• Race will start in Dalby Forest and finish in Glasgow
• Lotte Kopecky expected to defend title

The 2025 women’s Tour of Britain will go ahead in northern England and the Scottish Borders in early June, despite speculation that this year’s event was in difficulty.

Buoyed by news that the men’s and women’s Tour de France will start in Britain in 2027 , this summer’s four-day women’s race will start in Yorkshire on 5 June and end in Glasgow four days later.

Wave of assaults ‘declaration of war’ by drug gangs after crackdown on bosses operating from jail, French media say

Emmanuel Macron has warned that those behind a wave of apparently coordinated attacks on French prisons and staff will be “found, tried and punished”.

The president’s comments came after at least a dozen assaults on French jails in the past three days. In one attack, gunmen using automatic weapons fired at the entrance to Toulon prison in the south of France.

The Eurosceptic model of a globalised Britain detached from its local continent has aged very badly in the era of Trump’s trade wars

Even when the transatlantic alliance was more functional than it is now, there was not a united view of China. There has always been common wariness of Beijing as a commercial rival and potential security threat. But for hawks in Washington the idea of an alternative superpower closing in on economic and technological parity feels existential. More dovish Europeans have been readier to leaven caution with engagement.

Britain has veered between the two poles. In 2015, David Cameron promised a “ golden era ” of open trade with China. In 2020, under pressure from the US, Boris Johnson banned Huawei, a Chinese telecoms company, from UK 5G infrastructure.

England’s second city has become a symbol of political dysfunction. But the government should draw wider lessons from the chaos

In the 1890s, a visiting American journalist described Birmingham as “the best-governed city in the world”. Inspired by the reforming spirit of its one-time mayor Joseph Chamberlain, England’s second city had become a showcase for a new kind of municipal government. Introducing better schools, libraries, parks and public baths, politicians were taking proactive responsibility for the health and welfare of the local population.

Preachers of what was then known as the “civic gospel” are thin on the ground these days. Birmingham is currently a byword for political dysfunction, symbolised by the unhealthy piles of bin bags disfiguring its streets since an indefinite refuse workers’ strike began last month. Despite pressure from the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, who sat down with Unite representatives last weekend, the union and Birmingham’s Labour-run city council have now been in full-blown confrontation for close to six weeks. The impact has been particularly gruesome in poorer areas, where residents cannot afford the costs of commercial waste clearance.

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The late painter was known for his masterful reinterpretations of famous works but also his own, wide-ranging originals

Probably the most famous thing that Pablo Picasso never said was: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” The quote, which has been widely misattributed to the Spaniard, as well as TS Eliot and even Steve Jobs, among a long list of famous thinkers, is so popular because it encapsulates a seeming truism about artists: if your influences are ascertainable, you must not be very good at what you do.

The fantastic new show at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art, neatly reverses this equation, showing more than 60 of the Californian’s best pieces – alongside reproductions of the paintings he cribbed from to make them. The implicit argument is that placing Thiebaud into a personal canon of artistic mentors and influences doesn’t diminish him but actually makes him better than ever before.

Exclusive: Chairs of foreign and trade committees say MPs should have a say in agreement ‘in light of its significance’

The Labour chairs of the foreign and trade committees have called for parliament to have a vote on any UK trade deal with the United States.

Emily Thornberry , who chairs the foreign affairs committee, and Liam Byrne , who chairs the business and trade committee, said MPs should have a say on the deal ministers are hoping to strike with Donald Trump.

Federal judge opens proceedings over administration’s use of wartime act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members

• US politics live – latest updates

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

More details to come …

• Craven Stakes winner market leader for first colts’ Classic
• Second key success in five days for Juddmonte operation

It is 21 years since the winner of Newmarket’s Craven Stakes followed up in the 2,000 Guineas over the same course and distance two-and-a-half weeks later, and 34 years since Mystiko took the Free Handicap at the Craven meeting – a Classic trial that no longer exists – and went on to become the last grey to win the first colts’ Classic.

Every statistic, though, is in the queue to be broken, and John & Thady Gosden’s Field Of Gold is the new 7-2 favourite to snap both sequences at once after a convincing success in the Craven Stakes here on Wednesday.

The judges had to interpret the law as set down by parliament. But it must be remembered this is not an abstract debate; it concerns real people

• Sam Fowles is a barrister

The supreme court, headlines say, has ruled on “the definition of a woman”. Except it hasn’t. As the court says, in paragraph 2 of its judgment : “It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word ‘woman’ other than when it is used in the provisions of the [Equality Act] 2010.”

So what is the court’s decision actually about? In 2018, the Scottish parliament passed a law encouraging public boards to have 50% representation for women. For Women Scotland, a group that describes itself as “working to protect women’s rights”, asked the court to strike the law down because it included transgender women. There followed a series of legal challenges which eventually made their way to the supreme court.

Sam Fowles is a barrister, author and broadcaster