Dispensation means teachers not obliged to inform child protection about under-18s in every instance

Teachers will not have to inform on sexually active teenagers under a new legal duty to report child abuse after a novel “Romeo and Juliet” exemption received cross-party support.

A new crime and policing bill obliges professionals in England, including teachers and healthworkers, to report suspicions of child sexual abuse to the police or local authority in an attempt by the government to prevent cover-ups.

Martin Hibbert tells justice secretary he is ‘absolutely disgusted’ to hear of alleged assault by Hashem Abedi

A survivor of the Manchester Arena bombing has said that the alleged assault on prison officers by one of the brothers behind the 2017 terrorist attack signified a “catastrophic failure of duty” to protect prison staff.

Hashem Abedi, who helped his suicide bomber brother, Salman Abedi, to plan the attack at an Ariana Grande concert, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 55 years after being convicted of the murder of 22 people, as well as attempted murder, and conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Mark Langdon and Lars Sivertsen as Aston Villa go out swinging in the Champions League

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On the podcast today; so close for Aston Villa. At 2-0 down on the night and 5-1 on aggregate it all looked over before they rallied thanks to goals from Youri Tielemans, John McGinn and Ezri Konsa. Marcus Rashford played brilliantly and in the final 30 minutes the hosts had chances to take it to extra-time.

Pop the Balloon or Find Love is a YouTube sensation – but in a mainstream form, it’s terrible. Why does this keep happening?

If you threw Blind Date, the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan and the auction block into a blender, what you’d get is Pop the Balloon or Find Love , a weekly hour-long Black dating show on YouTube.

The show was created by Arlette Amuli , an African American of Congolese origins, and her husband, Bolia “BM” Matundu , a Black Brit also of Congolese descent (he had a previous life as a UK rapper and then as a Ndombolo musician ). It has become an international sensation in an age where our fried attention spans have us addicted to short videos. The format is minimalist to the point of brilliance: each week, a line of eight or so balloon-clutching love hunters line up to court and be courted by a singleton of the opposite sex they have never met before.

Nels Abbey is an author, broadcaster and the founder of Uppity: the Intellectual Playground

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Cracks are appearing as the podcaster’s friends turn against him and Elon Musk. How long before he changes his mind?

Sam Harris is the kind of guest Joe Rogan loves to have on his podcast: he dresses awkwardly in a sport coat with jeans; he undertook a PhD in neuroscience after a transformative experience with MDMA; his tone is accessible yet patronising; he has a sense of academic authority which belies a set of controversial views that include calling Islam “uniquely uncivil” and almost unfettered support for Israeli attacks on Gaza; he made an app called Waking Up, which promises to be “a new operating system for your mind”. Rogan has hosted Harris on his podcast many times and the pair call each other good friends.

But even Harris seems perturbed by Rogan’s more wholehearted embrace of Musk and Maga. “He’s in over his head on so many topics of great consequence,” Harris told his listeners of his own podcast last week. “He’ll bring someone in to shoot the shit on ‘how the Holocaust is not what you think it was’ or ‘maybe Churchill was the bad guy in world war two’ … or he’ll talk to someone like Trump or Tucker Carlson, who lie as freely as they breathe, and doesn’t push back against any of their lies … It is irresponsible, and it’s directly harmful.”

Experts warn that a specific brand of Christianity will be prioritized and lead to a ‘further dismantling’ of institutions

The Trump administration ’s promotion of white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers to key government roles will lead to the “further dismantling of government institutions” and the chilling of free speech, experts have warned.

Donald Trump announced the creation of an “anti-Christian bias” taskforce and a White House Faith Office (WHFO) in February , saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias”.

Exclusive: Some aren’t even fraud but rather known attempts by states to protect victims of identity theft, former top official says

In a series of late-night posts on X last week, Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” revealed the seemingly startling findings of their “initial survey” into unemployment benefits.

They cited examples of claimants who were deceased, between one and five years old, or not born yet. They even cited one case of someone with a listed birthday in 2154 allegedly claiming $41,000.

This queen of hors d’oeuvres is enjoying a bit of a renaissance right now, so here’s how to make this comeback canapé in nine simple steps

The deliciously fussy-looking devilled egg and its pal, the vol-au-vent, were the ghosts of parties past for several decades before their triumphant revival as retro classics. Not only do these old-fashioned canapés look and taste great, but, as we’re belatedly remembering, the boiled egg, in particular, is a nutritional powerhouse far superior to a mere bowl of crisps. Make up to a day ahead, if necessary.

Prep 15 min
Cook 12 min
Makes 8

This three-part documentary about the attempt to steal hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of diamonds is pacey and stylish – but it definitely didn’t need to glamorise the real-life violence

I suppose the wonder is that it has taken Guy Ritchie so long to get around to telling the story of the Millennium Dome robbery, in which – way back at the turn of the century, children – a group of south-east London criminals ram-raided a national joke in pursuit of the 203-carat Millennium Star diamond worth £200m, which De Beers had unaccountably agreed to display in the capital’s gangster heartland.

Strictly speaking, Richie himself is not telling it; the three-part documentary The Diamond Heist comes from Oscar and Emmy award-winning company Lightbox and is executive produced by Ritchie. But the subject matter is so perfectly him that any meaningful separation in your mind as you watch it collapses quicker than a Greenwich exhibition venue’s shutters under the weight of a JCB driven at speed by a man intent on a multimillion pound payday.