As Metallica et al broke through, Kreator, Sodom and Destruction were forging an even harder sound. They recall gigs in coalmines, sessions in steelworks – and boozing with Slayer

The noise might have been building since the early 80s, but 1986 was the year thrash metal broke – bursting like a zit on a teenage metalhead’s bumfluffed chin. Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica all released landmark albums, with the latter swapping fleapit rock clubs for a string of arena dates supporting Ozzy Osbourne. But while these California acts would alter the course of rock music for ever, a clutch of like-minded teenagers were carving their own path 5,500 miles away from the genre’s epicentre.

What Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard – the “big four” of German thrash metal – might have lacked in finesse and professional outlook, they made up for in sheer unbridled aggression. Faster and meaner than most of their American peers, these bands helped to set a new benchmark for brutality while unwittingly influencing the next generation of death- and black-metal musicians.

The actor skipped Academy Awards ceremony to travel to Ukraine, where he was presented with alternative prize

Sean Penn has been presented with an Oscar fashioned from the metal of a Ukrainian railway carriage damaged by Russian missiles.

The statue, which is flat, silver and shaped like an Academy Award, was given to him by Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of Ukrainian railways, who told him: “You’re missing Oscars, so we made this one.”

Graham Napier’s IPL career amounted to a solitary game but the all-rounder has no regrets about how things turned out

“Some people do recognise me occasionally and it’s always nice to have a chat about cricket.” Graham Napier has a few minutes between appointments. As a fire safety officer in Suffolk the 46-year-old former Essex all-rounder “goes everywhere, schools, cafes, barbershops, churches …” to install and service fire extinguishers. It’s not lost on him that as a player he was often the one responsible for pyrotechnics.

On a June evening in 2008 Napier blasted 152 not out off 58 balls for Essex in a televised T20 Blast match against Sussex. He broke the English record for the highest score in T20 cricket and equalled the world record for the most sixes, 16 , in one innings. The knock caught the eye of England’s selectors but also those from further afield.

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Guardian analysis of more than a million emails reveals financier’s deep and longstanding ties with the wealthy and powerful

The release of the Epstein files has reverberated around the world, leading to at least nine resignations and investigations into high-profile figures, including the former UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, and the ex-prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The deluge of information has made it hard to assess the extent of the connections but a Guardian data analysis reveals how frequent, deep and longstanding his ties were to a number of high-profile figures.

We’ve been here before with Covid and Ukraine. Making borrowing more expensive won’t work – only price controls, caps and public ownership can do that

The Bank of England’s interest-rate committee meets on Thursday , facing up to the global inflation shock triggered by the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. The most immediate driver of inflation is the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz by the Iranian military, a global chokepoint through which 20%-30% of the world’s oil, gas and fertiliser inputs are normally shipped from the Gulf states.

Benchmark oil and gas prices are up by more than 40% and 50%, respectively. The UK is highly exposed, given that we are net importers of gas and have an energy market where the global price of gas directly influences the cost of electricity provision. The energy price cap will shield most households until the summer, but UK diesel prices are already up by about 12% and petrol by 6% . The government has intervened with a £53m package to support households in rural areas that heat their homes with oil.

Josh Ryan-Collins is associate professor of economics and finance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Long seen as the poor relation to arabica, small growers in the Amazon are rebooting the more resilient robusta’s reputation

• Read more in the Coffee crisis series here

When the Paiter Suruí community expelled the last invaders of their land in 1981, they faced a divisive decision. Should they keep the coffee plantations left by the colonisers? Some destroyed them because of the death and violence contact with the non-Indigenous world had caused. Others felt sorry for the trees and couldn’t kill them.

More than 40 years later, those estates that survived are being nurtured, supporting families and the environment. “Today, we use coffee as a way to preserve the forest,” says Celeste Paytxayeb Suruí, a famous Indigenous barista and coffee producer in Brazil . The award-winning fine coffee she prepares is called “Amazonian robusta”, and is produced in the Brazilian state of Rondônia in the western Amazon.

Untold numbers will get sick as a result. Clinics are scrambling, and no one seems to be able to explain why this is happening

They’re calling it a funding cliff for sexual health in America. Pap smears and HIV tests will be cancelled. IUD appointments will have to be rebooked; condoms and birth control pills that used to be free will now come with a price tag. Maternal health outcomes will worsen, and STDs will spread. Some nurses, doctors, and other health clinic staff will be laid off, and clinic hours will be slashed. The long-term impacts for public health could be horrific.

On 31 March, millions of Americans may lose access to birth control and STD screening services provided by the Title X program, a $286m annual public health investment that provides sexual and reproductive care for Americans, mostly women, who are low-income or lack health insurance. More than 2 3 million people used the program in 2023; now, they are likely to be denied care – being forced to pay out-of-pocket for services that used to be free, or to make the decision to go without.

Use AI as a brainstorming partner and organizer, but don’t outsource your judgment

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Three years on from the release of ChatGPT, two broad camps have formed: those people who refuse to use it, and those who use it every day.

A 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center found that one-third of US adults say they have been using ChatGPT. This includes 58% of US adults under 30 – roughly double the share two years ago.

The humour falls flat, the twists are weak, the plotlines are absurd and it’s soaked in booze and gambling. The only thing that saves this film are the actors’ performances

Writer-director Liam O Mochain spent more than three years filming this feature, a package of five narratively self-contained shorts set in various parts of Ireland. That either makes him heroically persistent about seeing his vision through or somewhat inept, as there’s no discernible improvement over the course of the film. Every one of these thudding tales is flatly directed and plays like the script was inspired by true stories from Take a Break magazine – although hopefully there’s nothing true about the would-be comical fourth story which (spoiler alert) ends with a woman (Gail Brady) getting locked inside a “smart” oven that’s about to turn itself on. It’s supposed to be funny because her husband (Matthew O’Brien) is so feckless about technology he doesn’t know how to turn the oven off. Because men, geddit?

The other instalments are a little better, but only by tiny amounts, much the way one flavour of off-brand crisps might be preferable to another. The first one at least has the always watchable redoubtable character actor Marion O’Dwyer playing Carol, a homeless woman still grieving her dead husband (she listens to his voicemail greeting several times a day). She breaks into a restaurant on Christmas Day to host a feast for her rough-sleeping friends. Similarly, a vignette about Molly (Rosemary Henderson) meeting the son she put up for adoption years ago is passable thanks to competent performances, but the O Henry-esque twist is very weak tea.