Fight Night by Miriam Toews review – a paean to the strength of women

The Canadian author once again mines her cultural background in a wonderfully drawn celebration of intergenerational bondingMiriam Toews’s fiction always puts me in mind of the paintings of Agnes Martin: both artists use repeating patterns, creating distinct pieces from variations on the same basic elements. For Toews, the motifs that are reworked through...

8m

The ‘straight, white, Christian, suburban mom’ taking on Republicans at their own game

Mallory McMorrow’s riposte to a hurtful slander by a colleague in the Michigan state senate that she wanted to ‘groom’ children went viral and has been hailed as a midterms blueprint for DemocratsMallory McMorrow remembers the sting of being slandered by a colleague for wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” young children. “I felt horrible,” she says....

8m

When Liverpool beat Real Madrid in the 1981 European Cup final in Paris

The last time these two sides met in a European Cup final in Paris, Liverpool emerged victorious after a disappointing gameBy Steven Pye for That 1980s Sports BlogWith a minute to go at the Bernabéu in the second leg of Real Madrid’s semi-final against Manchester City, the prospect of reminiscing about the 1981 European Cup final seemed distant. Yet,...

8m

The Burning Sea review – Norwegian oil-spill thriller aims to avert disaster

Mildly eco-catastrophising offering, in which pasty boiler-suited characters try to cope with liquid disasterThe Norwegian production company that made contemporary disaster films The Wave, from 2015 and, three years later, The Quake, is back with another commercial blend of visual effects, melodrama and mildly didactic but not-too-preachy eco-catastrophising....

8m

Funny Pages review – a deliciously dark coming-of-age comedy

Owen Kline fuses teen innocence with adult sexuality in a bad-taste debut film that recalls American Splendor and CrumbAs a child actor, Owen Kline played Jesse Eisenberg’s kid brother in The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s excruciating comedy about a middle-class New York family wrecked by divorce, with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as the warring...

8m

Watching less TV could cut heart disease, study finds

About 11% of cases could be prevented if people reduced TV watching from two or more hours to less than an hour a dayMore than one in 10 cases of coronary heart disease could be prevented if people reduced their TV viewing to less than an hour a day, research suggests.Coronary heart disease occurs when fatty material builds up inside the coronary arteries...

8m

Crossrail: Elizabeth line hailed as ‘fit for a Queen’ as it opens

After delays to tunnelled section under London, first trains run on timeThe first Elizabeth line trains to carry passengers through the new tunnels under London departed on time on Tuesday morning, marking the start of an era of greater speed, space and comfort – “fit for a Queen, and Londoners”, the mayor, Sadiq Khan, said.Hundreds of people braved...

1h

‘It’s so joyful and full of promise’: a modernism exhibition aims for hope

At a new exhibition at the Whitney in New York, a look back at early 20th-century modernist art offers optimism and also a rare diversityAlthough the dawn of the 20th century was a time of war, pandemic and social upheaval, it also brought with it an undeniable sense of hope and opportunity that was central to the modernist art that was flourishing...

1h

Lawrenson’s retirement marks the end of football punditry’s era of innocence | Jonathan Liew

He did not rant, laugh or ‘destroy’ anybody: Mark Lawrenson reached back to when sport on TV was still light entertainmentThis is no tribute. In many ways to break out the violins for Mark Lawrenson would really be to miss the true essence of the man. You may even have missed his retirement last week amid the opera of season-ending farewells. Divock...

1h

Jean Carne: ‘It feels like it’s my time now’

She hung out with Earth, Wind & Fire, helped coach Michael Jackson and was the last person to sing with Duke Ellington. Now Jean Carne is enjoying an unexpected second spell in the limelightAt 21, the singer Jean Carne had uprooted her life in Atlanta, Georgia, to elope to Hollywood with jazz pianist Doug Carn. It was 1969, and like so many American...

1h