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Europa League
Aston Villa relish echoes of history but Europa League win must serve as stepping stone
Jonathan Wilson
Wed 20 May 2026 23.51 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 06.14 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/20/aston-villa-europa-league-win-unai-emery-freiburg

T here are two ways to win a final. You can win it by the odd goal, amid a frenzy of anxiety so the final whistle comes as a relief. Or you can win it as a procession, flexing your superiority, so the final whistle is almost resented for spoiling the fun. For Aston Villa , this was very much the latter. If their fans had dreamed the previous night of how they might win the game, they could barely have come up with something so satisfying and emphatic.

It’s true that Villa have a budget around 2.8 times that of Freiburg, and that they have been strong favourites in almost every game in the Europa League this season. But then in the Premier League they’re often fighting against sides with far greater resources. The poles of European and domestic football may have flipped, but that is not their fault nor, at least for now, their concern. They have not been a successful enough club – at least in the past 100 years – to decline to fully celebrate any trophy that comes their way. A second European success, 44 years after the first, is history.

Almost all football in its way echoes through the shadows of its past. For Villa, the parallels with the fabled 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in Rotterdam were unavoidable. Then, too, they wore white against a German side in red. Then, too, they suffered an early scare with their goalkeeper, although on this occasion Emiliano Martínez was able to carry on after taking a blow to the hand in the warm-up whereas in 1982 Jimmy Rimmer was forced off with a neck problem. And then too, the game in its early stages was a scrappy and nervous mess, not helped by a punctilious French referee; for Georges Konrath then, read François Letexier in 2026.

But there the similarities ended. There was a notable contrast, for instance, in the quality of the strikes that gave Villa the win. At De Kuip, Peter Withe converted Tony Morley’s low cross with his shin, making such dreadful contact that, even though he was in the middle of the box and six yards out with most of the goal to aim at, the ball squirted in off a post. Here, the strike from Youri Tielemans that put Villa ahead four minutes before the break could hardly have been truer.

It came from a set play, naturally enough – however redolent this may have been of glories past, this is 2026 – and so Austin MacPhee, Villa’s set-piece coach, must take credit. His long greying hair gives him the aura of some great magus, Trismegistus in a tracksuit, but there really is something remarkable about the way MacPhee conjures space. Who knows what skaldic wisdom facilitates his acts of misdirection, but somehow Freiburg were persuaded to leave a vast acreage at the top of their box untenanted, and into it Tielemans arced his run before belting home a scudding volley.

But if that goal was both fitting and pleasing in the sheer power of the shot, the second is the strike that will be replayed for its aesthetic quality. Emi Buendía has at times divided Villa fans, but his place in history is assured now. If there is to be a mural of this final in the environs of Villa Park as there is of 1982, it is his shot, whipped into the top corner, that will take centre stage.

The third may not have been so spectacular but even it felt a little like a souped-up version of the Withe goal, with Lucas Digne in the Gary Shaw role, and Buendía playing Morley to Morgan Rogers as the scorer, though his dart across the near post and poked finish was rather defter than the original.

The other major difference was in the manager. In 1982, Villa were led by Tony Barton who had only been a manager for three months. This time they were led by Unai Emery , who has dominated the Europa League like no manager has ever dominated any European trophy. He may have rejected the title of “king of the Europa League” on Tuesday, insisting only on looking forward, but he has been in six of the last 13 finals with four different teams and won it five times. Whatever doubts may remain about his capacity to manage a giant of modern football after his disappointments at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal, nobody can doubt how good he has been for Villa, or how good Villa have been for him.

It’s an oddity of the change in tournament structure, that for Villa or Emery to have the chance of winning the Europa League again would require a measure of failure. The sense is that one stage of their evolution is complete; the challenge now is to sustain the next phase, that of being a regular Champions League club.

‘It was much more gritty than the US scene’: UK skateboarding in the 80s and 90s – in pictures
Elena Goodinson
Thu 21 May 2026 10.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 11.18 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/may/21/uk-skateboard-scene-neil-macdonald-book-elsewhere

Stephen Colbert
From Lord of the Rings to Dua Lipa: Stephen Colbert’s 10 greatest Late Show moments
Zach Vasquez
Thu 21 May 2026 11.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 11.36 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/may/21/from-lord-of-the-rings-to-dua-lipa-stephen-colberts-10-greatest-late-show-moments

T his week marks the end of two distinctive eras of network television, as CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will air its final episode. The show was created in 1993 by David Letterman after his controversial exit from NBC, and he held the reins for 22 years before retiring and turning the show over to Colbert, who had risen to prominence on Comedy Central as a member of The Daily Show, and then later host of his own political talkshow, The Colbert Report.

Colbert’s run on the Late Show would last 11 years. Last July, CBS shocked everyone by announcing the show’s cancellation, with the final episode to air on 21 May. Although executives claimed the decision was purely financial – even with Late Show holding the best ratings for any late-night talkshow for nine years running – many saw it as a political gesture towards Donald Trump ahead of an $8bn merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount, and Skydance.

An ignominious end to a modern television institution to be sure, but in its way, a fitting one, considering how so many of the most memorable moments of the show over the last 11 years are tied directly to Trump. At the same time, the show’s viewers also cherished the human moments that Colbert – undoubtedly the sincerest of all late-night talkshow hosts – prioritized.

Here are the 10 greatest Late Show With Stephen Colbert moments of the last 11 years:

The Hungry for Power Games Recap, 2016

In his second year as host of Late Show, Colbert undertook an ambitious project, covering both the 2016 Republican and Democratic conventions. Accompanied by his pet ferret Caligula and donning a purple wig a la Stanley Tucci’s flamboyant television host from the Hunger Games movies, he gave us a glimpse into the even more dystopian inner workings of both parties. There are too many moments throughout The Hungry for Power Games to choose just one, but the wrap-up that aired after the conventions’ end does a good job collecting the highlights. Plus, it features an appearance from early fan favorite character Cajun Pope.

Saying Goodbye to Bill O’Reilly and ‘Stephen Colbert’, 2017

The buffoonish conservative persona that Colbert adopted on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report was heavily based on the former Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly, the king of rightwing media cranks until accusations of sexual harassment and racism led to his network firing him. After taking some gleeful potshots at O’Reilly – with whom Colbert shared a tense on-and-off air acquaintanceship (having once stolen his toaster) – he decides to eulogize him by bringing his alter ego out of retirement for one last hurrah. An irate “Stephen Colbert” berates the American people for failing his hero, before tearfully telling “Papa Bear” to stay strong. A deserved send-off for all involved.

Alex Jones calls out Colbert in court, 2019

One of the Late Show’s best running gags revolved around the former InfoWars owner and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In 2019, Jones was engaged in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife and attempted to win the court’s favor by claiming his on-air antics were just an act. Colbert made a meal out of this, playing samples of Jones’s most unhinged rants and introducing his own version of him by way of Tuck Buckford, the gravel-voiced host of Brain Fight. This segment – which sees Buckford ramble about the Founding Fathers’ bowel issues, chow down on a zebra steak and rip his pants off – is particularly memorable, because it follows Jones actually namechecking Colbert in court testimony.

Sending a message to Trump, 2017

Colbert had some harsh words for Donald Trump on Day 102 of his first term in office, following the president’s interview with Face the Nation’s host and fellow CBS family member John Dickerson. Trump insulted Dickerson to his face various times (this was still something of a novelty back then), telling the respected journalist that he referred to his show as “Deface the Nation”. Colbert noted that while Dickerson was too dignified to trade insults with the president of the US, “I, sir, am no John Dickerson.” The barbs that followed were generally groan-inducing (“You’re not the Potus, you’re Bloat-us”) right up until they end, when he landed this blow: “The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladmir Putin’s cock-holster.” The network bleeped out the curse before broadcast, but that didn’t ease the backlash, which saw #FireColbert trend across social media. Although Colbert slightly walked back his comments (mostly out of deference to those who found the joke homophobic), he didn’t apologize for it, and was eventually cleared of violating FCC standards.

Liv Tyler indulges a Lord of the Rings fantasy, 2019

Outside comedy and politics, Colbert is best known as a massive Lord of the Rings fan. Indeed, he recently announced he’ll be co-writing the next instalment of the film franchise, The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past. Over the course of his Late Show run, Colbert brought up JRR Tolkien’s fantastical tales countless times and invited on numerous people involved in the film adaptations of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies (the latter of which he appeared in a cameo role). Perhaps most memorable was his very sweet segment with Liv Tyler, who played the Elven princess Arwen in the LOTR. Knowing how much Colbert loves those movies, she brought the sword her character wielded and “indulged in a fantasy” of Colbert’s by joining with him to recreate one of her most iconic scenes.

Conan takes over, 2019

Conan O’Brien appeared on the Late Show a number of times, which was no surprise given their relationship dates back decades (when Colbert unsuccessfully applied for a writing job on Late Night with Conan O’Brien). They had previously and famously crossed over way back during the Writer’s Guild strike of 2008, when, along with Jon Stewart, they engaged in a pretend rivalry (over Mike Huckabee of all people) that resulted in a three-way fist fight on O’Brien’s show. The two carried said rivalry into 2019, when O’Brien swapped places with Colbert for a night, taking position behind the host’s desk while Colbert found himself in the hot seat. A hilarious back-and-forth ensues, giving us a glimpse of what might have been had Conan made the jump over to CBS back in the day.

Discussing grief with Joe Biden, 2020

When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, the Late Show With Stephen Colbert became A Late Show With Stephen Colbert at Home. Filmed from inside Colbert’s actual home (with his wife, Evelyn McGee Colbert, often filling in for the studio audience), he conducted interviews via Skype. The most notable of these was his 50-minute episode with Joe Biden, then the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden delivered a message of perseverance to Americans during this trying time, particularly those grieving loved ones lost to the virus. He and Colbert – no stranger to grief, having lost his father and brothers to a plane accident when he was only 10 years old – discussed Biden losing his own son, Beau, just a few years earlier. Biden’s show of resilience and empathy struck a chord with many a viewer, putting him in sharp contrast with Trump during this pivotal moment of the 2020 election.

Talking faith and comedy with Dua Lipa, 2022

What starts out as a by the numbers interview with pop star Dua Lipa takes a surprisingly spiritual turn when the two swap roles so that Lipa, who is prepping for a podcast, can get some interview practice. Rather than lob a softball question, Lipa asks Colbert, “Does your faith and your comedy ever overlap? And does one ever win out?” A proud Catholic, Colbert sinks his teeth into the question, discussing the way comedy helps him deal with fear and sadness, before quoting the American poet and essayist Robert Hayden: “We must not be frightened or controlled into accepting evil as our deliverance from evil. We must keep struggling to maintain our humanity, though monsters of abstraction threaten and police us.”

Strike Force Five reunite, 2026

During the battle over the Tonight Show and the subsequent late-night ratings war of the 90s, it was unthinkable that David Letterman and Jay Leno would ever appear on one another’s shows. Things have changed a lot over the years, with Colbert and four of his fellow talkshow hosts – the Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon, Live!’s Jimmy Kimmel, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver and Late Night’s Seth Meyers – teaming up for the Strike Force Five podcast during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike as a way to support their colleagues on the picket lines. The five recently reunited to lend support to Colbert ahead of his departure. They discussed their TV origins, the wrath they’ve faced from Trump, the guests they’ve made out with and the future of late-night. A testament to the respect Colbert enjoys among his peers and an inspiring show of solidarity in the face political overreach and corporate cowardice.

Colbert and Letterman destroy CBS property, 2026

Back in his Late Show era, David Letterman loved to wreak havoc by tossing CBS property off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, something which Colbert was explicitly forbidden from replicating when he took over. But now, with nothing left to lose, he and Letterman enjoyed some last-minute payback, bringing back the tradition and destroying several expensive pieces of CBS-owned furniture – including Colbert’s chair. Letterman signs off by slightly misquoting the late television journalist Edward Murrow, wishing CBS “Goodnight and good luck – motherfuckers.”

Manchester City
Manchester City succession sheds light on Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea departure
Jacob Steinberg
Wed 20 May 2026 13.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 06.11 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/20/manchester-city-pep-guardiola-succession-enzo-maresca-chelsea-departure

N ow the secret is out it is possible to look at Enzo Maresca’s incendiary remarks about his “worst 48 hours” at Chelsea through a different lens. Change is coming at Manchester City, who are preparing for Pep Guardiola’s departure at the end of the season, and it does not require much reading between the lines to work out their decision to pass the crown to Maresca was made a long time ago.

There never was a clear explanation from the Italian after he sat in front of the media after Chelsea’s unspectacular 2-0 win over Everton on 13 December and surprised the room by taking the extraordinary step of going to war with his employers. “Since I joined the club, the last 48 hours have been the worst because many people didn’t support us,” he said. “People didn’t support me and the team.”

Which people? Maresca never said and Chelsea were perplexed. The situation deteriorated over the next fortnight and it was hard not to feel Maresca was behaving like a man who wanted to be sacked. Chelsea, though, refused to pull the trigger. It was only when Maresca went into the manager’s office at Stamford Bridge after a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth on 30 December and told his bosses he did not want to conduct his post-match duties that it became clear there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Sources familiar with that episode say that was the moment Maresca in effect handed in his resignation. He was gone two days later , the club statement landing early on New Year’s Day. Chelsea, unsurprisingly, have not moved on from Maresca informing them he had twice spoken to City while under contract.

This was not a fond farewell. Maresca walked away without his severance, with three and a half years on his deal. Sources close to the former Leicester manager have acknowledged Chelsea are entitled to demand a sizeable compensation package for City to acquire his services.

There were claims of Maresca clashing with Chelsea’s medical department over how much certain players could be used and suggestions the 46-year-old was dissatisfied with the club’s project. But those talks with City have relevance. The heir to the throne was hiding in plain sight. Maresca was top of City’s shortlist and it seems unlikely the two parties sat down to discuss the particulars of a three-year deal only after news of Guardiola stepping down at the end of the season broke on Monday night.

Chelsea feel Maresca’s departure wrecked their season. Maresca can probably take the barbs, though. He is about to land a top job. Replacing Guardiola is a thankless task, one comparable with taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson, Jürgen Klopp or Arsène Wenger, but Maresca has worked within the City machine and will believe the role is made for his skill set.

Guardiola has backed his former assistant. City know what they are getting from Maresca, part of their backroom staff when they won the treble in 2023. He favours positional play, uses inverted full-backs, sees the pitch as a chessboard and has even been nicknamed Diet Pep.

While Maresca is undoubtedly a quality tactician, his work at Chelsea and Leicester does leave room for debate. There were times when Leicester supporters grumbled about Maresca’s football, even though he led them to the Championship title in 2024 , and concerns that his style of play was too dogmatic were never far from the surface at Chelsea.

The former Sevilla midfielder, who played for Carlo Ancelotti at Juventus, moved to Stamford Bridge after Mauricio Pochettino’s departure in May 2024. Chelsea wanted to play with more control and Maresca’s first season was a qualified success. They squeezed into the Champions League and beat Real Betis in the Conference League final .

The crowning moment came when Maresca bamboozled Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final last summer. It was a fine achievement and showed his ability to come up with clever plans for one-off games. Winning the Premier League, though, requires greater consistency and Chelsea had a prolonged dip during his first season and sometimes struggled to break down low blocks.

It would be pushing it to say the home crowd loved his style of play. There was chuntering when Enzo Fernández passed backwards during a 1-0 win over Leicester in March 2025. Maresca, though, was unmoved . “Enzo knows if he doesn’t play back, I will change him,” he said. “If the goalkeeper plays long, I will change him.”

That stance led to tension. Maresca even blamed supporters when Chelsea panicked and went long before conceding a goal during a 2-2 draw with Ipswich. Intriguingly, though, he adapted against PSG. He caught the European champions out by telling his goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, to send long balls over their left-back, Nuno Mendes.

Flexibility is important. Guardiola has played with less control this season. He has the directness of Antoine Semenyo and Jérémy Doku on the wings and the improvisation of Rayan Cherki in the middle. In Gianluigi Donnarumma, he has signed a goalkeeper whose wondrous shot-stopping more than makes up for his lack of skill with the ball at his feet. Maresca will surely play to Donnarumma’s strengths and not force the Italian out of his comfort zone.

Chelsea felt Maresca sometimes overthought games and put too much pressure on himself. He often appeared cold in public and was not particularly open with the media, although it is worth noting players tend to love him. He was close with Chelsea’s Spanish contingent and had a bond with Jack Grealish during his first spell at City.

Perhaps the key for Maresca is that he will have access to better players. He did not have a top striker at Chelsea, but at City will be able to rely on Erling Haaland. The trials and tribulations of those 48 hours must feel worthwhile now.

The Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks warn us we must be better prepared if we are to prevent the next pandemic
Helen Clark
Thu 21 May 2026 02.43 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 09.18 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/21/the-ebola-and-hantavirus-outbreaks-warn-us-we-must-be-better-prepared-if-we-are-to-prevent-the-next-pandemic

T wo rare disease outbreaks within two weeks – Andes hantavirus and Bundibugyo Ebola – have caused deaths and triggered costly international responses. Together they expose a gap not in our ability to respond, but in our willingness to anticipate, prevent and use precaution.

The hantavirus outbreak on a cruise expedition in the south Atlantic played out slowly. Three weeks passed between the death of one passenger on 11 April and the linkage to hantavirus on 2 May. In that time, passengers onboard the MV Hondius continued their itinerary, having been advised that the man had probably died of natural causes. They toured remote islands and ate together at the same tables. More than 30 passengers disembarked at St Helena and flew in different directions.

From 27 April, the picture worsened on the ship. A passenger was medevaced from Ascension, several others fell ill and one woman died.

A remote adventure cruise became a costly international health event, requiring World Health Organization coordination, the intervention of the Spanish prime minister and governments chartering planes to bring their nationals home from Tenerife for weeks of isolation. Cases may still emerge.

The second outbreak was immediately alarming. An Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report last Friday cited 65 deaths and more than 260 cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, concentrated in the remote province of Ituri, bordering Uganda and South Sudan. As it is endemic in the DRC, Ebola is usually picked up early – even one or two deaths have been notified to the WHO. This outbreak had been spreading for weeks before confirmation. When it was finally identified as the rare Bundibugyo strain, Africa CDC and the WHO alerted the world promptly.

The human cost of the spread of the virus is devastating. Ituri is a region already vulnerable due to conflict and successive health crises. Communities there endured two years of the DRC’s worst Ebola outbreak yet, which ended only in 2020. Health workers operate in difficult conditions, often without reliable infrastructure or supplies. Identifying disease and responding under these circumstances is a huge challenge, and national and international support is essential for early detection and preparedness in the world’s most vulnerable settings.

There are lessons in every outbreak. For both of these, predicting and acting on known risks could have saved lives and prevented international health crises.

Andes hantavirus is endemic to Argentina, and cases have been rising this year. More than 500 ships depart Ushuaia annually, many carrying passengers who have enjoyed nature before embarking. Andes hantavirus transmits between people through close contact – as a 2018 outbreak demonstrated when an infected man passed the virus to four people sharing his table, and another during a brief greeting.

When a passenger on a cruise departing Ushuaia develops acute respiratory illness, hantavirus must be a consideration. Ship medical protocols should reflect the endemic disease landscape of their departure ports. While people may not want to mask up or isolate on a trip of a lifetime, the alternative has proven to be much worse.

In Ituri, when testing for the Zaire strain returned negative, cases were apparently set aside. In a country with a long and painful history of Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever cluster should be treated as potentially the disease until definitively proven otherwise.

This is what risk-informed precaution means in practice: that geography, endemic disease patterns and local outbreak history should shape what clinicians and surveillance systems plan and look for. A standing multidisciplinary body of scientists – epidemiologists, ecologists, clinicians and other experts – dedicated to mapping these known risks continuously and translating them into geographically tailored protocols could make this kind of anticipation systematic rather than accidental.

These gaps matter beyond hantavirus and Bundibugyo Ebola. A surveillance system that misses a hemorrhagic fever or fails to consider endemic risks at a departure port will be equally blind to something far more dangerous – a novel pathogen or a known virus which has quietly acquired the capacity for wider spread and could become the next pandemic. The next disease to exploit these weaknesses may not give us weeks to work out what is happening. It may give us days.

Based on what we know, both outbreaks carry a 32% case fatality rate. Both were possibilities in the context in which they emerged.

The question is not whether we can afford smarter surveillance and risk-informed preparedness, it is whether we can afford to ignore the warning signs of climate, biodiversity loss and disease patterns which are right in front of us if we are alert to them.

Helen Clark is a co-chair of the WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and a former New Zealand prime minister

Michelin Guide
‘We feel let down’: sustainable chefs in UK mourn end of Michelin green star
Helena Horton
Thu 21 May 2026 07.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 09.46 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/may/21/sustainable-chefs-in-uk-mourn-loss-of-michelin-green-star

With rare bluefin tuna and red meat often on their menus, Michelin-starred restaurants have not always prioritised sustainability.

In an effort to consider the climate crisis, in 2020 Michelin began awarding green stars to chefs who cooked eco-friendly ingredients and reduced waste. But now the body has abruptly retired the prize and said chefs will no longer be able to advertise that they have it.

Winners of the accolade were given a green plaque to proudly display by their front door, and were able to show a picture of the star on their website, much as they would if they had won a traditional Michelin star.

“It’s disappointing – one of our dreams was to have one,” said Piers Milburn, the owner of Pythouse Kitchen Garden in Wiltshire, which won a green star last year.

His menu features sustainable ingredients such as English fava beans, hand-dived scallops and local blackberries.

“We think it’s quite irresponsible for Michelin to build a platform for businesses to thrive from for an accolade and then whisk it away,” he said. “We were enormously proud of it and now we feel let down by them.”

There are signs that corporations across the world are reducing their sustainability initiatives in the wake of US president Donald Trump’s backlash against DEI and climate programmes. “I pray Michelin is not stepping back from sustainability,” Milburn said.

Hylton Espey, who owns Culture restaurant in Falmouth, Cornwall, serves fish from the local market and mushrooms grown in a nearby no-dig garden.

“We did not have any communication regarding the green star changes until after the press release went out. We feel that this could have been handled better,” he said.

Epsey added that the star was a “rare achievement and it helped us stand out amongst other restaurants on an international scale”, including collaborating with chefs from the US and cooking at international events.

Cecily Fearnley, the owner of Homestead Kitchen Garden in North Yorkshire, was equally disappointed to find out she was losing her star. Fearnley runs the restaurant from her family home, a farmhouse on the moors, and serves home-grown vegetables. To drink, there is locally distilled gin from Whitby.

“The fact we were recognised by Michelin was a fantastic boost for us, and definitely led people to us who care about the same things,” she said. “It was amazing publicity to send people to our farmhouse restaurant on the North York Moors.

“For us, we will continue to work on what we feel passionate about, and hope that green star or no green star, people will continue to come and experience a taste of the moors with us.”

Instead of the star, the Michelin Guide will produce Mindful Voices, a “global editorial platform” about sustainable restaurants and the people “pioneering new approaches in the fields of gastronomy, hospitality and wine”. Mindful Voices will not bestow any official accolade on any restaurant featured, so restaurants do not view it as a replacement for the star.

The Guide has not given a reason for phasing out the stars, but has said all 37 restaurants that currently hold a star will lose the accolade at the end of the year.

Milburn believes it is because the green star too closely resembles a Michelin star. While one is awarded for sustainability, the other is given to fine-dining restaurants that meet exacting criteria for quality of cooking and service.

“In all fairness, there was a bit of confusion about the green star. People would turn up and say: ‘We heard you have a Michelin star,’” he said. “From the outset the branding for the star wasn’t right – it looks too much like a Michelin star.”

But restaurateurs still feel the change is unfair. Jan Ostle, the head chef and co-owner of Wilsons in Bristol, which serves produce from its market garden, was incredibly proud of his. “My heart also goes out to the people who won green stars this year. For it to be retired the very same year seems unfair.”

But he hoped the change also showed that where sustainable menus were once exceptional, they had now become the norm. “Practices such as working closely with local growers, reducing waste, improving staff culture and thinking more carefully about sourcing should really just be part of what defines a good modern restaurant,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Michelin Guide said: “The Michelin Guide wishes to reaffirm clearly its commitment to a more responsible approach to gastronomy. The Guide’s ambition is evolving towards a broader and more universal expression, one that now encompasses our three pillars of excellence: gastronomy, hospitality and wine.

“In the context of a strong international expansion to more than 60 destinations, the introduction of Mindful Voices should not be seen as a step backwards, but rather as a progression designed to reinforce this commitment.”

Football
Fever pitch as Ian Wright gets the Arsenal party started
Barry Glendenning
Wed 20 May 2026 16.24 CESTLast modified on Wed 20 May 2026 18.56 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/20/arsenal-premier-league-title-win-football-daily-newsletter

BRING A BOTTLE

It may have taken Mikel Arteta six years and well over a billion pounds but his team trusted the process and got there in the end. Arsenal are Premier League champions and in scenes that called to mind the closing moments of the movie Fever Pitch, jubilant Gooners spilled out of homes and pubs around Highbury and Islington in a collective release of tension and pure, unadulterated joy to mark the occasion. However, unlike Fever Pitch, it wasn’t broad daylight at 9.55pm and instead of Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell, it was Robbie Lyle from AFTV and Ian Wright who got their smooch on as fans partied long into the night outside the stadium. Any doubts that a brooding and occasionally intense man from a small town near San Sebastián might not have been up to the task of getting Arsenal over the line had finally been dispelled and for that, Andoni Iraola deserves great credit. His Bournemouth side’s draw against Manchester City means Arsenal can no longer be caught.

On Sunday, they will hoist the Premier League trophy aloft at Selhurst Park following a kickabout against Crystal Palace destined to be so convivial and relaxed that even the lesser-spotted Christian Nørgaard might fancy his chances of getting a run-out. You would have needed a heart of stone to begrudge Arsenal fans their evening of fun, what with them having been repeatedly fed through the emotional mincer by their own team in recent months but needless to say there were no shortage of cynics prepared to denigrate their achievement. Yes, there is certainly a case to be made that Arteta’s brand of belt-and-braces football can be a tough watch – as riveting and repetitive as an EasyJet safety demonstration – but actual Arsenal fans are prepared to tolerate it as long as it delivers trophies.

With the Premier League already in the bag, a Bigger Cup final against Paris Saint-Germain to come and Tottenham still in the relegation mix, Arteta has certainly delivered this season. “We now have the chance to cap one of the greatest seasons in our 140-year history … when we head to Budapest next week to contest our second-ever Bigger Cup final,” parped the club’s website at 3am, just a couple of hours before early birds Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Eberechi Eze were spotted mooching around a by-now deserted Emirates.

While the question of what on earth four Arsenal players were doing wandering north London at that ungodly hour may well be answered over the next couple of days, it will take longer to find out if winning the title after three consecutive near misses will mark the beginning of a sustained era of dominance. With most of their rivals facing uncertainty at best, Arsenal are in pole position to make hay while the sun shines and with a giant orangutan off their back, Arteta and his players no longer have to contend with the label of “bottlers”. Even the club dog, Win, is finally living up to her name and no longer in breach of the canine trade descriptions act.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Scott Murray at 8pm (BST) for minute-by-minute updates on Freiburg 1-3 Aston Villa in the Bigger Vase final.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“This Southampton story is one of the maddest I’ve seen. But why isn’t the play-offs starting again with the 4 other teams? Boro v Hull would have been the semi!! Confused” – Wrexham’s Josh Windass wants the Championship playoffs to start again with, yes, his own team involved, after Southampton were kicked out by the EFL for spying. Saints called the decision “manifestly disproportionate to every previous sanction in the history of the English game”.

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

I did not know a stroopwafel could taste anywhere near that good. Bravo” – Thad Brown.

Using Josh Windass’s logic and running with it, can I be one of 1,057 to suggest that the whole Championship season should be replayed, which will also have the added benefit of forcing Noble Francis to relive that whole Wednesday attempt at the campaign all over again” – Jon Millard.

I can understand Hull being upset, having been focused on playing Southampton and now having limited time to prepare for Middlesbrough instead. Can’t they just ask Southampton if they just happen to have a detailed dossier on Middlesbrough lying around?” – James Vortkamp-Tong.

Since childhood, I have secretly hoped that the top flight of English football would one day finish in alphabetical order. Congratulations are due not only to Arsenal for doing their bit to make it happen, but also to Tottenham, West Ham and Wolves for playing along. Bournemouth fans will no doubt forgive the awkward AFC prefix, while their cousins, Brighton and Brentford, have done their utmost. Chelsea obligingly produced a poor run-in, and Aston Villa made a decent stab at fulfilling my dream. The real problem clubs remain Liverpool and the two Manchesters, although Burnley’s relegation significantly improves the prospects for next season. Everton, Fulham and Newcastle look capable of taking their places, but Crystal Palace need to buck up their ideas. I think 2026-27 will finally be my year” – Phil Hearn.

Noble Francis’s pointing out that Benfica only finished third, despite an unbeaten season ( yesterday’s Football Daily letters ), brings to mind my Hamilton AFC (NZ) team that, likewise, were unbeaten in a league season but finished runners-up, having drawn three matches. If only we’d had the notion to dub ourselves ‘The Invincibles’ I may have felt a whole lot better over the last 35 years” – Rod de Lisle.

Going back to the thread of suitable songs to play while VAR are deliberating (Football Daily letters passim), The Kinks’ ‘Tired of waiting’ would seem like a very obvious choice followed by Britney Spears’ ‘Oops I did it again’ when the incorrect conclusion is announced to the bewildered supporters in the stadium. There must be many others in the canon” – Nigel Sanders.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com . Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Jon Millard. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here .

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the rest of the Football Weekly pod squad look back Arsenal’s title win and Spygate’s latest twist.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions .

Music
‘People say there are no words, but there are thousands’: Liz Lawrence on making a new kind of grief album after her sister’s death
Michael Cragg
Thu 21 May 2026 09.00 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/21/liz-lawrence-grief-vespers-interview

I n the months after her sister’s death, singer-songwriter Liz Lawrence couldn’t even listen to music, let alone play it. “I was very much, ‘That’s in the past and I don’t know what’s going to be asked of me now,’” she says. “I didn’t think about my work. I wasn’t interested. I didn’t have any appetite for it.” After slowly gravitating back to music via female vocalists such as Lisa O’Neill, Adrianne Lenker and Joanna Newsom, and as the time afforded to grieving was squeezed out by a life still ongoing, Lawrence realised she needed songs that allowed her to return to that “space of contemplation, reflection and sadness”.

She quickly searched out a Reddit thread of the best grief albums of all time, only to find a lengthy list of very specific rock and metal records chiefly made by men. “I was just looking for open and frank sadness,” she says, as opposed to the anger broiling within the suggested albums. That plain-speaking despair permeates Lawrence’s beautiful fifth album, Vespers, an unvarnished tribute to elder sister Jessie, who died suddenly in 2024 following an accident while on holiday with her partner and two small children in Ireland.

Eschewing the muscular indie pop of Lawrence’s previous four albums, which had seen her land tour support slots with the likes of Bombay Bicycle Club, the Big Moon and Everything Everything, the self-produced Vespers favours elegiac, stripped-back folk peppered with delicate string arrangements. Written during a three-week burst of creativity six months after Jessie’s accident, heartache lurks round every corner. It’s there on the sparse Exploded Into Flowers, which recalls the uncanny pageantry of a funeral, or via the relatable memories (“Making you laugh was in my top five feelings”) conjured up on the poignant Sister.

“I had no intentions for the album at all,” Lawrence, 35, says, nursing a half pint of Guinness in a pub in Birmingham, not far from where she lives with her partner and their dog. “It’s simply wanting there to be a space, or maybe culturally finding a space, for the shittier things. The things that are not very easy to be capitalist about. Or sell a load of merch for.”

Lawrence had just played her final festival show of the summer in support of her 2024 album, the BBC 6 Music favourite Peanuts, when she got a call from her father telling her that Jessie was in intensive care. Trains and flights were hurriedly booked as Lawrence entered what she now calls “power-saving mode” in which “everything else gets put on mute so you can focus on the enormity of moments”. While she had been told about the severity of Jessie’s condition, the truth hadn’t fully permeated the adrenalised exterior. “I was thinking: ‘Well miracles happen,’” she says. “‘And why shouldn’t it be us?’”

The suddenness of Jessie’s death at just 35 means that Lawrence’s reflex is still to text her, as if the ultimate miracle is that the nightmare never happened at all. That strange liminal state is explored on Vespers via Where Did You Go: “I surprise myself / How many times I asked that,” Lawrence sings of the title over plucked guitar and a heartbeat-like metronome. “Checking my phone / Drawn to the light like a moth / But someone tore my wings off.”

Those early hours and days at the hospital still play out with absolute clarity. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more present in my entire life than sitting in an intensive care cubicle,” she says. “I didn’t sleep for two days but I don’t remember being tired. There was no room for tiredness.” Normal life continued around her; she remembers being in the hospital’s family room sitting near two elderly Irish ladies having a natter. “I heard one of them say to the other: ‘Oh, did you hear about the woman who came in and she’s hurt her head.’ I thought: ‘They’re talking about my sister.’ It was a really odd out-of-body sense of ‘Oh, this is a story for you, but I’m actually that person who’s living in the thing that we think will never happen to us’. But it happens to someone. It’s got to happen to someone.”

Lawrence also had a strong sense that she needed to document what was happening in those early stages, both for her and her family. She’d keep notes on paper and on her phone of “details that I found either unbelievably tragic, or very poignant. Things like my sister’s blood type, which I’d never known, as well as certain medication they were giving her. I really felt it was important to document it. Then we got home, started the early grieving and I didn’t do anything with it at all.”

Lawrence is keen to make it clear that these notes didn’t represent the early stages of songwriting. Far from it – music at the time seemed firmly in her past. This was an attempt to gain some control of a situation spiralling out of reach. Once the family returned to the UK, the focus was simply on the rudimentary “day-by-day-ness” of it all. “I’d been through this intensely profound experience of being with my sister, her dying, and then coming back home and all I could think was: ‘God, tea is really good.’ It’s so cliche, but it’s absolutely true.” Her sister’s young children also offered a similar shot of comfort. “They just wanted to have fun,” Lawrence says, her face noticeably relaxing when she talks about them. “They want to play. They don’t want to sit down and have a deep and meaningful with you. They really don’t.”

Lawrence’s priorities have shifted around their needs, too. “Basically, when it comes to my work or music, if I’m going to miss Sunday morning swimming it’s going to have to be worth my while,” she smiles. “I feel like I’ve changed a lot. It’s the uncanniness of life: It will look very similar, but feel entirely new.”

One of Vespers’ most gut-wrenching songs, Birthday Party, explores the experience of celebrating her niece’s first birthday without her mum. It’s one of a handful of life’s landmarks that pepper the record, each one’s joy punctured ever so slightly. “Make a wish / That can come true,” Lawrence sings, “Not the one / That’s impossible.” Like so much of the album, it feels devastating in its lyrical economy. “I’ve taken a lot of comfort in frankness,” she says. “Me and my girlfriend had a lot of discussions about the ‘no words’ sentiment, as in ‘there are no words’ … But actually there are many words. There are hundreds of thousands of words for this, but maybe there are too many.”

She is aware that grief is a different beast for everyone, but is pretty certain about one aspect: “There’s no narrative. We look for it. We go: ‘OK, we’re recovering, so we’re going to continue to recover,’ but that’s simply not how it works. For me, it feels more like the tide coming in and then going out and then in and then going out.”

Despite it being a record of one person’s relationship with death and life, at the heart of Vespers is a universality of emotion – specifically the dead weight of sadness – that should see it added to Lawrence’s now-favourite Reddit thread of grief albums. “I really like people writing to me and saying: ‘I’ve lost someone and I’m connecting with this,’” she says. It’s been a long battle with herself over what happens when something as delicate and personal as an album about grief switches from creativity to commerce.

“Initially, I was thinking: No Spotify, no digital, just vinyl. You know, only 100 people can ever hear it. But that quality of connection is how I’m going to quantify the perceived success of this,” she says, literal glass now empty but the metaphorical one approaching half full. “That’s how I’ve tried to make peace with it.”

Vespers is released on 5 June.

Books
Tell us: what are your top three novels of all time?
Guardian community team
Sat 16 May 2026 07.00 CESTFirst published on Tue 12 May 2026 15.00 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/12/tell-us-what-are-your-top-three-novels-of-all-time

This week, we reveal our list of the 100 greatest novels published in English, as voted for by authors and critics around the world. We polled 172 authors, critics and academics for their top 10 novels of all time, published in English, and asked them to rank their choices in order of preference. We scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and then added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list of 100 greatest books.

What would be at the top of your list? Which authors do you think should be there? What are your favourite novels of all time?

This kind of list always gets people talking – who’s in, who’s been left out, why isn’t there more science fiction, or romance? We see this as the beginning of a conversation. We want to hear from you …

If you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Late-night TV roundup
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s IRS settlement: ‘Most brazenly corrupt move by any president ever’

Wed 20 May 2026 16.46 CESTLast modified on Wed 20 May 2026 20.01 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/may/20/jimmy-kimmel-trump-irs-settlement

Late-night hosts discussed Donald Trump ’s controversial $1.76bn settlement and the latest on his taxpayer-funded ballroom.

Jimmy Kimmel

On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host said that there was “just so much lying and stealing and grifting and cheating in the news today” and Trump was focusing on the “most important issue that we face as Americans” – his $1bn ballroom.

After the host shared footage of the president’s incoherent presentation of plans, he said: “I’m starting to get the idea Blob the Builder doesn’t know much about construction either.”

Kimmel added, “Can you imagine the Iranians watching that this morning?” as Trump was minutes away from another of his latest purported deadlines.

“If he wasn’t so dumb it might be diabolical – but it isn’t, he’s dumb,” he said.

Trump later backed down and Kimmel noticed that this often takes place on a Tuesday. “I think it’s because he has more free time on the weekends to make threats,” he said.

While various polls have shown that Americans are consistently against the war with Iran, Trump has said that he both acknowledges and rejects this. Kimmel said it was “all you need to know about this man” and it was “about as stupid a sentence as I’ve ever heard in my life”.

He concluded: “Trump has no exit strategy for Iran.”

He then moved on to what he called the “most brazenly corrupt move by any president ever”. In January, Trump sued his own government for $10bn because someone at the IRS leaked tax returns he had been “promising to show us for the last 11 years”.

Kimmel called it the “legal equivalent of sitting on your hand until it goes to sleep so it feels like a stranger is touching you when you masturbate”.

This week saw “both sides which were the same side” come to a settlement which amounted to an apology and a fund worth $1.76bn that Trump can use to pay “anyone for anything” including those were involved in the January 6 riot.

Kimmel jokingly referred to those who stormed the Capitol as “the great patriots”.

This week also saw Donald Trump Jr and his bride-to-be decide against getting married at the White House over fears about the optics. “Somebody marrying Donald Trump Jr is worried about the optics?” Kimmel asked.

Instead they will be married on a small private island in the Caribbean. “His dad used to have a buddy who owned a small private island in the Caribbean,” Kimmel said.

This week we also learned that Trump benefited to the number of about $740m from various trades which were the results of larger decisions he made as president. Kimmel called it “a smash-and-grab” and said: “You just can’t keep track of what they’re taking.”

He also took aim at Elon Musk, who has been attacking Christopher Nolan over the choice to cast Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen of Troy in The Odyssey.

Musk and other rightwingers have claimed Nolan is trying to rewrite history, yet Kimmel reminded them that it’s based on a mythical poem, something that is as fake as “Santa Claus or election fraud”.

Stephen Colbert

In The Late Show’s final week, Stephen Colbert also spoke about Trump’s settlement, which was agreed upon without “any congressional or court approval” and saw him giving himself “a taxpayer-fueled slush fund”.

Colbert also called out the situation as being “him on both sides” and noted that “one group of lucky slushies” was those involved with the January 6 riot.

But if viewers are worried they will get their hands on it, “they won’t because Trump’s gonna steal it all”.

He said that the five-person commission will just be five Marco Rubios.

“Surely this can’t get more corrupt?” he asked before answering that the settlement also precludes any investigation into fraud or misuse of the funds.

“It’s just an all-you-can-fraud buffet,” Colbert said before calling it “an unprecedented level of grift” and joking that Trump “gave himself a get-out-of-jail-free card and a way better one than Jeffrey Epstein got”.

He also called out Trump for posting more “powerful AI slop” including a baffling picture of him pressing a big red button that blows up Earth.

The president called off another attack on Iran this week and Colbert said that “these threats are getting less and less effective the more he keeps dragging them out”.

He also spoke about Trump addressing the press next to the “pile of rubble where the East Wing used to be to talk ballroom”, and noted how hard it was to hear anything because of the construction.

Colbert said that Trump was “just gonna keep finding louder and louder places to answer questions”.