• ‘There are clear similarities to football’

• World No 1 Magnus Carlsen likely to play

Erling Haaland has become a significant investor in a new world chess championship tour that is expected to star his fellow Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the Guardian can reveal.

The deal was agreed shortly before Manchester City played at West Ham last Saturday, with Haaland shown on Sky Sports wearing a Norway Chess cap as he entered the London Stadium – without anyone noticing.

Close relatives of affected post office operators will be able to make claim over harm scandal caused families

Family members of post office operators affected by the Horizon IT scandal will be able to claim compensation under a new government scheme.

Campaigners have lobbied for compensation in relation to the harm the scandal has caused to the mental health and wellbeing of close relatives who have not been eligible under the redress schemes being run by the Post Office and the government.

From asparagus fritters and crab cakes to rhubarb tarts and barely dressed baby potatoes, now’s the time to embrace fresh, bright flavours

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

After what felt like months and months of endless rain this winter, in the UK at least, the arrival of spring is more welcome than ever this year. It’s undeniable that a few days of sunshine and milder temperatures change everything: my mood, my palate, my dinner table (see below for my achilles heel: serveware).

And to mark the change in season, the Guardian is launching a new seasonal food magazine. This Saturday will see the arrival of the Guardian Food Quarterly, for which I have showcased crab – one of my favourite spring arrivals. I have written five recipes , including a speedy, spicy crab cake banh mi with quick pickles, and a hot cheesy crab and chive dip inspired by the American south. If you are in the camp that thinks that cheese and seafood are a no-no, then I hope you will trust me on this one. Just be sure to use that sweet, punchy brown meat in the mix, too, for maximum flavour.

Jury Duty’s first season convinced a member of the public he was taking part in a documentary about how courts work – but it was really a reality show where everyone else was actors. Its company retreat-based sequel ups the stakes brilliantly

If ever there was a TV show that you’d think should be left at a single season, it would be Jury Duty.

The Amazon series became a slow-burning, word-of-mouth hit through 2023 for pulling off a frankly unbelievable stunt: successfully convincing one man, Ronald Gladden, that he was taking part in an LA courtroom documentary when, actually, everything about the process was staged and he was the only participant who was not an actor.

After Six Nations, focus back on clubs with Saracens’ director of rugby saying ‘there’s everything to play for’

Remember the Prem? It’s been in hibernation almost as long as your tortoise. The last sighting of England’s elite men’s domestic league was on 24 January but now, finally, it is re-emerging from the shadows of the Six Nations , starting under the Friday night lights at the Rec where second-placed Bath are hosting sixth-placed Saracens.

It has certainly felt like a protracted hiatus, even if the lower-profile Prem Cup has taken up some slack. And with only eight regular season rounds remaining every would-be playoff contender has no choice but to hit the ground running. As Bath’s head coach, Johann van Graan, says: “It doesn’t really matter what you’ve done before. It’s about what you do going forward.”

Which, up to a point, is true. The race to make the top four still has six realistic candidates separated by only 11 points. Given the lack of relegation in a 10-team-league, though, the organisers will be praying for a compelling run-in with Sale Sharks, Gloucester, Harlequins and Newcastle Red Bulls already trailing the rest of the peloton.

The good news is that a spectacular Six Nations has raised rugby’s profile at just the right time. Next week is being billed as the Big Match Bonanza, with a triple-header of games scheduled for Villa Park, Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

By then a few more battered England squad members should be back out on the field, including the national captain Maro Itoje and Jamie George. Reducing the number of fallow Six Nations weeks from two to one may have assisted the tournament’s momentum but, inevitably, there is a knock-on effect. Ben Spencer, though, is back to lead Bath just six days after playing for England in Paris and Scotland’s Finn Russell, too, is straight in at 10. Guy Pepper and Sam Underhill are on the bench, while Elliot Daly starts for Sarries.

The two clubs, as it happens, are due to face off again at the Rec in the last 16 of the Champions Cup on Easter Saturday, which puts the ball squarely in Sarries’ court. Lose both fixtures plus next week’s league fixture at home to leaders Northampton and their season will be in real danger of petering out.

Bath, by contrast, are sitting reasonably pretty with no post-Six Nations injury issues and their finances stabilised by the new ownership alliance of James Dyson and Bruce Craig. Van Graan has been urging his trophy-chasing squad to think of the season like a train journey; no matter which individuals get on and off the important thing is to reach their collective destination. “We’ve got things we want to achieve through the rest of the season but we know we can only do it a week at a time,” stressed the head coach. “There’s a big chunk of the season lying ahead.”

Carriers warn they cannot hold off passing on costs for long, while some airlines plan to increase flights via Asia

• Business live – latest updates

Europe’s biggest airlines have said the rise in fuel prices caused by the war in the Middle East will drive up fares and are advising passengers to book early.

While carriers have partly hedged the price of jet fuel, bosses said they could not avoid passing on additional costs to passengers for long.

From mezcal to sotól, the agave plant delivers a bounty of styles and flavours to explore

“We were amazed,” wrote the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo as he beheld the extent of the Aztec empire in 1521. “Some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream.” I remember feeling a similar vertigo when I first saw the wall of agave spirits at the long-since-closed Los Angeles mezcaleria Petty Cash more than a decade ago. Agave spirits are distilled from the fermented heart (or piña ) of the agave plant – not a cactus, but a succulent, like aloe vera or that thing dying on your windowsill.

Tequila, from Jalisco, is the most famous kind, but it’s far from the only one, much as burgundy is just one way the French make wine. And here was an entire continent to (respectfully) explore: not only refined tequilas, but hundreds of mezcals from wild, untamable agaves: madrecuixe , arroqueño , tobalá and pulquero , some of which take 25 years to reach maturity. Beyond these foothills were spirits that had barely penetrated European bartending consciousness: sotól and raicilla , bacanora and pox (“posh”) made from maize, as well as pechuga , whose ingredients include, yum, poultry breasts. And all this at a time when a lot of tequila sold in Britain came topped with red plastic sombreros.

Decision to hold interest rates is backed by gloomy assessment of economy as Iran war pushes up oil prices

• Bank of England holds interest rates at 3.75%

• Business live – latest updates

The US-Israel attack on Iran has already driven prices higher and not just at the petrol pumps, the Bank of England said on Thursday in a gloomy assessment of the UK’s economic outlook.

An inflation rate that was on track to fall from 3% to the Bank’s 2% target in the coming months is now expected to rise to 3.5%. That is one probable impact of the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

Peers’ decision welcomed as ‘landmark moment’ after attempt to strike out amendment is defeated

Women who have been convicted, and in some cases jailed, over illegal abortions are set to be pardoned, after an historic vote in the House of Lords.

Last June, the House of Commons voted to end the criminalisation of women who terminate their pregnancies outside of the legal framework, while keeping the existing framework in place. Doctors and others who act outside of the law could still face the threat of prosecution.