They just want to help children safely across the road on their way to and from school. Yet lollipop people are having to wear body cameras after an increase in abusive and dangerous drivers. How did things get so out of hand?

There aren’t many jobs that often involve jumping out of the path of speeding cars – but for the lollipop people of Britain today, this is the sad reality. And it doesn’t stop there: aggression, swearing and middle fingers are just a few examples of the intimidation and abuse they face on our roads.

“Oh my God, I mean, abuse of lollipop people? What has the world come to?” says Lynne Gorrara. It’s a crisp, sunny afternoon in Ipswich and the 61-year-old is holding a towering stop sign above her head, clearing a crossing for a stream of schoolchildren. This spot – on a narrow residential road, with a hospital in one direction and shops in the other – is notorious for abusive drivers.

System in ‘deep crisis’ six months after documentary exposed alleged network used to delay graft convictions

The courtroom was silent but tense, the whir of camera lenses the only sound as dozens of journalists fixed their eyes on the bench. An extraordinary press conference had been called after the airing of a documentary late last year that claimed the top of Romania’s justice system was riddled with corruption.

Seated at the bench at the Bucharest court of appeal was its president, Liana Arsenie, flanked by her two vice-presidents. Behind them, in support, stood about 30 judges.

The festival is a celebration of cinema and a frantic trade show all at once. After 25 years, I can’t help but go back

Nothing prepares you for the shock that is the Cannes film festival: the adrenaline, the fatigue, the elation and the emotion, but also the hunger, the anger, the magic and the ridicule. For young cinephiles, and for almost everybody who works in the film industry, it is the mecca of cinema and has been so for nearly eight decades. Anyone going for the first time this week, as I did 25 years ago, should not listen to the old grognards – Cannes’ battle-worn veterans – who will lament that the festival has become an abominable circus and swear this year will be their last. It is a circus, and you can bet they will be back for as long as their knees can take it. For there is nothing quite like it.

Born to counteract Benito Mussolini’s Venice film festival, its first edition was planned for September 1939, but Adolf Hitler had other plans. The previous year, under pressure from Berlin and Rome, the Venice film festival’s top prize, the Coppa Mussolini, was handed to Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Olympia, prompting the French, British and American delegates to walk out. Hence Cannes, conceived as the festival of the “free world”. More than 80 years later, for all its sins, it has remained faithful to that founding promise.

Agnès Poirier is a political commentator, writer and critic for the British, American and European press

While some are working out how to get rid of the prime minister, others are already plotting against his rival

• UK politics live – latest updates

It used to be football managers who measured their time at a club in months. Or even days at Spurs. Anything over two years qualifies you for a long service medal. Now it’s prime ministers. In fact it’s worse than that. Because it’s also people who might one day be prime minister.

While some Labour MPs are working out how to get rid of Keir Starmer, others are already plotting how to force Wes Streeting out of office should he jump the gun before Andy Burnham is ready to launch his challenge. Who knows where all this could end? Somewhere in the metasphere. It can’t be long before Liz Truss is no longer our shortest serving prime minister. Long live the lettuce.

In this punchy documentary, satirist Munya Chawawa steps into the ring to trash-talk Trump’s obsession with apeing the world of WrestleMania. The result? A bodyslam

Trump is the ultimate showman. He’s a master of it, a billionaire Barnum, but with a greed so insatiable it moves him ever further from entertainment into malevolence. If the Democrats had realised this earlier and recognised the strength the man was playing to and the particular voting public weaknesses he was preying upon, instead of sneering with distaste, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.

In fact, if they had done what comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa does in his punchy, passionate and weirdly uplifting documentary Wrestling With Trump, it might be a slightly better world today. Chawawa takes the not-new but certainly underused idea that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government use the same playbook as that created by the US pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). WWE was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince resigned from various business roles in 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault (he has vigorously denied these allegations). Linda is now the US secretary of education.

There is a revolution reshaping how people want and get their information. News brands can and must react, but the time is now

• This is an extract from the Sir David Nicholas memorial lecture that Deborah Turness delivered in London on Tuesday evening

No one can dispute that, today, the news industry is once again experiencing a revolution; a revolution that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. The disruption transcends all news brands. It impacts all journalists and all journalism, everywhere.

I am an optimist. I believe there are very good reasons to believe in a bright future for what I call the established news providers. So I am determined, having spoken to many people for this dispatch from the frontline, to set out a positive way forward.

Exclusive: Leaked draft statement says party ‘cannot continue on its current path’ under PM

Keir Starmer will not lead his party into the next general election, Labour-supporting unions have predicted, in an intervention that threatens to further destabilise the prime minister after a damaging few days.

The 11 Labour-affiliated unions – which include Unite, Unison and the GMB – are expected to issue a joint statement on Wednesday saying “at some stage” the party will have to put a plan in place to elect a new leader.

Labour leader remains UK prime minister despite mounting calls to step down before state opening of parliament

As the afternoon faded in Westminster, final preparations were being made for Wednesday’s state opening of parliament, where King Charles will set out a year-long legislative programme for a government that even its most ardent allies fear might not last the week. Once again, here we are.

Keir Starmer is still the UK’s prime minister. It is even possible he might be in a few months from now. But after two days punctuated by confusion and drama on a scale that belies Labour’s promise to end years of political upheaval, his authority appears shredded. What is less certain is what exactly that means.

Planned legislation includes housing, immigration and energy measures, and comes amid awkwardness with the palace over Charles’s role

Keir Starmer will attempt to regain the political initiative on Wednesday as his government announces a package of 35 bills for the next parliamentary session, covering everything from housing to immigration.

The embattled prime minister will release details of dozens of bills that he intends to pass over the next 12 months, even as his own MPs line up to demand his resignation.

Additional reporting by Caroline Davies

PM accused of dragging heels on forcing tech firms to block transmission of nude photos on children’s phones

Internet safety and children’s rights campaigners have accused Keir Starmer of failing to act on proposals to stop children sending and receiving nude images on their phones, after Jess Phillips resigned from the government saying she was tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”.

The Labour politician was one of four ministers who quit on Tuesday and joined more than 80 MPs calling for the prime minister to go.