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Elon Musk
Why is Elon Musk so threatened by the casting of The Odyssey?
Arwa Mahdawi
Fri 22 May 2026 14.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 14.01 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/22/elon-musk-the-odyssey-casting

I t was the casting choice that launched a thousand meltdowns. The Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o was confirmed as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, and the usual suspects immediately started squealing that the fall of western civilization was nigh.

Elon Musk, a man in possession of the world’s thinnest skin and fattest bank account, is obviously among the aggrieved. Musk started moaning about The Odyssey in January, when it was rumoured that Nyong’o had the role. Since a 12 May interview with Nolan in Time magazine made this casting official, Musk hasn’t stopped whining; he’s spent roughly a week attacking Nyong’o on X and amplifying other angry bigots. His main arguments appear to be that this is a historically inaccurate rendering of a mythological poem; Nyong’o, who was named People magazine’s “Most Beautiful Woman” in 2014, is not sufficiently beautiful; and the casting of a Black woman in a movie nobody is forcing him to watch is inextricably intertwined with a leftwing plot to undermine western society.

I will not massacre your brain cells by subjecting you to a blow-by-blow account of the world’s richest man’s most inane opinions on The Odyssey. But to give you a little flavour, Musk replied “ true ” to a post on X by conservative commentator Matt Walsh calling Nolan a “coward” for not giving “the most beautiful woman” role to a white woman. “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’” Walsh said.

Musk also replied “true” to a post by a conservative X account called C3 with 323,000 followers, which proclaimed : “The destruction of the Odyssey by Nolan and the Left isn’t just about a movie.” Rather, this anonymous account said: “It’s about western Civilization. The Greeks were its foundation. From Democracy to Art to Philosophy to Culture. The Left wants to destroy western Civilization and everything that helped create it.”

Thanks for the hot take, C3, but kindly get a grip. This is actually just a movie about an imaginary woman featured in a poem written by a dead man. As Jimmy Kimmel joked : “If you really want to get into it, Helen of Troy was half bird. Helen was the daughter of Zeus, who disguised himself as a swan so he could mate with a human woman who then laid an egg and out hatched Helen of Troy … This is made up … So it makes no difference to anyone but crazy angry people what color she was.”

What with all the lawsuits , state trips to China , managing multiple companies and siring scores of kids, you’d think Musk wouldn’t have the time or energy for this nonsense. But, increasingly, it’s all he has time for. The Tesla CEO is obsessed with race; convinced that white people are, to use his own words , “a rapidly dying minority”. And he spends an extraordinary amount of time posting about his fixation on X. A Guardian analysis found that he “posted about how the white race was under threat, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content on 26 out of 31 days in January”.

“If you stripped Elon Musk’s name off of these [posts] and showed them to me, I would think that this was a white supremacist,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian after reviewing a selection of Musk’s utterances.

For reasons that include not wanting to spend hours negotiating with the legal department, I am not going to explicitly call Musk a white supremacist. But I will call him a very sad and bitter man who cannot seem to achieve contentment. Over the years, he appears to have bought himself a new head of hair and reinvented his wardrobe, but his makeover hasn’t fulfilled him. In 2021, Musk wormed his way on to Saturday Night Live, where he made Wario jokes in an attempt to get people to like him. That didn’t appear to bring him peace. Then in 2022, desperate to be loved, he bought Twitter for $44bn and reportedly assembled a team of 80 engineers to tweak the algorithm so more people would see his tweets.

Even that wasn’t enough. After buying an audience, Musk bought an election: he spent more than $290m getting Trump and other Republicans elected in 2024. Since then, he’s had an excellent return on his investment. In October 2024, Musk was worth around $270bn ; less than two years later, he is worth about $800bn and will probably become the world’s first trillionaire. Will that make him happy? I doubt it.

Want to know what Musk is doing on X when he isn’t being deeply weird about Nyong’o? According to a new analysis by the Washington Post, he’s spent more time in 2026 interacting with an anonymous account called “XFreeze” than with any other user. It’s unclear who is behind XFreeze, though it appears to have ties to India, but the account spends a lot of time heaping praise on Musk, which the tech mogul adores .

“Musk loves to be glazed, and this person is the doughnut factory,” Joan Donovan, assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University, told the Post .

God, it’s tragic isn’t it? Musk has all those children he could be hanging out with, and here he is posting about celebrities not being white enough for him, and engaging in an online bromance with an obsequious anonymous account. He may love to be glazed, but clearly nothing is going to fill that gaping hole in his soul.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Sport
Sports quiz of the week: Arsenal, French Open, Ronda Rousey and Aaron Rai
Paul Campbell
Fri 22 May 2026 09.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 10.40 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/may/22/sports-quiz-week-arsenal-french-open-rousey-rai-football-tennis-boxing-golf-rugby-mma

West Coast
Why an immense marine heatwave off the US west coast has alarmed scientists
Eric Holthaus
Fri 22 May 2026 15.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 15.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/22/marine-heatwave-west-coast

An enormous marine heatwave off the US west coast is ringing alarm bells among ocean and atmospheric scientists as new data shows its ecological and environmental effects are intensifying.

The unusual area of warm water has persisted since peaking in size during September 2025 and still stretches thousands of miles from the California coastline – more than halfway across the Pacific – affecting a vast triangle-shaped region of oceanic habitats from Hawaii to British Columbia and southward to Mexico.

As recently as early April, marine scientists had hoped that the heatwave might diminish and the worst of its effects may be avoided. However, new projections released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) show it is now expected to expand and strengthen in the months to come.

Scientists say the effects may already be far reaching. A surge in the marine heatwave would accompany the formation of El Niño in the tropical Pacific – resulting in an atmospheric and oceanic mélange that could influence everything from record-breaking temperatures on land to disrupted marine food chains.

Additional data acquired in recent weeks has left climate scientists gobsmacked and re-examining their assumptions of how the complex interplay between the ocean and the atmosphere could accelerate the effects of human-caused climate crisis.

“I’m out of superlatives,” Kim Wood, a University of Arizona atmospheric scientist, wrote on social media last month. Wood was reacting to data showing ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific had recently surged to a level warmer than typically seen during peak hurricane season .

Risks in a hot summer

Climate scientists said the persistent marine heatwave has contributed to shockingly extreme temperatures downstream across most of the United States. Abnormally warm Pacific waters tend to retain atmospheric heat from the warmer summer months and re-release it during relatively cooler winter months – significantly altering weather patterns.

In March, a remarkable land-based heat wave – what one meteorologist called “one of the most astounding global weather events of the century thus far” – sent late winter temperatures soaring more than 30F above seasonal norms to 88F or warmer in relatively temperate places such as Minnesota, Colorado and Idaho.

In a series of posts on social media , Robert Rohde, lead scientist for the climate data non-profit Berkeley Earth wrote that the March heatwave “would have been impossible without a boost from climate change”.

Rohde said more than one-third of US weather stations – including hundreds of cities from San Francisco to New York City – set new all-time temperature records for March. A few places, such as Phoenix, even recorded temperatures higher than any previous April temperatures – a feat with little precedent in modern record-keeping.

“The only other time such a large fraction of stations simultaneously set new monthly records was during the Dust Bowl,” wrote Rohde, referencing a time when comprehensive weather monitoring was still in its infancy and all-time records were easier to set.

That event capped off the warmest winter on record across the west. As of mid-May, Noaa data shows that what little snow fell had completely melted even at higher elevations across much of Oregon, California and Colorado.

“This year’s peak snowpack will be the new benchmark low for Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico,” according to the latest federal drought status report . “There are no comparable years.”

The low snowpack is worrying water managers across the west as warm and dry conditions have sparked a rapid intensification of drought in recent weeks.

Larry O’Neill, an Oregon State University climatologist, described the marine heatwave as “incredibly long lasting” and said he’s worried that the increased ocean temperatures could bring higher humidity onshore, kicking off dry thunderstorms across California and the Pacific north-west. Given the worsening drought, those thunderstorms may act to spark wildfires rather than bring beneficial rain.

“There’s real concern right now that even if this marine heatwave didn’t persist, we’re heading into a bad wildfire season with poor water supply conditions,” said O’Neill. “Our summer is going to be much warmer than normal.”

Concerns for marine life and ecosystems

Beyond summer heat and drought, scientists also expressed alarm about the heatwave’s effects on vast networks of marine life such as whales, seabirds and seals and the food webs they depend on.

In 2015, a similarly strong and long-lived marine heatwave known as “the Blob” kicked off a surge of environmental and ecological effects up and down the Pacific coast, including in Oregon.

“Back in 2015, we had drought that year and poor ocean conditions,” O’Neill said. “Whatever salmon went out to the ocean and then came back to spawn, they were returning to rivers that were running really low and really warm. We had really big increased pre-spawn mortality and a lot fewer salmon coming back over the following years.”

This time, O’Neill is especially concerned with a similarly devastating impact of the marine heat wave on salmon.

“This is going to be a big hit on our fisheries for a couple of years.”

Elizabeth Phillips, a research scientist with Noaa Fisheries, is preparing for the annual coast-wide offshore ecosystem assessment that will take place between June and September.

“The last six months have been really concerning,” said Phillips. “As a scientist, I’m really curious to know what the ecosystem impacts are going to be.”

Already, concern is growing that species are shifting their behaviors in profound ways. A few weeks ago, scientists tracked the first-ever evidence of a great white shark in British Columbia waters. Subtropical species – from plankton to pelicans to great whites – are shifting their range further north and closer to shore in search of cooler water and more food.

Starving sea birds washing ashore are among the first signs that something’s going wrong with the ocean. During the 2015 Blob event, scientists estimate more than a million seabirds died .

“We often monitor seabird populations to better understand what’s going on in the ocean,” said Don Lyons, a conservation biologist and director of the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute.

California brown pelicans are themselves an early warning species of sea birds, and Lyons said this year many of them left their nesting grounds in Mexico more than two months early. The birds feed on sardines, anchovies and other small fish that may be temporarily moving farther north to find cooler waters – and early evidence is that many abandoned their nests due to lack of food.

“We’ve seen this kind of poor success at other times. When we have an El Niño, that’s often associated with nesting failures of many species of seabirds on the west coast, including brown pelicans,” said Lyons. “This year, it was a little bit different in that the early start [to migration] was striking.”

As the summer progresses, scientists such as O’Neill and Phillips are ready with increased understanding of how intense marine heatwaves might progress and have improved monitoring methods to track them as they develop. The RV Reuben Lasker , the Noaa survey vessel Phillips will embark on, uses advanced sonar to map out the abundance of integral parts of the marine ecosystem, including organisms as small as krill and plankton.

“We saw a significant change in the amount of krill that were out on the west coast during the Blob years, 2014 to 2016,” said Phillips, which had a major effect on animals such as seabirds, mammals and salmon that depend on krill. “If there is another drop in krill this year, then I would anticipate there’s probably going to be a lot of those same impacts to the rest of the food web.”

Phillips said that, unlike other parts of N oaa which have experienced sharp budget cuts, her research activities have not been adversely affected by the Trump administration’s reprioritizations of resources among federal science staff. The consistent funding stream has helped her team prepare for the potential lingering effects of the marine heatwave.

The interplay with El Niño

Meanwhile, as the effects of the current marine heatwave play out, there’s now a greater than two in three chance of either a ‘strong’ or ‘extreme’ El Niño later this year. El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a periodic natural warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that also shifts weather patterns for half the planet.

Emerging research has revealed that the rapid-fire combination of both marine heatwaves and El Niño are a symptom of human-caused climate crisis . In 2015, the Blob also merged with a strong El Niño with catastrophic effects for millions of people.

“One big problem is that these events are happening seemingly more frequently and more intensely,” said Hilary Hayford, a marine ecologist with the Puget Sound Restoration Fund.

“We’re trying to plan for these conservation or restoration actions, and we don’t have the tools to overcome these problems,” said Hayford. “A hope is to have time in between these events for systems to recover. We’re only just now starting to see recovery of sea stars and bull kelp and other species that really suffered cascading effects of the last one.”

Brexit
Electoral reform and reversing Brexit: they’re more connected than you might think
Tom Baldwin
Fri 22 May 2026 12.33 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 12.36 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/22/electoral-reform-reverse-brexit-labour-leadership-eu-debate

N owhere is an anniversary more relished than in newspapers. As we approach the 10-year mark since Britain voted for Brexit, countless column inches would no doubt have been reserved for this purpose anyway. Yet the prospect of a Labour leadership contest, at a time when polls are showing four-fifths of the party’s voters at the last election and an even higher proportion of its members want to reverse that June 2016 referendum decision, is transforming what might have merely been melancholic reflection into a more active debate.

Keir Starmer last week made a belated nod to one of his party’s deepest desires by saying that he, too, wants to put the UK back at “ the heart of Europe ”, even if it was still unclear exactly what he meant. Then Wes Streeting sought to revive faltering ambitions to be the next prime minister with a call for full re-entry into the EU, although he was similarly vague about when that might happen. Meanwhile, Andy Burnham was busy rowing back from a previously expressed hope of rejoining at some undisclosed point in his lifetime, perhaps because he won’t get a shot at Downing Street unless he first wins next month’s byelection in Makerfield , where a majority supported Brexit a decade ago.

Any hesitancy about plunging back into the fires of 2016 is, of course, understandable when the smouldering consequences of Brexit have burnt through five prime ministers – and now a much-anticipated sixth – over the decade since. Yet if Labour’s leaders, both current and wannabe, are serious about addressing the damage done by leaving the EU, they cannot repeat the error made by the Conservatives after the referendum. Too often, they seemed to believe the terms of any deal were primarily a matter for Britain to choose, when in practice the EU turned out to be significantly more effective in getting what it wanted. And it is true that support for rejoining begins to fall in polls when those surveyed are told that would likely mean the UK being forced to replace the pound with the euro or accept unrestricted freedom of movement across borders.

Even so, it may be wrong to assume the intransigent stance taken by EU negotiators, particularly the French, will continue indefinitely or that they will now simply shrug off talk of Britain rejoining. Some suggest that a UK government setting a clear direction for getting back in, possibly by showing a semblance of Ukraine’s enthusiasm for the idea of Europe that has led it to be tentatively offered “ associate membership ”, would deserve a more sympathetic hearing. Roberta Metsola, the president of the European parliament, told the EU-UK Forum last month that Britain is not just another pleading supplicant but a former member that “needs to be treated as such”. Paul Adamson, who chaired that event, told me: “A negotiation to rejoin would have its difficulties but none of us knows what’s possible because no one has really tried.”

The real obstacle to the EU offering much in the way of concessions is not innate hostility towards Britain so much as the absence of any sign we can find lasting consensus and stability on this issue – or anything else. Not only is Downing Street’s front door revolving between elections, Brussels knows there is a genuine risk that Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit , will walk through it after the next one and then rip up any painstakingly negotiated deal.

This is a story not only about the volatility of public opinion but also a structural flaw in our democracy. What was always a narrow majority for leaving the EU in 2016 disappeared years ago through a combination of older people dying, younger pro-European ones reaching voting age, and still more changing their minds. According to a December 2025 estimate , if the referendum were held again then, leave would have been defeated by a margin of 8m votes. The pollster Luke Tryl, from More in Common, says his modelling suggests (and Burnham should perhaps take note) that even northern working-class seats such as Makerfield would now back remain.

Instead the bigger difficulty is about how Britain determines who has power at Westminster. Although first-past-the-post elections have long since been regarded as a bit unfair, it used to be argued they at least provided for strong government and kept extremists out of parliament. The splintering of the old Labour-Tory duopoly into five or even six different parties bunched quite close in overall support, however, means this same system is now a force for instability that could allow Farage to become prime minister with barely a quarter-share of the national vote.

The spread of votes in Britain now resembles that of European multiparty democracies, but in contrast to the proportional representation used by just about every EU member state, we maintain an eccentric and antediluvian system that is no longer fit for any sort of purpose except bad ones.

This probably explains why changing it is now viewed less favourably by Reform party supporters while remaining popular among the public as a whole, as well as Labour’s voters and the party’s membership . Electoral reform has been consistently backed by Burnham, too, even though he knows this would probably mean Labour would never again secure the kind of victory Starmer’s party won just two years ago.

Maybe the “ less point-scoring, more problem-solving ” politics that Greater Manchester’s mayor hopes to nurture would help him avoid the kind of mistakes made in the run-up to the referendum nearly a decade ago. That was when David Cameron allowed policy on the EU to be driven by the internal dynamics of the Tory party and his desire to secure a parliamentary majority at any cost. Indeed, electoral reform might yet enable the creation of a viable pro-business party on the centre-right that would not be addicted to national economic self-harm, as the Conservatives have been ever since Brexit. And, in turn, that might persuade the EU that Britain can find a stable consensus to reverse it.

There are a lot of “maybes” or “mights” to this debate. But if Britain wants to get back into Europe before another 10 years have passed, it is not only our leaders who must become more European in their approach; the way we choose them will need to be more European, too.

Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer, The Biography

Stonehenge
English Heritage unveils recreation of 4,500-year-old Neolithic hall near Stonehenge
Jamie Grierson
Fri 22 May 2026 09.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 11.58 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/22/english-heritage-neolithic-kusuma-hall-stonehenge

It may have been a place for ceremony or a barn for pack animals. It could have been a place for weary labourers to rest their heads. Or perhaps there was no building at all.

English Heritage has unveiled a 7-metre-high reconstruction of what a 4,500-year-old Neolithic hall may have looked like at Stonehenge, offering visitors a glimpse into the lives of the prehistoric builders who raised the world’s most famous stone circle.

The £1m project is in its final stages of construction near the Stonehenge visitor centre on Salisbury Plain. Built entirely by hand over nine months by a team of more than 100 volunteers, the Kusuma Neolithic Hall will open to the public this summer before transforming into an immersive, historical learning space for schools.

The structure is based on the archaeological footprint of an anomaly known as Durrington 68, a unique “square in the circle” building discovered two miles away near Woodhenge, another Neolithic site. First excavated in 1928 by Maud Cunnington, and re-examined in 2007 by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, the original site features a horseshoe-shaped ring of post holes surrounding four massive internal roof support pillars.

Because centuries of plowing destroyed the original floor and hearths, its true purpose remains a mystery. However, discoveries of animal bones and grooved ware pottery nearby point towards winter feasting, ritual gatherings or even communal storage.

Luke Winter, an experimental archaeologist, who analysed European Neolithic carpentry and prehistoric pollen data to design the hall, explained the construction’s rigorous scientific backing.

“Everything in that building was growing in this landscape 5,000 years ago,” he said. “We’ve been using replica stone tools to create every aspect of this building … we’ve counted literally every blow every axe has made.”

Winter said while he was initially sceptical about whether the archaeological footprint represented an actual roofed building, the construction process changed his mind. “I was 50/50 it might have been a structure. As we’re nearing completion … I’m now 75% sure it was a structure with a roof.”

Like the nearby stone circle, the building perfectly aligns with the winter solstice. “When we got the frame in on the solstice morning, I was here, and I stood there, my shadow cast on the middle post at the back,” Winter said.

The project forms the first phase of an educational expansion by English Heritage. Alongside the hall, a new learning centre housing the Clore Discovery Lab and Weston Learning Studio is scheduled to open by the end of 2026.

Iona Keen, English Heritage’s head of learning and interpretation, said the organisation’s goal was to double its educational capacity to nearly 100,000 students annually over the next five years. Keen said the site and its new resources would be completely free to any educational or youth group.

“The Neolithic period is firmly on the national curriculum,” Keen said, adding that the interactive hall would allow children to “step back in time” by gathering around an open fire to make prehistoric cheese and pinch pots. “You learn by doing, and you understand by having a go and trying to work it out yourself.”

The project aims to understand the wider Stonehenge landscape. Stonehenge’s curator, Win Scutt, said Stonehenge and the barrows and dwellings surrounding the Neolithic monument were driven by a “society that wanted connection”.

Scutt said: “This whole thing is about social society, not science,” with the camaraderie and “feeling of belonging” generating the motivation to build. Rather than being “obsessed with individualism” like modern society, these groups used massive cooperative projects as a medium for collective representation, he said.

He said the monuments and other structures would have been a “pure expression of the society”, revealing the instincts of the Neolithic peoples: “Now we’re all together, let’s create something that represents us.”

For Sarah Davis and James Humphrey, two volunteers, the project was a transformative experience. Reflecting on the monumental human effort required by the original builders, Davis said: “It’s just amazing to think of the people who actually built the original structure.”

Humphrey said: “It really brings history to life when you’re actually doing it yourself.”

China
Chinese authorities destroy villager’s ramshackle 10-storey Studio Ghibli-esque home
Alastair McCready
Fri 22 May 2026 05.23 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 10.19 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/china-officials-destroy-ramshackle-10-storey-studio-ghibli-esque-home

A ramshackle 10-storey home that had become an offbeat tourist attraction in south-western China has been torn down, ending a years-long battle between the structure’s owner and local authorities.

Chen Tianming said local authorities took just hours to return the stone bungalow – which had been transformed into a pyramid-shaped structure of plywood rooms stacked upon one another – back down to its original single storey.

“I don’t feel regret, because regret is useless,” Chen told the AFP news agency. “I also don’t blame myself for failing to protect it – it’s just that the force driving its destruction was simply too powerful.”

The 43-year-old had spent about 200,000 yuan ($29,000) over eight years to convert his family home into an unlikely tourist attraction in the village of Xingyi in Guizhou province.

Visiting tourists drew comparisons between Chen’s home and the intricately detailed, whimsical worlds created by Japanese animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki.

Authorities in Guizhou province have long threatened to remove the multi-storey structure that was held together by bamboo scaffolding, saying it lacked the necessary building permits and was a safety hazard.

Chen’s home village of Xingyi was mostly demolished in 2018, as authorities planned to build a tourist resort in the region known for its otherworldly mountain landscapes. Chen’s family refused to leave, and as the resort’s construction faltered he began building his home higher and higher in defiance of demolition threats by authorities.

In August 2024, authorities labelled Chen’s home an illegal construction and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow. On 18 May, Xingyi officials issued a final notice ordering Chen’s family to leave by 9am on Wednesday.

After the deadline local law enforcement and public security bureau officials escorted Chen and his parents away from his home and confiscated his phone, holding him in custody as his home was demolished.

Chen, who filmed the aftermath showing piles of building materials scattered around where the towering structure once stood, told AFP that he is now seeking legal help to have the forced demolition designated illegal.

“Then I will have a chance to restore it,” he said.

Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li

Food
Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for hazelnut banoffee cake
Benjamina Ebuehi
Fri 22 May 2026 07.00 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/may/22/hazelnut-banoffee-cake-recipe-benjamina-ebuehi

I f I’m baking for a crowd over the bank holiday weekend, choosing something fun and a bit over the top seems the only way to go. Enter the hazelnut banoffee cake. It’s everything you love in the classic dessert: banana, toffee sauce, fluffy whipped cream and shaved chocolate, but with added nuttiness and overall less sickly sweet.

Hazelnut banoffee cake

Prep 10 min Cook 1 hr Serves 12-16

For the cake 100g whole blanched hazelnuts 180g dark brown sugar 3 large eggs 200g very ripe bananas (about 2 medium bananas), peeled and mashed 150g unsalted butter , melted 145g plain flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda ¼ tsp salt

For the toffee sauce 75g dark brown sugar 30g unsalted butter 100ml double cream 1 big pinch flaky sea salt

For the topping 300ml double cream 100g soured cream 1 tbsp icing sugar ½ tsp vanilla bean paste 1 ripe banana , peeled and sliced 25g dark chocolate , shaved

Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4. Put the hazelnuts in a small baking tray and roast for 10-12 minutes, until fragrant and lightly browned. Remove, leave to cool, then chop 15g nuts and set aside for the topping. Put the remaining hazelnuts in a food processor and pulse until very fine.

Grease and line a 23cm x 33cm tin, leaving enough overhang to help you pull out the cake later. Put the sugar and eggs in a bowl and whip on medium-high for one to two minutes, until the mix looks lighter and fluffier (we’re not taking it to ribbon stage). Fold in the mashed banana followed by the melted butter, then gently stir in the ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt to combine.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Meanwhile, make the toffee sauce. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan, heat gently until everything has melted, then bring to a boil and cook for one minute only. Spoon half the sauce on top of the warm cake, spread it out carefully, then leave to cool completely.

Once cooled, put the cream, soured cream, icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whip to soft peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the cooled cake, then drizzle the remaining toffee sauce all over the top. Decorate with the sliced banana, the reserved chopped hazelnuts and the chocolate shavings, then slice and serve.

UK news
Police appeal for information about alleged sexual misconduct in Andrew investigation
Vikram Dodd
Fri 22 May 2026 07.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 09.20 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/22/police-appeal-witnesses-andrew-mountbatten-windsor-investigation

Police investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor want witnesses to contact them if they believe they have information about alleged sexual misconduct, corruption, fraud or the sharing of confidential information involving the king’s brother.

In a sign of the potential expansion of their “unprecedented investigation”, Thames Valley police vowed to rigorously investigate claims against the former Prince Andrew.

Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, was arrested and questioned under criminal caution in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, related to his role as a British trade envoy.

He is alleged to have passed information to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to claims arising from the documents released by the US Department of Justice. The former prince denies all wrongdoing.

Assistant chief constable Oliver Wright said Thames Valley police (TVP) were already working through a “significant amount” of information from a range of witnesses.

But the force is concerned that people who may have information about criminal offences wrongly think detectives are interested in only one narrow aspect, namely the alleged passing of confidential information.

Stoking their concerns about other potential allegations are a series of claims about the former prince’s conduct already made publicly, such as in the media. Police have not yet been contacted by witnesses they believe may be out there.

Police stress that misconduct in public office (MIPO) covers a range of offences, including sexual misconduct, wilful neglect of duty, perverting the course of justice, and dishonest or fraudulent conduct, among many others.

Wright said: “Misconduct in public office is a crime that can take different forms, making this a complex investigation.

“Our team of very experienced detectives are working meticulously through a significant amount of information that has come in from the public and other sources. We are committed to conducting a thorough investigation into all reasonable lines of inquiry, wherever they may lead.

“We encourage anyone with information to get in touch with us through the normal non-urgent contact channels, such as the Thames Valley police online portal .”

It is understood information has already or will be obtained from the royal household and government departments, such as those involved in the former prince’s appointment as a trade envoy. Detectives are expected to seek documents and witnesses about what was expected from the trade envoy role in terms of behaviour and ethics.

TVP are also expected to seek information from the Metropolitan police, which assessed claims against the king’s brother twice and declined to investigate. The Met provided his armed bodyguards while he was officially a working royal, a status he lost amid the outrage over his friendship with Epstein.

The TVP investigation includes detectives with expertise in sexual offences. The force is still assessing a claim from a woman that she was taken to an address in Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes. It is not a full criminal investigation yet. The woman lives in the US and detectives have contacted her through her lawyer.

Wright said: “We have engaged with the woman’s legal representative to confirm that, should she wish to report this to police, it will be taken seriously and handled with care, sensitivity and respect for her privacy and her right for anonymity.

“We recognise how difficult it can be to speak about experiences of this nature, and any contact with police will be led by her wishes, when and if she feels ready and able to do so.”

Wright said police would listen and investigate “when she feels ready and able … to come forward and talk to us”.

The investigation is expected to be long, with no criminal trial until 2027 if it were to produce evidence to support criminal charges.

Three British forces are conducting full criminal investigations triggered by other revelations in the Epstein files, with several others assessing claims about flights linked to the disgraced financier entering the UK.

Police investigating the former Prince Andrew believe obtaining the original Epstein documents is “hugely important”. Currently they and other UK forces have only printouts from the DoJ website. US authorities have declined to hand the original documents over and told British police to submit a formal international legal request for assistance, which could take months, if it is agreed to at all.

As well as the TVP investigation into Mounbatten-Windsor, the Met is investigating Peter Mandelson for misconduct in public office, and Surrey police this week announced they were investigating claims of historic child sexual abuse arising from the Epstein files.

After Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrests, police conducted a short search of his Norfolk home and a week-long search on the Windsor estate where he lived for decades. Materials seized are still being examined.

One key aspect for police is obtaining evidence proving that the former prince’s role as a trade envoy is covered by MIPO rules.

Police have held early discussions with lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service, which authorises criminal charges in England and Wales.

TVP have not officially named Mountbatten-Windsor as the man they arrested in February.

Military
Mind the drone gap: war games begin inside secret Nato bunker in London tube station
Dan Sabbagh
Fri 22 May 2026 14.24 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 14.57 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/22/drone-shortage-london-underground-nato-british-military

Deep in Charing Cross underground station, in the disused terminus of the Jubilee line, a secret Nato command bunker has this week been discreetly at work. Dozens of mostly British soldiers were engaged in a war game defending Estonia from a Russian invasion in 2030, unbeknownst to commuters and tourists bustling above.

The secret chambers are behind two sets of normally locked, metal double doors. A red glow at the bottom of the escalator beyond is the first sign of troops below; next are mocked up newspaper covers pasted over ageing adverts. A British Nato force has deployed to Estonia they blare, in response to a Russian massing of troops on the border.

“The scenario you are about to see is very deliberately set in 2030 because that is where we see the threat from Russia to be at its most acute,” says Lt Gen Mike Elviss, commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, in a video briefing. If the war ends in Ukraine it is the point at which, military analysts estimate, a remilitarised Russia could be ready to attack Europe again.

The aim, ostensibly, is to show Moscow that for all Donald Trump’s bluster, Nato is ready, operationally at least, to defend its most exposed members on the Baltic. But a more important audience is a mile or so down the road in Westminster, where the Ministry of Defence has been locked in a funding battle with the Treasury for months.

Remodelling the British army, it is said, will cost billions in investment, particularly on drones. It is estimated that it will cost £50m a year to get the arms industry building the required volumes of simple one-way attack drones, so familiar in Ukraine , and £500m a year to develop more sophisticated models, such as armed driverless vehicles .

If there was a full-scale war in eastern Europe tomorrow, it is understood the British military would run out of drones in less than a week, able only to launch a few hundred a day. On this thinking, the British army is between 80 and 90% short of the drones it thinks it needs – for reconnaissance, air defence or attack.

The exercise, Arrcade Strike, is meant to show “the strategic reserve corps that you could have by 2030,” said Elviss. Three junior defence ministers are among those who visited the secret bunker on Wednesday, though the secretary of state John Healey, was tied up on official business and has been visiting Estonia, where the bulk of the UK 4th brigade is now deployed, as part of a related exercise.

Chairs, computers and screens crowd the underground hall, spilling on to a platform: a temporary Ukraine-style bunker, ready for a simulated war influenced not just by the war in Ukraine but also the recent US attack on Iran. In theory, the command centre can house 500 people, transmitting 10 terabytes of data a day, equivalent to three months of Netflix.

What follows is carefully choreographed. To explain the mission, journalists attending are invited to put on virtual reality headsets, supplied by US technology company Anduril (US vice-president JD Vance is an investor ), which display a 3D model of the battle plan. In this glossy, computerised vision of war, the first waves of drones are lost but the Russian positions quickly located and eliminated.

The operation is spelt out explicitly: a Nato force would use thousands of drones or more to lead a counterattack against Russian forces, revealing and knocking out enemy air defence, other positions and headquarters with the help of fighter jets and artillery all the way to St Petersburg from the border. It is not meant to be subtle; the rehearsals are conducted “because the adversary is watching,” Elviss said.

One intention is to visualise the British army’s project Asgard, a digital communication system that uses artificial intelligence (Hivemind, from US firm Shield AI is referenced) on the battlefield, linking any surveillance node to any weapon. The key purpose of artificial intelligence, is to speed up decision-making, including target acquisition, from 72 hours to two hours, following the lead of the Israeli and US militaries .

A virtual target is identified, although it is not shown how. The exercise includes a new deep strike unit able to hit targets 90 miles away with M270 artillery; meaning it could bomb Leicester if the rocket launcher was in Charing Cross.

Three bombing options are offered from a drop down menu, chosen with the help of artificial intelligence for the attack, based on weapons available. An icon is selected, a new screen loads, and towards the bottom, a red flashing fire button appears.

It falls to Nato’s military chief, Gen Alexus Grynkewich, an American, to applaud the British efforts “to transform into an AI-fuelled command post,” in a video message. If the artificial intelligence has made a mistake during Arrcade Strike, it is not something anybody appears aware of, though in any event this is a demonstration.

This is war in 2026 as well as 2030: a high-speed, hi-tech means of dealing death from a distance from the relative safety of deep underground. Meanwhile, over at the Ministry of Defence, the early hints are that next month, several billion more will be found to increase the defence budget to close an £18bn funding gap – and begin paying for the British army of the near future.

Donald Trump
Trump says he will ‘try and make’ son’s wedding, but timing is ‘not good’ for him
David Smith
Thu 21 May 2026 22.22 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 00.07 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/21/trump-son-wedding-invite

Get Me to the Church on Time, sang Alfred Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady. But for Donald Trump , attending a wedding is not simple – even when it’s that of his son.

On Thursday, the US president admitted that he might skip Donald Trump Jr ’s nuptials, reportedly taking place in the Bahamas over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small little private affair, and I’m going to try and make it,” Trump, sounding decidedly unenthusiastic, told a gathering of reporters in the Oval Office.

His excuse? A full in-tray, notably his war of choice in Iran. “I’m in the midst – I said: ‘You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.’”

The conflagration in the Middle East has not prevented Trump from attending an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event in Miami and a PGA tour championship at his golf club in Doral, Florida, nor stopped him from playing several rounds of golf himself.

Don Jr, 48, is the president’s eldest child. His first wedding , to fashion model Vanessa Haydon in 2005, was held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and was officiated by Trump’s sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry. The marriage produced five children.

Don Jr got engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2020, but ended the relationship in 2024; Guilfoyle is now the US ambassador to Greece. Don Jr’s latest fiancee is Bettina Anderson , a 39-year-old socialite and model from a prominent banking family in Palm Beach.

They made their debut public appearance as a couple at Trump’s inauguration in January last year. But it does not appear they were tempted to follow the example of Tricia Nixon, daughter of Richard Nixon, who married in the White House Rose Garden in 1971.

As for Trump, he has been losing his political touch in recent weeks. Opinion polls show his approval rating at an all-time low. Asked recently if the economic impact of the Iran war was motivating him to reach a deal, he proclaimed : “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”

But even the president seems to understand that partying the night away in the Bahamas might be a bad look when millions of Americans are feeling the pain of rising gas prices and food costs.

“That’s one I can’t win on,” Trump mused. “If I do attend, I get killed. If I don’t attend, I get killed – by the fake news, of course, I’m talking about. No, but he’s got a very – a person who I’ve known for a long time, and hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.”

Not that anyone is keeping score, but Trump was very present at his daughter Ivanka’s wedding to Jared Kushner at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2009. “Ivanka and Jared’s wedding was spectacular, and they make a beautiful couple,” he wrote on what was then Twitter. “I’m a very proud father.”