From wood pulp in ice-cream to peat in portobellos, science has transformed how we dine. Do you know exactly what’s lurking in the grub we eat?

Microbial slime and a side helping of sand doesn’t sound like much of a meal, but a startling amount of the food we eat today contains ingredients that are, at the very least, unexpected – and, at worst, dangerous, such as heavy metals from polluted soils.

Then there is the thorny question of what ultra‑processed foods in our diets might be doing to us. “While each food additive, so‑called processing aid, fortificant and unrecognisably modified ingredient has been tested individually and declared safe, are they really?” asks Chris Young, who runs the Real Bread Campaign for Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, and was named joint winner of Slow Food In The UK’s 2025 person of the year award. “The studies are relatively small and short, leaving history littered with additives that we were once promised would not harm us but were later withdrawn or banned on health grounds. What might the long-term effect be of eating such substances, individually or in the cocktails created for each product and across our shopping baskets?”

It seems that even the Traitors host can’t save the ailing chatshow format. As her series ends, it’s hard not to feel that she never quite got out of Graham Norton’s shadow

Six weeks ago, before Claudia Winkleman launched her BBC One Friday night chatshow, media profiles regularly referenced her “Midas touch” with TV formats. She had left one golden programme, sashaying away from Strictly Come Dancing, but her portfolio still included three other winners: the mega hit The Traitors, its celebrity spin-off for the BBC, and Channel 4’s The Piano.

Half a dozen sofa chats later, Winkleman hasn’t exactly suffered the fate of the mythic King Midas, but The Claudia Winkleman Show can fairly be seen as her least glittering work for several years.

The president has opened fissures in his base by starting a war he couldn’t finish with Iran, stoking inflation and offending Christians. Barred from running again, he may feel he has nothing to lose

Lance Johnson voted for Donald Trump three times. Now he is feeling buyer’s remorse. “I haven’t been too happy with the third time around,” said the 47-year-old contractor, sitting at a bar in Crescent Springs, Kentucky. “We’re supposed to not start any new wars. Prices were supposed to come down. We were promised a lot of things and we’re not getting them.”

Johnson is not the only Trump voter having doubts about a US president who, after defying political gravity for a decade, finally seems to be crashing back to earth. The past two weeks have arguably been the most bruising of Trump’s two terms in office, suggesting that his tried and trusted playbook could finally be falling apart.

I have a lot of sympathy for Meghan but, at times, I do think that the Duchess of Sussex could do with putting her trials and tribulations in perspective

Iran may have reopened the strait of Hormuz, but a global energy crisis has not yet been averted. The war has already damaged as much as $58bn worth of power infrastructure. Even under the best-case circumstances, these could take years to repair.

Luckily, I think I’ve got a way to get us out of this mess. First we invent some sort of large suction device (technical details to be worked out later). Then we turn it on and hoover up all the rage directed at the Duchess of Sussex. Boom, energy crisis solved.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist

The comedian and broadcaster on moaning about his eyebags, being stabbed by muggers, and his publicity-shy pet

Born in County Dublin, Graham Norton, 63, studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In the 1990s, he was a standup and appeared in the sitcom Father Ted. Since 2007, he has presented The Graham Norton Show for the BBC. He hosts Eurovision, is a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and is presenting new reality show The Neighbourhood, which starts on 24 April on ITV. He has won nine Baftas and written three memoirs and five novels. He is married and lives in London and West Cork.

When were you happiest?
Our wedding weekend in Ireland.

Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat. But that doesn’t mean it is just a re-run of history

Politics, before it is about anything else, is about emotion. We all base our judgments about the world – the state of the country we live in, for instance, and what we’d like to do about it – on a mix of rational calculation and instinct. But for these judgments to be shaped into a political programme whose ideals are shared by millions of people, and for us to place our trust in leaders who promise to realise those goals, we really have to feel it. What, then, might be the particular set of feelings evoked by the following?

“The Britain that I love is being ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion.”
Suella Braverman, former home secretary, February 2026

As revelations mount and accusations fly, prime minister prepares for MPs’ anger and Olly Robbins’ testimony early next week

• UK politics live: latest news updates

Keir Starmer’s claim he was “staggered” not to have been told of Peter Mandelson’s vetting failure has provoked incredulity across Westminster and accusations that he sacked a senior civil servant to save his premiership.

Senior government figures said the prime minister faced “judgment day” next week when Olly Robbins, who is understood to be furious at being forced to quit the Foreign Office, is expected to appear before a powerful committee of MPs.

Simon McDonald says Olly Robbins was ‘thrown under a bus’ by the prime minister and the decision feels wrong

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Peter Mandelson security vetting scandal is the biggest crisis for the diplomatic service in decades, a former Foreign Office chief has said.

Simon McDonald, who was the permanent under-secretary of the government department until 2020, has spoken out in defence of Oliver Robbins, saying the civil servant was “thrown under a bus” by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, when he was dismissed from his role on Thursday.

Inquiries into who knew what, and when, will be pored over in coming weeks and could ultimately decide Starmer’s fate

When the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting checks before being appointed as British ambassador to Washington, members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, who were scattered around the world on government business, were caught by the same element of surprise.

In Washington for the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had just come out of a meeting with the Ukrainian finance minister when she was told the breaking news.

In a statement carried by Iranian media, the Iranian military’s operational command said the strait had ‘reverted to its previous state’

Separate to the Pakistani army chief’s trip to Iran (see post at 07:53), the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and foreign minister Ishaq Dar also concluded a trip to the Middle East after visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for talks.

“We have just concluded the last leg of our engagements following productive and fruitful visits … where we held meaningful bilateral discussions aimed at strengthening cooperation across key areas,” Dar said on X.