidenced policies, blunt truth eventually hits them on the head. The Department for Education just confessed that it needs 85,000 more nursery places and 40,000 more staff to be able to meet its target of expanding 30 free hours to children aged nine months by September 2025. In an acute recruitment crisis, nursery work is on the Sunas list of the UKas most unpopular jobs. Neil Leitch, head of the Early Years Alliance, told me: aPretending things are resolved is at best unhelpful and at worst shameful.a The Alliance represents 14,000 nursery providers, and runs 41 not-for-profit nurseries, often in deprived areas. aAll of them could accommodate more children if we could find appropriately skilled staff,a he says, but so many leave due to exhaustion and low pay.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

The man who reported Labouras deputy to the police canat even say what he was complaining about. Meanwhile, thereas no getting away from the Conservativesa scandals

I went past parliament last week and saw Angela Rayner. She is one of those politicians you couldnat miss anyway, but she was also dressed in primary colours and silver shoes, the purest aup yoursa outfit imaginable.

It was a couple of hours after a toe-curling exchange on Sky News in which the Conservative MP James Daly, who reported Rayner to Greater Manchester police, was asked by two anchors and Labouras Chris Bryant what his allegations were. aYou wrote to the police,a said Beth Rigby, her voice a delicious cocktail of bafflement and tenacity. aSo what did you ask them? Why wonat you say? Itas weird.a aI asked the police to investigate certain matters that were in the public domain,a Daly replied. Who knows why he was so cagey? I suspect it was because, said out loud, it would sound petty and mischievous.

For too long we have clung to myths of grandeur and exceptionalism, but the truth is that we donat need them

Most people probably wonat pay much notice to their calendars showing this is St Georgeas Day, a celebration of a long-dead Roman soldier whose connection to England has as much basis in fact as the dragon he was said to have slain.

The day is sometimes marred with troublemaking by the far right. But an obsession with English mythology isnat confined to the fringes of politics. For the past decade, overly engorged ideas about this country have taken hold in an increasingly stark and polarised debate about its future.

He wants his devotees to see the court case as trial by combat, with him as warrior. But the truth is more pathetic

Donald Trump is already in jail. He is pressed into confinement every weekday, except Wednesdays, beginning bright and early, no excuses, at 9.30 in the morning, in the dreary courtroom in Manhattan, where his impulse to mouth off wearies and worries his lawyers, and he must listen, for the first time since his father slapped him down, to an authority telling him to gag himself. He had more leeway when Fred Trump shipped the problem child to the New York military academy where Donald bullied his classmates.

Trumpas required attendance in the courtroom as a criminal defendant is his first loss of liberty.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

Rishi Sunakas latest plan to cut benefits was presented in misleading packaging

Even by the low standards of his government, Rishi Sunakas speech about the benefits system on Friday was disappointing. Worsening public health across the UK is widely recognised to be among the most serious challenges facing the country. For 2.8 million working-age people to be aeconomically inactivea, as they are, is not a good or sustainable situation. But there is no such thing as a asicknote culturea. Statutory sick pay in the UK is low by international standards, and UK workers take fewer sick days than those in France, Germany or the US. The use of this soundbite was deeply misleading.

What the UK has is a large number of unwell people. Since the pandemic, the number of those claiming disability benefit has increased by 850,000, half of whom are suffering either from anxiety or depression. Rising poverty a much of it caused by benefit cuts and caps a and waiting lists for healthcare are two reasons for this decline in the populationas wellbeing. But changes to the benefits system have also contributed. Specifically, the removal in 2017 of a top-up payment that used to be offered to claimants with a limited capability for work was an error. It took away an incentive for people who were partly incapacitated to work towards getting a job.