Author: The Guardian

I am a man in my early 30s married to a man in his mid-50s. We have always been in an open relationship: we met at a sex party. When we met I was always a bottom and he a top. Over time, however, he has become obsessed with bottoming. He never penetrates me, even in a group, and has starting expressing jealousy about the tops that I attract. I feel he is throwing our life away in pursuit of a pipe dream and I long to get back the dominant top that I married – a role he is…

Europe no longer wields the power it once did in world affairs, when there was a liberal international order that hinged on US power and in which international cooperation flourished. In that world, Europe was not a superpower, but the hallmarks of the post-cold war era – multilateralism, regional cooperation, interdependence, the flourishing of democracy, soft power and free trade – were also insignia of the European Union.Today we are in a post-post-cold war era and the world has changed direction. Some features of the old system live on. But contrasting forces such as nationalism, protectionism and unilateralism are all…

‘My greatest fear is to make a really shitty, embarrassing, pompous film on an important subject, and I am doing it,” Francis Ford Coppola said in 1978. “I will tell you right straight from the most sincere depths of my heart, the film will not be good.” The film was Apocalypse Now, and it was good, and the rest is history.Part of that history has been Coppola’s reputation as an intrepid adventurer who was prepared to risk everything, to defy the studio suits, to go to the brink of ruin and madness, all for the sake of art. The making…

When Kate from Pembrokeshire started experiencing vertigo, flooding periods, exhaustion and brain fog at 51, she had no idea what was happening to her. “It was really scary,” she says, “I felt like I was losing my mind.” Working as the general manager of a travel company, she was surrounded by younger colleagues she didn’t feel she could confide in. She recalls sitting at her desk one day thinking, “What is my job?”She eventually quit, feeling like she couldn’t manage any more. It wasn’t until the hot flushes began after a year that she saw a doctor. “I didn’t know I…

The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles.Video of the incident on Monday at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, showed settlers blocking the trucks and throwing boxes of much-needed supplies on the ground. Photographs from the scene showed piles of damaged aid packages and drifts of rice and flour across the road.Late on Monday, photos began circulating on social media showing the trucks on fire.Israel has faced heavy international pressure to step…

Gaza’s Hamas-run ministry of health has revised down figures for the number of women and children confirmed killed in the conflict in the coastal strip.The revised totals, which first appeared on the website of the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha), were seized on as proof by pro-Israel media and commentators that the UN had quietly reassessed civilian casualty rates. However, Ocha told the Guardian that the revised figures had been produced by the Hamas ministry and had not been verified by the UN.The Guardian also understands that the new figures provided by the ministry relate to…

That the findings of the UK’s first inquiry into birth trauma are far from surprising does not diminish the fact that they are shocking, devastating and difficult – indeed distressing – to read. The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for birth trauma’s 80-page report should give ministers, NHS bosses and the midwives and obstetricians who deliver care serious pause for thought.It highlights how “mistakes and failures” by maternity staff lead to stillbirths, premature births, babies being born with cerebral palsy because they were starved of oxygen at birth, and “life-changing injuries to women as the result of severe tearing”. How some…

Johnny McEntee, the former White House Trump aide closely linked to plans for radical federal government reform should Donald Trump win re-election, stoked outrage with a TikTok video in which he claimed to give unhoused people fake money, thereby to ensure their arrest.“So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car,” McEntee said in the video posted last week by The Right Stuff, a dating site for rightwingers of which McEntee is a co-founder.“So when a homeless person asks for money, then I give them like a fake $5 bill. So I feel good about myself. They feel…

Actor Steve Buscemi is OK after being punched in the face by a man on a New York street, his publicist said Sunday.The 66-year-old star of “Fargo” and “Boardwalk Empire” was attacked in Manhattan on Wednesday morning and was taken to a nearby hospital with bruises, swelling and bleeding over his left eye.”Steve Buscemi was attacked in midtown Manhattan, another victim of random acts of violence in the city,” his publicist said in a statement. “He’s fine and thank you all for the well wishes.”The New York Post first reported the attack.The New York Police Department released a statement Wednesday…

It’s easy to buy into the narrative that sex after 50 is more trouble than it is worth. Fluctuating or falling levels of sex hormones can play havoc with a woman’s desire and experience of sex during perimenopause and beyond. Not only are there physical changes that can render what was once pleasurable unsatisfying or even painful, but tiredness, anxiety and diminished self-confidence can also put the kibosh on sex.Doctors don’t necessarily help. “I suspect part of the reason why a lot of people are gloomy is because they’ve had pushback from doctors who have reacted to their desire to…