Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approach

Ian Russell describes his life as being split into two parts: before and after 20 November 2017, the day his youngest daughter, Molly, took her own life as a result of depression and negative social media content. “Our life before Molly’s death was very ordinary. Unremarkable,” he says. He was a television producer and director, married with three daughters. “We lived in an ordinary London suburb, in an ordinary semi-detached house, the children went to ordinary schools.” The weekend before Molly’s death, they had a celebration for all three girls’ birthdays, which are in November. One was turning 21, another 18 and Molly was soon to be 15. “And I remember being in the kitchen of a house full of friends and family and thinking, ‘This is so good. I’ve never been so happy,’” he says. “That was on a Saturday night and the following Tuesday morning, everything was different.”

The second part of Russell’s life has been not only grief and trauma, but also a commitment to discovering and exposing the truth about the online content that contributed to Molly’s death, and campaigning to prevent others falling prey to the same harms. Both elements lasted far longer than he anticipated. It took nearly five years to get enough information out of social media companies for an inquest to conclude that Molly died “from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content”. As for the campaigning, the Molly Rose Foundation provides support, conducts research and raises awareness of online harms, and Russell has been an omnipresent spokesperson on these issues.

This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the moment, everything else is a distraction

When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame our phones. It’s easy, it’s meant to be easy. One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government’s attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.

So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the brink of an authoritarian take-over. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terezin concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Crimefighting nuns, giant killer white balloons and Aubrey Plaza getting stuck in a wall … here are your favourite ever mind-bending TV series

Catterick is my favourite baffling TV show. It stars Vic and Bob and a stellar backup cast – Reece Shearsmith, Tim Healey, Mark Benton, Matt Lucas and Morwenna Banks. It starts off innocuously enough with Carl Palmer (Bob) returning to Catterick to visit his brother Chris (Vic) but quickly descends into anarchy. The extremely loose plot centres around the criminal antics of mummy’s boy Tony (Shearsmith) but there are more tangents than a geometry conference. From ripped up posters of George Clooney and haunting dance routines to Chris Rea and Foreigner, Catterick should be top of your TV destinations. Tom Whelan, South Shields

Good transport links and the quietly booming nuclear sector are helping the Cheshire town to thrive

• Incomes in 11 cities and towns have risen twice as fast as rest of UK

As the demolition excavator crashes its metal jaws through Warrington’s former Unilever soap factory, Carl Oates says the town is good at handling change. Once contractors have finished, his company plans to open a datacentre,reinventing a site from the first Industrial Revolution for the next.

“As one industry closes, Warrington has been quite good at opening new ones – and we hope datacentres is one of those new spaces.”

Casemiro is thriving under Michael Carrick, Newcastle look short of ideas and Sean Dyche takes aims at … towels?

Casemiro will depart Manchester United this summer. His four years in English football have been mixed but he may yet go out on a high. At one point in his first season, such as his performance in the 2023 League Cup final, he was hailed as the club’s best signing since Eric Cantona. He never lived up to that billing, the accusation that United had overpaid for someone who left his legs in Madrid. At the Emirates in 2026, just as against Manchester City the previous week, he showed his muscle memory endures. Kobbie Mainoo is a project player for Michael Carrick. Mainoo can learn much in his remaining months alongside Casemiro, who completed the 90 minutes at Arsenal and retained his influence. United are linked with younger midfielders in Carlos Baleba, Adam Wharton and Elliot Anderson. They may now have something to live up to. John Brewin

Match report: Arsenal 2-3 Manchester United

Match report: Newcastle 0-2 Aston Villa

Match report: Burnley 2-2 Tottenham

Match report: Manchester City 2-0 Wolves

Preventing the mayor from returning to Westminster deprives the party of its most potent candidate in Gorton and Denton

When Labour dignitaries gathered at the Titanic hotel in Liverpool on Friday night, one question loomed above all others: to change captain or not?

For many, that question has become even more pressing after Keir Starmer’s allies brutally stopped Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster before it had even begun.

Commons seat campaign by Greater Manchester mayor mid-term would drain resources, says Douglas Alexander

Labour’s decision to bar Andy Burnham from standing in a Westminster byelection was about “focus than about factionalism”, so the party would not be distracted ahead of vital elections in May, Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary, has said.

Defending the decision by the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to block the Greater Manchester mayor from being a candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection, Alexander said this was not because Keir Starmer was scared of a leadership challenge.

Former president and first lady say killing should be ‘wake-up call’ and federal agents are not operating in lawful way

Pressure mounted on Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday to fully investigate the previous day’s killing by federal immigration officers of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Calls for an investigation have come from all sides of the political divide after video analysis showed officers had removed from Pretti a handgun he was reportedly permitted to carry – and which he was not handling – before fatally shooting him.

Britain is losing more jobs than it creates owing to artificial intelligence, Morgan Stanley research suggests

• More than a quarter of Britons fear losing job to AI in next five years

• Business live – latest updates

The UK is losing more jobs than it is creating because of artificial intelligence and is being hit harder than rival large economies, new research suggests.

British companies reported that AI had resulted in net job losses over the past 12 months, down 8% – the highest rate among other leading economies including the US, Japan, Germany and Australia, according to a study by the investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Ukrainian president’s remarks come as Russia praises trilateral talks but warns against expectations of ‘significant results’

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the negotiations with the US over a security guarantees agreement were “100%” done and the deal was just waiting to be signed, as Russia has praised the trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US over the weekend as held in “constructive spirit.”

“It would be a mistake to expect any significant results from the initial contacts … But the very fact that these contacts have begun in a constructive spirit can be viewed positively. However, there is significant work ahead,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists.