High streets across the UK are struggling with an epidemic of stealing. What’s behind this sudden crime wave and can anything be done to stop it?

A man leaves a north London branch of Aldi carrying two bags of groceries that he did not pay for. He hadn’t planned to steal, but after becoming exasperated with the slowness of staff attending to the various glitches and alarms of the self-checkout system, and assuming it would go unnoticed, decides to just walk out the door.

He crosses the road and heads towards home. It’s a busy part of town and this kind of thing happens all the time. He doubts anyone in the store even noticed. But a voice calls after him, a security guard has given chase. The man, slightly panicked, doubles down and quickens his pace, pretending not to hear, but the guard keeps shouting, pleading for him to stop. In an attempt to lose his pursuer, the man ducks into a newsagent. The security guard enters, finds the man pretending to browse the fountain pens, and challenges him. “Sir, you didn’t pay for that shopping.”

New ‘liquid biopsy’ will act as an early warning sign to anticipate risk of tumours returning

A new blood test can predict the risk of breast cancer returning three years before any tumours show up on scans in an “incredibly exciting” breakthrough that could help more women beat the disease for good.

More than 2 million women are diagnosed every year with breast cancer, the most prevalent type of the disease. Although treatment has improved in recent decades, the cancer often returns, and if it does, it is usually at a more advanced stage.

As the number of abuse victims in England and Wales taking their own lives rises, pressure is mounting on coroners to acknowledge the role violence, control and coercion can play

Roisin, the only child of Dr Tony Bennett and Margaret Hunter, went to her bedroom in Darlington on 7 March 2022 and attempted to take her own life. She died in hospital nine days later, at the age of 19.

Roisin, known as “Roi”, excelled at sports; she was popular and had received high marks as one of the youngest students to study for ­dispensing optician exams. She had no record of self-harming, ­mental illness or attempted suicide. Her ambition was to go to university and qualify as an optician. Roisin had a warm, supportive family. So what prompted her to take her own life?

Lack of care and support leaves patients stranded on units when they are clinically ready to be discharged

The number of patients stuck in NHS mental health units in England despite being clinically ready to leave has reached its highest level in at least eight years.

“Delayed discharges” of patients from hospitals in NHS mental health trusts reached 49,677 days in March, according to an analysis – a higher figure than in any month since at least January 2016, when NHS Digital started publishing the data.

The use of the drugs in treating low mood has sparked debate, not least about the necessity of a hallucinogenic experience. But a new discovery may provide an answer

Robitussin has been a staple of American pharmacies since the late 1940s – but since the 1960s, people have swigged bottles of the cough medicine recreationally because, at a high enough dose, its active ingredient, dextromethorphan, can cause hallucinations (so-called “robotripping”). Now, that ingredient, common to many cough medications, has a potential new use – as an antidepressant.

In recent years, studies have found that conventional antidepressants are only marginally more effective than biologically inactive placebos. Meanwhile, big pharmaceutical companies conduct very little research into mental health drugs. So researchers and sufferers have instead placed their hopes in psychedelic drugs usually considered hallucinatory, such as psilocybin or LSD. Yet the evidence of their effectiveness as an antidepressant comes from small trials, one of the largest involving just 233 people – and no national government medicine regulator has formally approved them for this use. Against this backdrop, a legitimate drug company has quietly moved dextromethorphan beyond robotripping into a, legally approved depression treatment – but with an important twist.

Actor, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, says she rejected path of ‘changing name and getting nose job’

The Stranger Things star Maya Hawke has said she is “comfortable with not deserving” the kind of life she has.

The American actor and singer, the daughter of Hollywood actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, said her relationship with them was “positive”, which “supersedes anything anyone can say about it”.

There is an intense emotional strain involved with parenting a neurodivergent child with mental health issues. But we will do whatever it takes to understand her brain

“There’s something wrong with me!” my seven-year-old daughter sobbed, back in 2018. “Honestly, there isn’t,” I said, giving her a hug. “You’re just a bit sensitive, a bit anxious.” I wanted to be the reassuring parent, the mum who makes everything all right. But I was having the opposite effect on her: I was underplaying her distress, and it scared her, and shook her faith in me. How could she get any help if I didn’t accept there was a problem?

At the time her dad and I didn’t know our daughter was autistic. She was certainly not the easiest to manage, but she was also funny, bright, imaginative and popular at school. And although we were aware that she had intrusive thoughts, separation and sensory issues, a nasty phobia and difficulty controlling her emotions, her teachers, our GP, relatives and friends told us not to worry too much. “She’s a character! She’ll be fine.”

No life-threatening injuries reported, but news follows spate of drug-related deaths at privately-run HMP Parc

Three prisoners have been taken to hospital and an air ambulance was dispatched after disorder at a privately-run prison where 10 inmates have died in the past three months.

Security firm G4S, which runs HMP Parc in Bridgend, Wales, said there were two short-lived incidents at the prison on Friday, one of which involved 20 prisoners. The second incident, which was unrelated, involved an altercation between three prisoners, who required hospital treatment.

Jess’s fling six years ago has led to her and husband, Rob, sleeping in separate rooms – and they are struggling to reconnect

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

He decided to stay with me, but he has effectively withdrawn his affection. Our sex life is stagnant, boring and occasional

By harnessing brain power and speeding up ability to process information, players are being helped to fulfil their potential

Four years ago, Arsène Wenger was asked what he thought would be the next game-changer in football. His answer was neuroscience. “Why? Because we are at the end of the improvement of physical speed,” Wenger said. “In the last 10 years, the power and speed of individual players has improved, but now you have sprinters everywhere. The next step will be to improve the speed of our brains.”

Neuroscience is the study of the human nervous system, particularly the brain, and all the multitudinous connections and interactions that go on within it. It is a branch of science that, in the popular imagination, summons up images of electrodes and scanners and illuminated sections of the cerebellum. In football, it has also become a term to refer to a better understanding of the mental skills and qualities necessary to succeed in the game.

Student Henry Hassell, 16, confronts PM over policy which Labour says is ‘unfunded and desperate’

• UK politics live – latest updates

Rishi Sunak was confronted by a student who asked him why he “hates young people so much”.

Henry Hassell, a 16-year-old singer-songwriter, who lives in west Devon, posed the question on Wednesday while the prime minister was on a campaign visit to a local pub.

Growing number are opting for private maternity services as inquiry finds poor childbirth care is common

People are paying thousands of pounds to hire private midwives amid frustration at the poor service many patients face in the NHS, with women left feeling fobbed off and ignored.

Growing numbers are paying up to £8,000 for maternity services, adding to a surge in people going private as the NHS struggles to provide swift and safe care.

Last month MPs found that women in labour had been mocked, ignored and left with permanent damage by NHS midwives and doctors. The UK’s first inquiry into birth trauma found poor childbirth care was so common, and its consequences so damaging, that ministers and NHS bosses needed to push through significant changes.

After a troubling report on NHS care, the number of pregnant women seeking more control over their birth plans is growing

A growing number of patients are paying up to £8,000 to hire private midwives amid frustration at the poor service many face in the NHS. The UK’s only private maternity hospital, the Portland, has reported treating more women. It comes after a report from MPs this month found women in labour have been mocked, ignored and left with permanent damage by midwives and doctors.

Here, three women tell their story.

Growing awareness about ADHD and autism is reshaping thinking in science, society and medicine. Scientists explain what’s behind the rise – and the best ways to improve neurodivergent lives

It was in the mid 90s that neurodiversity as a formal concept and a rights movement began to emerge. Aided by the internet, autistic people and those with other conditions were able to connect and began sharing their experiences: what they had in common, how their lives differed. A recurring theme was how many felt marginalised, pushed out of a society that embraced only typical ways of being in the world. The phrase “neurological diversity” cropped up in their discussions, which along with “neurodiversity” appeared in magazine articles later that decade.

Neurodiversity has clear parallels with biodiversity. It champions difference and the validity of individuals. It holds that a vaguely defined majority can be described as neurotypical, with brains that operate in a broadly similar way. Others, meanwhile, are neurodivergent, with brains that are built and work somewhat differently.

Exclusive: Co-author of analysis for WHO calls on government to control the food industry rather than being subservient to it

The sugar tax has been so successful in improving people’s diets that it should be extended to cakes, biscuits and chocolate, health experts say.

The World Health Organization wants the next UK government to expand coverage of the levy to help tackle tooth decay, obesity, diabetes and other illnesses.

DNA test, which takes seconds to collect, can detect men at high risk and spare others unnecessary treatment

Scientists have developed a spit test that could “turn the tide” on prostate cancer worldwide by spotting the disease earlier, detecting where men are at high risk and sparing others unnecessary treatment.

The number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer worldwide is projected to double to 2.9 million a year by 2040, with annual deaths predicted to rise by 85%. It is already the most common form of male cancer in more than 100 countries.

Madeleine Hewitt says it’s time people who support the movement recognised that nothing in nature exists independently. Greg Blonder notes that many of the problems we need to solve are the result of the growing population itself

Pronatalists like the Collinses, interviewed for your article (America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’, 25 May), emphasise their authority on the “data”, but their cherrypicked results neglect to look at the full picture that humanity’s outsized impact is degrading the natural resources upon which we all depend.

The Global Footprint Network says we are in ecological overshoot, with humanity using the resources of 1.7 Earths. The UN has made clear that our unsustainable demand for resources is driving the triple planetary crisis: climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasing levels of pollution and waste. And despite the rhetoric of Silicon Valley, technology is not our saviour; it is found to mitigate global extraction by only 5%.

Media groups claimed act criminalised investigative journalism and meant no one could say Jimmy Savile was a paedophile

A Northern Ireland law banning the naming of suspected sex offenders until they are charged has been revoked in a court judgment hailed as a victory for press freedom.

The law, which came into effect last year, granted anonymity for life and 25 years after death to anyone suspected of sexual offences who had not been charged.

Marina Gibson wants women to be accepted to 140-year-old Flyfishers’ Club, of which the king is patron

After she remarked that it was about time that Britain’s leading flyfishing club admitted women, Marina Gibson received a rush of helpful suggestions from male anglers who felt protective of the club’s heritage.

Gibson could set up her own flyfishing organisation for women, one man suggested. Another pointed out that she could join the Women’s Institute if she really wanted to be part of a club, or visit the Flyfishers’ Club in the evening (but not at lunchtime) if she was lucky enough to be invited in by one of the 600 men who are members. Others emailed asking her to explain why she wanted to join in the first place.

With the UK judicial system cut to breaking point, conservative religious forces are moving into a space vacated by the state

• Pragna Patel is a founding member of Southall Black Sisters and Project Resist, an advocacy group for minority women

On 1 June 2024, the world’s first Sikh court will open in London. This demands our urgent attention. For many years, I – as the co-director of Project Resist, and the former director of Southall Black Sisters – along with groups such as One Law for All have campaigned against the growth of religious courts because we believe they are tied to a wave of religious fundamentalism targeting the rights and freedoms of women.

In 2015, we organised against the establishment of sharia councils and the Muslim arbitration tribunal, which followed the model of Jewish Beth Din courts, because of the threat they posed to our secular legal system. Our concern was that other minority religions would insist their own legal rules and orders be similarly accommodated by the state. It has not taken long for our fear to become a reality.

Pragna Patel is a founding member of Southall Black Sisters and Project Resist, an advocacy and campaigning group for black and minority women

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Promoting his book at Hay festival, comedian says his mother and grandparents’ flight from Nazi Germany affected later generations

David Baddiel has said he makes comedy to process the intergenerational trauma passed on through the experiences of his mother and grandparents of fleeing the Holocaust.

Baddiel’s mother was born in Nazi Germany and arrived in the UK as a baby in 1939 after her father was persecuted during the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews.

More than half of patients with advanced forms of disease who took lorlatinib were still alive after five years with no progression

Doctors are hailing “off the chart” trial results that show a new drug stopped lung cancer advancing for longer than any other treatment in medical history.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

An innovative programme in the Colombian capital is giving a new kind of support and confidence to caregivers, most of them women

Adela Rubiano Hurtado does not feel there was a point when she made the decision to care for her granddaughter. It was just that when Rubiano’s daughter became pregnant at 15, and could not care for the baby, there was no one else.

“I never considered it a job or a career,” the 67-year-old says from an armchair in her house overlooking the urban sprawl creeping up the mountains of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. “Who else was going to do it?”

The NHS in England is recruiting for the first large-scale trial of its kind, with hopes high that the personalised jabs could be a gamechanger

• NHS patients in England to be offered trials for world-first cancer vaccine

Cancer vaccines are a form of immunotherapy. Unlike vaccines that protect from an infection, such as the Covid-19 jab, cancer vaccines treat people who already have the disease. They are designed to help the patient’s immune system recognise and then kill cancer cells – and prevent them from coming back.

Jab personalised for individual’s tumours hailed as ‘gamechanger’ amid high hopes of stopping disease returning

• What are cancer vaccines and could they be a cure?

Thousands of patients in England are to be fast-tracked into groundbreaking trials of personalised cancer vaccines in a revolutionary world-first NHS “matchmaking” scheme to save lives.

The gamechanging jabs, which aim to provide a permanent cure, are custom-built for each patient in just a few weeks. They are tailored to the individual’s tumours and work by telling their body to hunt and kill any cancer cells and prevent the disease from coming back.

Farm worker who had contact with sick cows tests positive for H5N1, making it the second case detected in Michigan

A third person has now tested positive for H5N1 in the US, the second case to be detected in Michigan, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Thursday.

A farm worker who had contact with sick cows tested positive for the virus. This new case does not seem to indicate human-to-human transmission of the highly pathogenic avian flu, as it was detected on a different farm from the previous Michigan case, officials said.

Did a committed omnivore and a committed vegan chew things over in a friendly manner? And what happened when they moved on to bullying on social media?

Darcey, 50, Inverness

Occupation Freelance careers consultant

When my son, who is on the austim spectrum, was struggling, this classic game opened up his world. It continues to help lonely, isolated people find ways to connect and belong

A few days ago, I was tidying my home office – which more closely resembles a video game arcade recently hit by a tornado – when I found a long-lost piece of technology in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. It was an old Xbox 360, the Elite model – black, heavy, ungainly, impossibly retro. Out of curiosity, I hauled it out, found a controller and power cable and switched it on. I knew immediately what I wanted to look for, but I was also apprehensive: I didn’t know how I’d feel if Minecraft was still there – or worse, if it wasn’t. Minecraft, you see, is more than just a game for me. I thought about just putting the console back where I found it. But as this month sees the 15th anniversary of the game’s original release, I felt I had to go on.

In 2012, Microsoft held a big Xbox Games Showcase event at a cavernous venue in San Francisco. The company was showing all the biggest titles of the era – Forza, Gears of War, Halo – but in one quiet corner sat a couple of demo units showing off the as yet unreleased Xbox version of Minecraft. I already knew about the game, of course – designed by Swedish studio Mojang, it was an open-world creative adventure, allowing players to explore vast, procedurally generated worlds, collect resources and build whatever they wanted. It was already attracting millions of players on PC. But I had never really given it much time; so I sat down to have a quick go … and ended up staying for an hour. There was something in it that was holding me there, despite all the other games on offer. That something was Zac.

Platja d’Aro announces fines up to €1,500 for appearing in public ‘with clothing representing human genitals’

A popular resort town on Spain’s Costa Brava has banned inflatable penis costumes and sex dolls from stag and hen night celebrations, with fines of up to €1,500 (£1,276).

Platja d’Aro, whose population of 12,500 can host as many as 300,000 visitors on a summer weekend, is a favourite destination for bachelor and bachelorette nights. Numerous websites offer packages that include accommodation, cruises and male or female strippers.

The anti-sickness medicine domperidone is increasingly being prescribed or bought illegally to aid lactation. Yet, as I discovered too late, side-effects can include anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts

It is 11 days since I gave birth to my first baby. My breast milk still hasn’t “come in” properly and no one can tell me why. Midwives come and go, looking at me sympathetically and telling me to feed on demand, pump whenever I can and top up with formula milk. Still, I have no idea how I am going to exclusively breastfeed my child, which is what all the advice recommends.

Sleepless, anxious and desperate, I do what many others with the privilege of disposable income do in this situation and pay for a private consultant. I find a local International Board certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) online and we meet. She diagnoses my son with tongue-tie, which she treats by snipping the skin connecting his tongue to the bottom of his mouth. She also suggests that I start taking a drug I have never heard of, domperidone, to help me produce more milk.

The viral disease kills 5,000 people a year in west Africa, and has been described as an epidemic threat to global health

Clinical trials for the first new treatment for Lassa fever in almost 40 years are planned to be held in Nigeria this year.

The neglected tropical disease kills about 5,000 people a year and is endemic in west Africa.

When I shared complaints about my housing on social media, they went viral, and I began hearing from people in similar circumstances. It changed the course of my life

I never planned to become a housing rights campaigner. I hoped to become an artist; I always loved to paint. But events put me on a different path. It feels as if I missed an exit on the motorway somewhere and now I can’t turn back.

It started when we moved into a housing association flat on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham, south London, in 2018: my father, my two sisters, aged 17 and 20, and 19-year-old me. Before that, we were in temporary accommodation: a half-converted garage that had mould and damp on the walls and a bathroom the size of a cupboard. We had been there since 2016, waiting to get a permanent council property, but the new place was no better. The carpets and wallpaper were decades old. There were cockroaches, flies and woodlice. The mouse infestation in the kitchen was so bad, we didn’t want to use it. The glass patio doors were broken, so the place was freezing. We had lights that filled with water whenever it rained, especially in the bathroom, which had no windows. It wasn’t just us; the whole Eastfields estate was dilapidated, but despite residents complaining to Clarion, the housing association, nothing seemed to get fixed.

Rules were changed this year in effort to cut immigration, but experts warn bar on dependents will have significant impact on health service

• UK politics live – latest updates

Labour has “no plans” to change rules barring health and care workers from bringing their families to the UK on their visas, despite a plummeting number of NHS staff since the rules were changed earlier this year.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the health service had become too reliant on overseas staff and the party would aim to recruit and train workers from the UK.

Inclusive clubs provide a supportive environment for LGBTQ+ children amid growing antagonism toward transgender inclusion in athletics

Like many seven-year-olds, Gregory’s daughter discovered her love for soccer on the playground at recess. She started coming home talking about the sport and asked to join her friends’ recreational team. Gregory, an attorney in Portland, Oregon, whose name we’ve changed to protect his family’s safety and privacy, signed her up. But his daughter ended up getting assigned to a different team than the one her friends were on.

Gregory was concerned about his daughter not being on a team with a coach and players she knew – she’s transgender and he wanted her to be in a supportive environment. Gregory’s wife called the league’s coordinator to see if they could get their daughter on the original team and to explain the reasoning for their request, but he said she shouldn’t be playing on a girls’ team if she’s trans. “We were told that she would have to play on a boys’ team if she wanted to play in games,” Gregory told the Guardian. He immediately withdrew his daughter from the league.

The actor, who became the first transgender woman to win the best actress prize at Cannes, had earlier dedicated her award to ‘all the trans people who are suffering’

The first transgender woman to be awarded the best actress prize at the Cannes film festival filed a legal complaint on Wednesday over a “sexist insult” from a far-right politician after her win.

Karla Sofía Gascón and co-stars jointly received the accolade on Saturday for their performances in French auteur Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set narco musical Emilia Perez.

Cryptanalyst played by Keira Knightley on screen, and who was briefly engaged to Alan Turing, commemorated in London

Joan Clarke, the second world war codebreaker who was played by Keira Knightley in the 2014 film The Imitation Game, has been honoured with a commemorative blue plaque ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-day.

The plaque was unveiled on Wednesday at Clarke’s childhood home in south London, English Heritage said.

Regular drug use – from caffeine to psychedelics – has become a fundamental part of modern life. A first-person Guardian US series explores America’s shifting relationship with mind-altering substances

• Smoking weed every day makes me less presentable and less productive. I love it

There are plenty of fanciful, far-out theories of how the whole of civilization emerged from drug use – like the theory that the consumption of proto-LSD in ancient Greek cults catalyzed modern philosophy; or the theory that various religious traditions have their roots in revelations occasioned by the body processing stores of endogenous DMT; or the theory that the evolution of Homo erectus into Homo sapiens, and the corresponding emergence of consciousness as a phenomenon, was driven, some hundred thousand years ago, by the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms.

But you don’t need to delve that deep into the nether regions of the psychedelic dark web to believe that the world as we know it – where we think and feel and transact business and eat and sleep and read the newspaper – is built, at a fundamental, inextricable level, on a drug. That drug is caffeine.

A child in 2020 will see a 400% increase in global heating. An adult over 55 will see none. Yet only one of the two can vote

I know this country needs a change, so I couldn’t help but be disappointed when I saw that the general election is going to be held on the 4 July – just two months from my 18th birthday.

Like many other young people across the country, I feel helpless when watching the actions of this government, knowing that I have no say over the decisions being made. Instead, we’re forced to watch older members of the public – especially the oldest, who turn out at the highest rate – cast their vote on what will ultimately impact us the most.

Beth Riding is an A-level student in Cornwall

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Brum Rocks, born out of community musical groups, will bring together dozens of performers to play a new anthem for Birmingham

When Steve Groome started learning to play guitar after retiring, he never expected he would end up in a band.

“At 66, I’m not going to get a phone call from Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton. I might not even get in an averagely rubbish covers band,” he said. “But I don’t need to with this, we have fun. I just let rip.”

Rishi Sunak says timing of action days before general election appears to be ‘politically motivated’ to help Labour

Up to 100,000 patients in England face having their NHS care cancelled days before the general election after junior doctors announced a fresh wave of strike action, with Rishi Sunak saying it appeared to be politically motivated.

Health leaders expressed alarm, warning the five-day strike would jeopardise efforts to tackle the record waiting list and “hit patients hard”.

Ellen Roome says firms should be required to hand over data in case it can help parents understand why their child died

A woman whose 14-year-old son killed himself is calling for parents to be given the legal right to access their child’s social media accounts to help understand why they died.

Ellen Roome has gathered more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for social media companies to be required to hand over data to parents after a child has died.

In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

Health leaders say extensive negotiations still needed to agree set of measures on how the world should prevent and respond to future pandemics

• Explainer: What is the pandemic accord and why have negotiations been so difficult?

Global health leaders have said an international treaty governing how the world should deal with future pandemics may not be agreed for another year or more.

After two years of negotiations, countries failed to agree on the text of an international pandemic accord by a deadline of 24 May. And at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Tuesday delegates said extensive further negotiations would be needed.

With the country’s highest rates of unemployment, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in Eastern Cape province offers a snapshot of the state of South Africa’s housing, employment, poverty, crime, and public service delivery. As the country goes to the polls, many of those voting will be part of the ‘born free’ generation who were born after apartheid ended in 1994. On a visit to Nelson Mandela Bay in December, the photojournalist Ilvy Njiokiktjien spoke to many about their disillusionment with modern South Africa but also their hopes, ingenuity and resilience

In the last four years, she has survived an aggressive cancer, opened her own art school – and produced stunning work. And she’s just getting started. She discusses sobriety, suffering and second chances

A man and woman are depicted having sex on the huge white canvas: their bodies outlined in blood-red lines, faces barely there, legs wrapped over and into each other like a chain puzzle. Above the couple, and merging with them, are the words: “You keep fucking me,” repeated 12 times in horizontal lines. Look at it vertically and at one point it becomes: “You keep fucking you.”

It could only be painted by Tracey Emin – the scratchy primitivism, the intensity of the act, the words. Words have always been important to Emin. The painting is a celebration of carnality, a howl of emotional abuse and a nod to narcissism. It sums up Emin’s work perfectly.

Wes Streeting says another Conservative term could result in waiting list swelling to 10m cases

Labour has promised to clear the NHS waiting list backlog in England within five years, with Wes Streeting warning that the health service risks becoming “a poor service for poor people” while the wealthy shift to using private care.

In an interview with the Guardian, the shadow health secretary said that in another Conservative term the total waiting list in England could grow to 10m cases, with healthcare becoming as degraded as NHS dental services.

Daniel Mihai Popescu given more than 17 years for stabbing Andreea Pintili as she left home in Aberfan

A man who stabbed his pregnant ex-girlfriend weeks before she was due to give birth to their baby has been jailed for 17 years and four months for attempted murder.

Daniel Mihai Popescu, 29, grabbed Andreea Pintili as she left home in Aberfan, south Wales, and told her: “I have a knife and I am going to kill you.”

The party must ensure the benefits of significantly increased land values in the proposed areas for development are shared by all, says Miles Gibson. Plus letters from Christina McGill​​​​ and Peter Waterman

As a former town planning policy adviser to both Tony Blair and David Cameron, I have only one question about Labour’s proposed new towns: who will benefit from the significant increase in land value arising from granting planning permission for them (Labour will aim to reveal new town sites within first year in power, 20 May)?

Postwar new town legislation forced landowners to sell land to the state at the existing use value. The surplus from the later resale of the land at market prices paid for infrastructure and affordable housing. Angela Rayner gave no suggestion that Labour would deploy such heavy artillery. But if it does, it would be well advised not to announce new town locations until it has control of the land, “grey belt” or otherwise.

About half the students who got in touch skip lectures, with many ‘disappointed’ with the experience and others forced to prioritise paid work

Frances, 19, from Newcastle, had been looking forward to starting a design degree at the university of Northumbria last autumn.

By the end of her first semester, however, she had major doubts about having made the right choice.

Mel Stride says pensioners will pay more income tax under Labour as critics say plan is merely reversal of previous Tory policy

• UK politics live – latest updates

The work and pensions secretary has said Labour will drag millions of older people into paying income tax while the Conservatives can “comfortably” raise the money for their proposed cuts for pensioners by clamping down on tax avoidance.

Under the Conservatives’ “triple lock plus” proposal , “millions of pensioners will get tax cuts worth hundreds of pounds over the next parliament”, Mel Stride told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.