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Talking Horses: Mutasaabeq can collect colts’ Classic in 2,000 Guineas

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Charles Hills’s colt lacks experience but stormed clear of a small field in a lightning-fast time at the Craven meeting

Aidan O’Brien has a record 10 wins in the 2,000 Guineas to his name already and has enough confidence in a three-strong team for this year’s Newmarket Classic to keep St Mark’s Basilica, the Dewhurst winner, at Ballydoyle while he waits for the French equivalent.

That feels ominous for the home team but while Battleground, Wembley and Van Gogh all have solid claims, there is no sense of a standout colt in the O’Brien squad, or in the race as a whole for that matter.

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How Bafta spent two weeks grappling with Noel Clarke dilemma

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Academy says it was in ‘impossible’ situation but it faces questions over delays in offering safeguarding to alleged victims

When Bafta announced its plan to give Noel Clarke the award for outstanding British contribution to cinema on 29 March 2021, the academy’s film committee chair, Marc Samuelson, described him as an “inspiration … [we] cannot think of a more deserving recipient for this year’s award”.

Others in Britain’s film industry disagreed. Within hours, Bafta was contacted jointly by three industry figures alerting it to the existence of several allegations of verbal abuse, bullying and sexual harassment against Clarke.

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Labour needs to go for the jugular on Tory elitism | Owen Jones

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The current approach to ‘sleaze’ risks entrenching the cynicism many already feel about politics in general

Anywhere I’ve visited – market towns, Barratt estates, inner cities – and asked strangers their opinions on politics, the answers quickly drift in a predictable direction: politicians are all on the take, they’re in it for themselves, lining their pockets and taking us all for a ride. Politicians are less trusted than advertising executives – only one in seven trusts them to be honest – which is why the guaranteed route to receiving applause from a Question Time audience is to dismiss politicians as “all the same”. Episodes such as the expenses scandal, quite predictably, poured accelerant over an already raging bonfire of cynicism: the number of voters believing MPs put their own interests above all else surged.

If any good emerged from Boris Johnson reportedly declaring he would rather see the “bodies pile high” than lock down the country, it was that we would finally discuss how the government oversaw a pandemic death toll three times higher than the Luftwaffe managed in the blitz. Instead, we are now debating John Lewis curtains. That is not to dismiss the validity of the scrutiny the prime minister is under. A man sacked twice for deceit is a proven and objective liar; a man who, 12 years ago, dismissed his £250,000 second salary from the Telegraph as “chicken feed” clearly enjoys a standard of living most would deem luxurious as intolerable squalor. If a prime minister can receive secret lumps of money from anonymous wealthy donors, the electorate is denied the ability to scrutinise if there are any government rewards for such generosity.

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Garry Kasparov: ‘Why become a martyr? I can do much more outside Russia’

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The chess grandmaster on speaking out against Vladimir Putin and why he cannot choose the best player ever

“I haven’t stopped my fight against the regime,” says Garry Kasparov, his words bristling with defiance and quiet rage. “I’m not lowering my voice. Putin is not just a Russian imperialist. He has a much bigger agenda. He is an existential threat to the free world.”

It would have been easy for the greatest chess player in history to stay quiet after fleeing Russia in 2013 amid a crackdown on prominent opposition figures. Kasparov, after all, is a successful businessman, an expert on artificial intelligence and cyber security, and has just launched a new website, Kasparovchess.com. But that has never been his style. Not now. Not ever.

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Tom Jones, 80, becomes oldest man to top UK album chart

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Welsh singer says he is ‘forever grateful’ for achievement but remains 12 years behind Vera Lynn’s all-time benchmark

At 80 years of age, Tom Jones has become the oldest man to top the UK album chart, with his latest album Surrounded By Time.

It comes 56 years after his first album chart placing, his 1965 debut Along Came Jones.

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Janet Mock Demands More Pay for ‘Pose’ in Fiery Speech at Premiere: ‘You Have Stomped on Us’

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Jamie McCarthy/Getty

At the emotional New York City premiere for the third and final season of Pose on Thursday night, there were tears and there were truths. In the case of executive producer and director Janet Mock, who delivered a remarkable, at times uncomfortable and messy, and possibly industry-changing speech, there were dramatic examples of both.

“Fuck Hollywood,” she said early on in her address to the audience, which lasted about 15 minutes. “This makes you uncomfortable? It should. It should make you fucking shake in your motherfucking boots. This is speaking the truth. This is what Pose is.”

The socially distanced, COVID-safe event took place at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was one of the first major in-person premieres of its kind this year in New York and the first that FX, which will premiere the new season of Pose on Sunday, has hosted in well over a year.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Guardian view on Biden’s 100 days: going big, but not big enough | Editorial

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The US president is right to spend, but shrinking the federal deficit is not the priority

Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office signalled that the future does not have to be a rerun of the past. The US president’s speech to Congress this week made it clear that Trumpism was a warning from history, a reminder that no republic is guaranteed to last. The US remains in danger – its decline accelerated by an iniquitous economic model, and by leaders unable or unwilling to remedy it. It is a relief to find in the White House a president who wants to bridge divisions rather than widen them. Mr Biden should be praised for saying he will stop the rot and recognising the challenge to democracy posed by autocracy. But his response risks being undone by an obsession with containing non-existent fiscal risks.

The Biden White House proposes spending $4trn, with about half the money used to rewrite the social contract. The rest will create jobs, with infrastructure investments to repurpose the post-Covid economy for a zero-carbon world. The problem is not that money is being spent to fix a broken society. Neither is it wrong to ask the rich to pay their fair share of tax. The problem is that Mr Biden says spending must be balanced by tax rises or savings from other government programmes.

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The Guardian view on the world’s rarest stamp: obsession conquers all | Editorial

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The appeal of the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta may seem inexplicable, but it tells a very human story

It has been described as a “shoddy-looking thing”, and like “a red-wine stain or a receipt that’s been through the wash a few times”. The item in question is a stamp, one of a kind. It is now on public view in London, ahead of its auctioning in New York in June, when it is expected to fetch around £10m.

The story of the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta began when, in 1855, only 5,000 of an expected 50,000 stamps were shipped to the colony from England. The postmaster therefore commissioned “contingency” stamps – crude versions of the official issues, some of them four-cent stamps for letters, some one-cent stamps for newspapers, which were briefly put into circulation. Not a single example of the one-cent stamp was known to have been kept, until a small boy called Vernon Vaughan found one among his uncle’s papers in 1873 and sold it to a chum for six shillings.

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Prison governor defends Fishmongers’ Hall attacker attending education event

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William Styles says he had thought of Usman Khan as a ‘success story’ before he killed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones

A prison governor has defended allowing the terrorist Usman Khan to take part in a Learning Together education programme before his deadly attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in London.

William Styles, who was governor for most of Khan’s time at the jail for terrorist offences, told an inquest that months before Khan killed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones at a prisoner education event run by Learning Together in November 2019, he had thought Khan was “a success story” of the programme.

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California drought forces 15m salmon to take unusual route to Pacific: by road

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State officials will truck the young fish to the ocean, with the waterways they use to travel downstream historically low

California officials will truck more than 15 million young salmon raised at fish hatcheries in the state’s Central Valley agricultural region to the Pacific Ocean because projected river conditions show that the waterways the fish use to travel downstream will be historically low and warm due to increasing drought.

Officials announced the huge trucking operation on Wednesday, saying the effort is aimed at ensuring “the highest level of survival for the young salmon on their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean”.

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‘It’s going to be emotional’: clubbers return in Liverpool Covid pilot

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Three thousand people attend the First Dance, a day rave organised to test the safety of large events

“Last night we were all saying that we felt like kids on Christmas Eve,” said Olivia Hall, a 19-year-old student describing a conversation between herself and her friends. “We were all sat last night watching the telly thinking: ‘Oh God, we don’t want to go to sleep because we’re not going to sleep,’ we were all lying in bed too excited.”

Hall and her friends were some of the first to arrive at an empty warehouse on the outskirts of Liverpool city centre, which, with the help of a thumping sound system and LED lights, had been transformed into a day rave for 3,000 people.

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Welsh man who killed wife will not have five-year sentence increased

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Labour MP Harriet Harman says she was surprised by decision after court of appeal ruling in case of Anthony Williams

A man who strangled his wife to death five days into the first UK lockdown will not have his sentence increased, the court of appeal has ruled.

Anthony Williams, 70, strangled his wife, Ruth, 67, at their home in Brynglas, south Wales, after a period of feeling depressed and anxious and later told police he had been struggling mentally with coronavirus restrictions, his trial heard.

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‘It is life-saving’: Elliot Page reveals happiness at having had top surgery

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  • Juno and Inception star gives interview to Oprah Winfrey
  • ‘I feel like I haven’t gotten to be myself since I was 10 years old’

Actor Elliot Page has revealed how much happier he feels after having top surgery, and described transitioning as “life-saving”.

“I want people to know that not only has it been life-changing for me, I do believe it is life-saving and it’s the case for so many people,” the actor told Oprah Winfrey on her new show for Apple TV+.

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Why the Guardian is a paper worth waiting for – and sticking with | Letter

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Sally Smith on how her lifelong appreciation of this publication began and has endured

When I was a little girl living in Truro in the 1950s, my parents couldn’t afford a daily paper. However, Truro City Library held an auction each year to sell off all the periodicals they had had for their readers.

My dad, a Manchester man, always bid for the Manchester Guardian and Punch magazine, and used to “collect” the precious papers each weekend (Letters, 27 April).

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