‘Huge volumes of chicken muck’ entering rivers are harmful to fish and plants, campaigners argue at Cardiff’s high court

Clean river campaigners have told a court that planning permission for a poultry megafarm in Shropshire is unlawful and should be overturned.

In the high court in Cardiff on Wednesday, Dr Alison Caffyn argued that the council had failed to take into account all the environmental impacts of the industrial chicken units, which will house 230,000 birds at any one time, in particular the effects of spreading manure on land.

Exclusive: In a letter seen by the Guardian, staff were told steps had been taken to keep systems safe

• M&S cyber-attack: products run short in some stores

The Co-op has been forced to shut down parts of its IT system after discovering an attempted hack only days after the fellow retailer Marks & Spencer faced a serious cyber incident .

In a letter to staff sent on Tuesday and seen by the Guardian, the mutual said it had “taken steps to keep systems safe” so had “pre-emptively withdrawn access to some systems for the moment”.

With record low ratings and Ncuti Gatwa rumoured to be departing, the Time Lord faces an uncertain future. Could this be it for good?

The Doctor has fought enemies like the Daleks and Cybermen all through time and space, but the Time Lord may now be facing their greatest threat: viewer apathy in a time of television industry upheaval, as rumours of cancellation and the departure of its leading actor swirl.

With this year’s series of Doctor Who approaching its midpoint and seeing record low ratings, there is still no sign from the BBC or streaming partner Disney+ if the show has a future beyond May.

Perth theatre
Two working-class lads become modern-day highwaymen in this adaptation of the Scottish film but the plentiful songs slow down the story

One of the stories British cinema loves to tell is of working-class characters defeating the privations of Thatcherism using wit and creativity. In Brassed Off (1996), escape came in the form of communal music; in The Full Monty (1997), it was male striptease; and in Billy Elliot (2000), the romance of ballet.

Setting the template for all these was Restless Natives (1985), a cult Scottish favourite in which two Edinburgh dreamers turn highway robbers and, in the gentlest possible way, take to holding up coachloads of American tourists while disguised as a wolfman and clown.

At Perth theatre until 10 May. Then touring until 28 June

US president’s speech included an attack on ‘communist radical left judges’ and a claim that ‘nothing will stop me’

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he thinks President Vladimir Putin wants to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite recent attacks against the beleaguered nation.

Trump responded “I think he does” when asked whether he thinks Putin wants to make peace during an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran.

Police watchdog announces Martyn Blake has case to answer for shooting in Streatham in 2022

The police marksman who was cleared of murder after shooting Chris Kaba will face gross misconduct proceedings, a watchdog has said.

The Metropolitan police officer, Martyn Blake, 41, shot the 24-year-old in Streatham, south-east London, in September 2022 after Kaba tried to ram his way past police cars that had hemmed him in.

We took a wrong turn on vacation and ended up on a six-hour trek into the rainforest. After my mom flung off her top, my brother was attacked by fire ants and I developed a fiery hot rash, everything began to seem strangely zen …

It was the summer of 2001 and I was on the brink of adolescence, embarking on my first journey outside the United States to the tropically convenient American territory of Puerto Rico. I was 11, and already the goofball in my group of friends – but, away from those with whom I was familiar, I was painfully shy. Until a family vacation from hell rid me of all my inhibitions.

The chaos began when my well-intentioned parents decided to take my brother and me to see the beautiful rainforest. My mom had her heart set on going to the El Portal de El Yunque National Forest visitor centre; a friend had told her it was “perfect for kids”, with guided, paved pathways, a cafe, and even a gift shop. But when my flustered, monolingual father got lost on the Puerto Rican freeway, he panicked, as my mother flipped through the map trying to direct him. “What’s a salida?!” he cried, sailing past the “exit” signs.

The president’s approach: tackle problems that don’t exist via policies that won’t work

In the 2024 election, Donald Trump eked out a narrow victory, by 1.5 percentage points nationally, the lowest popular vote margin in 56 years, since Richard Nixon’s wafer-thin win by 0.7 points in 1968. Trump claimed he had won an enormous historic mandate to impose a counterrevolution. “The American people have given us a mandate, a mandate like few people thought possible,” Trump boasted on 6 March in his address to the Congress.

His election rested on two principal issues, immigration and inflation. He demonized immigrants (“ poisoning the blood ” of the country), raised the bogeyman of transgender people, and racialized the Democratic candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris , whom he claimed had decided herself she was Black . In the minds of the marginal voters who swung to him, however, immigration and inflation were conflated, factors impinging on their standard of living and economic security. Trump stigmatized migrants as the source of crime and cultural impurity, but swing voters mainly (and falsely) regarded them as economic competitors for jobs and government resources.

Even a summer holiday isn’t straightforward any more - and all across the US, millions of people are having to make calculations like mine

Let me start with a message to my wife. SORRY!!! I apologise in advance for everything you are about to read.

My more sensible half, you see, is a US citizen, who keeps telling me (a green card holder) that I should stop making jokes about getting sent to a detention centre or deported.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist