Los Angeles police open investigation after lawsuit filed against Motown singer alleging sexual assault of four former housekeepers over many years

Los Angeles police have opened a criminal investigation into Smokey Robinson, after allegations of sexual assault made by four of his former housekeepers, which he denies.

The unnamed women filed a lawsuit last week alleging that the Motown star was a “a serial and sick rapist” who had assaulted them on numerous occasions between 2007 and 2024, across three residences. Robinson and his wife, Frances, are also accused of labour violations, including the failure to pay the women minimum wage and overtime. The women are seeking financial damages.

Photo from Vietnam war is now at centre of controversy after documentary claimed it was taken by someone else

The World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship for one on the most famous press photographs ever taken, after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history.

The photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, remains one of the most indelible images of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.

Strictly Limited/Giants Software; Mega Drive
It may be seem horrendously old-fashioned, but the seemingly dull repetition of working your wheat fields has a nostalgic pull like a combine harvester

When I got my first job in games journalism 30 years ago, I arrived just too late to review games for my favourite ever console: the Sega Mega Drive. Although a few titles were still being released for the machine in 1995, the games magazine world had moved on and all anyone wanted to read about were the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It was a bitter blow.

Fast-forward to 2025 and a resurgent interest in producing new games for vintage home computers and consoles has led to Farming Simulator: 16bit Edition – a Mega Drive instalment in the hugely successful agricultural sim series. The passion project of Renzo Thönen, lead level designer and co-owner of Farming Simulation studio Giants Software, the game has been written using an open-source Mega Drive development kit, and manufactured in a limited run of genuine Mega Drive cartridges. Slotting this brand new release into the cart of my dad’s ancient Mega Drive II console felt ridiculously moving and I thought the game could only be a letdown after that. But I was wrong.

At 26, Venezia Hardcore co-founder Giacomo Gobbato was killed while protecting a stranger on the streets of Venice – a death that’s become a rallying cry for a city in crisis

As you enter the Centro Sociale Rivolta, a former confectionary factory in the industrial neighbourhood of Marghera in Venice that has been occupied by squatters for the last 30 years, a large banner spells out two words: “Jack lives”. More than 2,000 people will see the banner this weekend when they arrive at Venezia Hardcore, a festival that began in a rehearsal room among friends and has become one of the most important counterculture events in Europe.

This year’s event will feature Jivebomb’s furious hardcore from the US, Violent Magic Orchestra’s techno black metal from Japan, and Italian bands such as cult screamo outfit La Quiete, political street punk four-piece Klasse Kriminale and local heroes Confine. But the star of the festival will stand out due to his absence: 2025 will be the first edition of Venezia Hardcore without Giacomo “Jack” Gobbato, a musician and activist who was stabbed to death in September by a robber who had attacked a woman Gobbato was trying to defend.

A delightful animation about a shipwrecked robot, plus an extraordinary documentary about a revolt at the only US college for deaf students … after they tried to put a hearing person in charge

Chris Sanders’s delightful family animation attains Wall-E levels of poignancy in its tale of a shipwrecked robot that learns how to feel. Washed up on a remote island populated only by animals, service unit Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) finds it has no one to serve. That is until it falls on to a goose’s nest, killing all its occupants apart from runt of the litter Brightbill (Kit Connor) – who imprints on Roz as his mother. Assisted by Pedro Pascal’s cynical fox Fink, the ever helpful machine reprogrammes itself to rear the gosling well enough so he can migrate with the other geese. The Disney-style anthropomorphising is a bit overdone, but it’s a film full of warmth and wit.
Friday 23 May, 9.10am, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Sir Nicholas Serota says continued public investment is vital to draw in private funding to maintain cultural centres

Arts and cultural centres across England are at a “tipping point” as many face closure or restricted operations without continued public investment, the chair of Arts Council England has warned before next month’s government spending review.

Sir Nicholas Serota, who runs the body that distributes public funds to arts organisations ranging from national institutions to community-based ventures, said it would be a tragedy if people outside big cities were denied access to the arts.

The Hollywood icon defies age and Arctic climes to save the world in the epic messianic spectacle The Final Reckoning. But why won’t he bare his soul?

Tom Cruise spends about 30% of the final Mission: Impossible movie in his knickers. It being a very long film, that’s a lot of time spent looking at his body, glossy and gnarled and expensive as a walnut armoire, possibly in high-definition Imax and, even if not, certainly as big as a bus.

In The Final Reckoning, Cruise unbuttons to wallop goons (twice), wriggle from the Arctic seabed towards the waves, hop on a treadmill and take a long hot shower in front of the crew of a strikingly camp US military submarine.

Sam Altman’s extraordinary career – and personal life – under the microscope

On 30 November 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted the following, characteristically reserving the use of capital letters for his product’s name: “today we launched ChatGPT. try talking with it here: chat.openai.com”. In a reply to himself immediately below, he added: “language interfaces are going to be a big deal, i think”.

If Altman was aiming for understatement, he succeeded. ChatGPT became the fastest web service to hit 1 million users, but more than that, it fired the starting gun on the AI wars currently consuming big tech. Everything is about to change beyond recognition, we keep being told, though no one can agree on whether that will be for good or ill.

The Brummie is brilliant as she spends weekends with celebrities, starting with Perrie Edwards. Plus: Martin Clunes straps into a drysuit. Here’s what to watch today

8.30pm, BBC One
Alison Hammond is a pro at getting laughs out of celebrities, but this new series – in which she spends a weekend at a star’s house – proves she’s a brilliant interviewer too. Who else could get away with asking Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards if she needs to take a pregnancy test? The laughs are always there, but there’s depth too when Edwards talks about anxiety and panic attacks. Hollie Richardson