• Dutchman struck on his way to victory in famous race
• Alpecin-Deceuninck and UCI join with condemnation

French justice officials have launched an investigation after Mathieu van der Poel had a plastic bottle hurled at his face during his triumphant ride to a third consecutive Paris-Roubaix victory on Sunday.

“An investigation was opened into the charge of violence with a weapon in order to identify and arrest the perpetrator,” said the Lille prosecutor Carole Etienne on X. The Dutch Alpecin-Deceuninck rider was struck while powering solo over a cobbled section with 33km remaining in the prestigious one-day classic, often called “The Hell of the North”.

On a summer morning in 1990, the body of a young woman appeared in a small town close to the frontier. For those who saw her, finding her identity became an obsession that would last 30 years

Nobody can recall who first phoned the police on the morning of 4 September 1990, but everyone remembers the girl. Her body, hanging from a pine tree on a steep slope above the Spanish frontier town of Portbou, was visible to anyone looking up from the beach or across from the opposite hillside. She was barefoot, with grey-blue eyes and thick chestnut-brown hair. She wore blue dungarees over a turquoise green shirt.

Portbou, squeezed into a cauldron-like Mediterranean cove, had only 2,000 inhabitants but plenty of police officers. In these years before the Schengen agreement, guards were stationed on the French border but these officers were experts in immigration and smuggling, not violent deaths. Instead, Enrique Gómez, a 35-year-old investigator from the Guardia Civil police force was called in from the nearby city of Figueres to investigate. The phone call came as he was having breakfast in the canteen.

Robin McKie reflects on his 40 years as science editor for the Observer and tells Madeleine Finlay about the game-changing discoveries and scientific controversies that he’s reported on during that time. He describes how the discovery of the structure of DNA revolutionised science, what he learned about misinformation from the HIV/AIDS pandemic and why cold fusion and the millennium bug failed to live up to their hype.

What I’ve learned after 40 years as the Observer’s science editor

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Accountants’ institute says first quarter of 2025 was ‘harrowing’ for companies amid tax rises and US tariffs

UK business confidence has fallen to the lowest level for more than two years amid growing concern over tax rises and Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, according to a survey.

Highlighting the risks to the economy, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) said the first quarter of the year had been “harrowing” for companies across Britain.

Amid the ruins and with fuel scarce, the animals provide vital transport for the injured as well as goods and belongings

It felt like an “earthquake from the sky” when an Israeli airstrike hit the clinic Dr Saif Alden had left just minutes earlier. Alden had been treating animals hurt and abandoned amid Gaza’s destruction. They survived but the equipment and medication the mobile clinic needed to function was destroyed.

Still, the team saw it as a setback, not a defeat. Alden has spent the month since the airstrike traversing Gaza to scavenge the tools needed to resume operations.

The fashion industry seemed to be inching towards a new era of inclusivity. Then came a wave of weight-loss drugs and the demonisation of ‘wokeness’ …

In 2021, Skye Standley was considered one of modelling’s rising stars. With her beautiful face, curves and distinctive red hair, she was in demand: she appeared in advertising campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, the Danish label Ganni and Rihanna’s brand Savage X Fenty. Last year, she was appearing in roundups of ones to watch, alongside established “curve” or plus-size models – typically a size 12 and above – such as Ashley Graham and Paloma Elsesser, who were predicted to be “everywhere”. In reality, it was one of her toughest years.

“The past two years have been really challenging,” says Standley. “I think there’s been a lot of erasure all around. I’ve noticed a lot less work.” She only worked a couple of times last year, she says, “compared with the two years before, where I was working continuously. I’ve definitely noticed, when it comes to [London] fashion week, there being no castings, and throughout the year, just a lot of regression, even from brands I’ve worked with. I spent all of last year trying to find a way to navigate everything that was changing with the industry.” Just over three weeks ago, Standley left her agency.

Ireland holds the algorithm off-switch. Ursula von der Leyen must force Dublin to use it

Europe is scrambling to remilitarise. The European Commission is raising a €150bn (£129bn) defence fund and is calling on EU countries to invest €650bn (£561bn) more. Germany has cast aside its government debt limit to invest hundreds of billions of euros in defence. Poland will train every male of fighting age for battle, and envisages an army 500,000 strong. Latvia’s president has urged the rest of Europe to conscript citizens , as Latvia does. Even neutral Ireland is buying combat jets . No wonder Europe’s defence industry is booming . In just a few months, the share prices of several big weapons manufacturers have nearly doubled and doubled again . But, despite this new martial pulse, the continent is still sleepwalking towards disaster.

Europe can harden its shell and sharpen its claws, but it has done little to protect its soft underbelly against political manipulation. The US is capitulating to Russia over Ukraine because of political implosion at home, not military defeat. This story has been repeated many times in Europe’s history. Thucydides recounted how ancient Athens and Sparta sowed discord and cultivated traitors in each other’s camps. Europe’s leaders must remember this lesson and confront three new realities.

Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

Issue is seen as a key stumbling block in talks with US as Washington seeks to scale back Iran’s nuclear programme

Iran is expected to resist a US proposal to transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country – such as Russia – as part of Washington’s effort to scale back Tehran’s civil nuclear programme and prevent it from being used to develop a nuclear weapon.

The issue, seen as one of the key stumbling blocks to a future agreement, was raised in the initial, largely indirect, talks held in Muscat, Oman, between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

NGOs warn of ‘some difficult years’ ahead as increasing humanitarian needs meet shrinking finances

The dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has captured headlines, but “very regrettable” reductions in European aid budgets are also contributing to a void in support for some of the poorest people in the world’s most fragile states, according to MEPs and NGOs.

Isabella Lövin, a deputy chair of the European parliament’s development committee, said USAID cuts would have “very dramatic consequences around the world”. But she also criticised recent decisions by EU member states to reduce their aid budgets as “very regrettable” and “wrong”. It would be impossible for the EU to fill the gap, she added.