Nik and Maria Payne were raising their ‘wild and free’ children in the Norwegian countryside when cancer turned their lives upside down. The reluctant stars of A New Kind of Wilderness talk about a world without Maria

Peace hangs over a farm in rural Norway. The last of the melting snow lingers in hummocks and bikes are strewn outside the Payne family’s small rented cottage. Nik Payne materialises from behind the barn where he has been feeding the cows. One of his three children, Falk, 12, is lying on the sofa with a fever and a Biggles novel; later, Freja, 15, and Ulv, nine (known as Wolf or Wolfie), return from school. Their home is as warm and chaotic as any family’s – boots and coats strewn in the hallway, a fridge covered in photos, shelves of books – but with a few differences: there is no television and behind the living room door is an unobtrusive, very personal shrine.

The Paynes find themselves the reluctant stars of a film, A New Kind of Wilderness, which has won awards at Sundance and other festivals around the world. This documentary begins, deceptively, as Variety put it , “like Swiss Family Robinson updated for the era of Instagram cottagecore”. The children, with their older half-sister Ronja, are being raised by Nik, an Englishman, and his Norwegian wife Maria to be “wild and free”: home-schooled, creative, growing their own food, living closely and gently with nature.

Chris Columbus calls cameo ‘an albatross’ but worries he’d ‘have to go back to Italy or something’

Film-maker Chris Columbus says he has come to regard Donald Trump’s cameo in his movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as “an albatross” that he wishes to remove.

But, Columbus added, he fears the president’s administration would deport him if he followed through with nixing the scene from more than 30 years ago.

Plan comes after Donald Trump reiterated import threats and chipmaker’s CEO dined at US president’s resort

The chip designer Nvidia has said it will build $500bn (£378bn) worth of artificial intelligence infrastructure in the US over the next four years, in a sign of manufacturers investing in operations on American soil amid Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The announcement comes after Trump reiterated threats on Sunday to impose imminent tariffs on the semiconductors that Nvidia makes mostly in Taiwan, and after the chipmaker’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, dined at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month.

The all-female Blue Origin flight on Monday broke boundaries and set records in the spouting of girlboss gibberish

Well, I watched every second of the buildup, flight and aftermath of the first Blue Origin all-female space trip. You’ve heard of one small step for man? This was one giant leap backwards for womankind. I’m kidding, I’m kidding! What could be more empowering or something than watching Lauren Sánchez make going to space sound like brunch with the girrrrrls. Sally Ride could never.

Anyway, if you missed this, Jeff Bezos’s fiancee took an 11-minute trip to the edge of space on one of his Blue Origin craft on Monday, alongside some all-female passengers – sorry, “crew” – who included CBS anchor Gayle King and pop star Katy Perry. So yes: the Woman’s World video is no longer the most plastic feminist thing Katy’s done.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

A couple’s struggle to survive a serial killer, a prank that goes terribly wrong – and the hunt for an old friend who went missing in the woods

Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us (HarperCollins) opens not with a crime, but with news of an arrest. A serial killer who terrorised south London for decades has been caught, and Isabel, one of his victims many years ago, has been told of the arrest. “He’s called Nigel,” she says, sardonically, to her former partner, Edward, who was in bed beside her when their home was invaded by the killer. “What were you expecting? Adolf?” he answers.

Dean previously told the story of a daughter’s escape from the family home where her father had chained her up, in Girl A , and of a school shooting in Day One , both excellent and disturbing novels. She is out this time to explore a series of sadistic crimes, but also the impact they have had on the survivors. A love story too, that of Isabel and Edward, who meet as students. But how does any romance survive after the violence and cruelty of what they go through? Dean cleverly weaves together past and present for maximum impact, moving from the courtroom where a series of victims are explaining how Nigel Wood ripped their lives apart, to the burgeoning lives of Isabel and Edward inching inexorably towards their meeting with a killer. This is a classy, elegant thriller – just like its protagonist, the enjoyably prickly Isabel.

To order The Death of Us , The Note , The Liar or The Staircase in the Woods , click on the titles or go to guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

Graham denounces her toxic family and begins a new relationship, before discovering her beau’s preteen daughter to be a tiny psychopath in a tutu

For younger readers not well versed in last-century cinema, Heather Graham was one of the hottest ingenues in Hollywood throughout the 1990s; her greatest performance was arguably as Rollergirl in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. Recently, she’s taken up writer-director duties (she made her debut in 2018 with a comedy called Half Magic ) while continuing to star as well, and this sophomore effort impresses with its mildly acidic observations of contemporary mores. There aren’t exactly belly laughs in this tale of single yoga instructor Ann (Graham), but quite a few of zingers and bits that stick the landing nicely thanks to fluent direction and good comic timing from Graham and her excellent supporting cast, which is filled out by cracking actors who might not often be given as much spotlight as they get here.

That’s entirely fitting given that the plot, as the title might suggest, is all about the greater value of the friends and loved ones you make throughout life as opposed to the toxic monsters you’re saddled with at birth. In Ann’s case, that pretty much goes for her whole nuclear family, from zealous Christian wingnut dad (Michael Gross) and narcissistic mom (Julie Halston) to her admittedly damaged but still totally vile sister Clio (Julia Stiles, having fun sinking her teeth into the role). Graham’s script perhaps makes Ann just a bit too nice and a co-dependent martyr to these nightmare people.

US vice president says Trump ‘loves the UK’ and is working ‘very hard’ with Keir Starmer on a trade deal

After the Unite union voted yesterday to reject a pay offer from Birmingham city council , business and trade minister Sarah Jones this morning reiterated the government’s call for the dispute to end.

Appearing on the BBC Breakfast programme, she said:

Fundamentally what needs to happen now is the strike needs to be called off. Unite need to accept the offer that’s on the table. It’s a good offer and that is what we are asking them to do, and that is the way we’re going to get back to normal in Birmingham.

Now I know that other councils are sort of coming in to support, that there is logistical support from the Army and that some private sector support is already there, but of course, it’s completely unacceptable, the images are awful and people have enough to worry about in their lives without having to worry about rubbish collection alongside it.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the number of people employed in at least one job paid through pay as you earn fell by 78,000 in March after a revised fall of 8,000 in February.

Reflecting a slowdown in the jobs market, the latest snapshot showed annual pay growth rose slightly in the three months to February and remained at historically high levels. Regular pay, excluding bonuses, rose to 5.9%, from a revised 5.8% in the previous rolling three-month period to the end of January.

More than my money was stolen after activation went ahead, despite a suspected deception being reported 24 hours earlier

EE texted to say they had processed my sim activation request, and the new sim would be active in 24 hours. I was told to contact them if I hadn’t requested this. I hadn’t, so I did so immediately. Twenty-four hours later, my mobile stopped working and money was withdrawn from my bank account.

With their alien sim, the ­fraudster infiltrated my handset and stole details for every account I had. Passwords and logins had been changed for my finance, retail and some social media accounts. Worst of all, two longstanding email accounts are forever irretrievable as the hacker set up their own two-factor authentication, allowing them to halt any password alteration requests, and change my lifelong mobile number.

Met Office says gloomier and unsettled conditions are on the way after recent warm and dry spell

Western England and the whole of Wales are set for heavy rain and possible flooding as the school holidays get into full swing and the Easter weekend approaches.

The Met Office issued a yellow warning for rain beginning at noon on Tuesday and lasting for 24 hours, advising that there could be transport disruption, flooding of homes and businesses and a chance of power cuts.