Underbelly Boulevard, London
Eschewing the customary conjuror’s hype, Frayne’s new show follows traumatic illness and delivers high excitement in an unusually low key

What do you get when you subtract the hip alter ego from magician Steven Frayne? And, for that matter, most of the showmanship from onstage conjuring? You get this set from the artist formerly known as Dynamo, his first performed under his own name, after a stint in hospital (Frayne suffers from Crohn’s disease and arthritis) left him doubting he’d ever perform again. It’s an unorthodox show, because our host eschews the usual hype that inflates great magic into dramatic theatre. In its place, vulnerability and a seeming emotional honesty, as 42-year-old Frayne reconnects with his craft and builds a new identity out of the ashes of his old persona.

The tricks are strung together by autobiography, as Frayne gives us a slideshow of family photos, remembers the grandad who encouraged him to take up magic, and screens a video of his recent medical woes. Ostensibly, the tricks are tailored to the personal story – and to Frayne’s recent insight that “the magic is in other people”. In practice, this means audience participation, and the illusion that his stooges are the ones supplying the wonder.

At Underbelly Boulevard, London , until 11 May

Report released as Labour admits it will break promise to enact law by 36th anniversary and rewrites key proposals

Bereaved families have urged ministers to introduce the Hillsborough law in full, according to a new report, as Labour admitted a promise to bring legislation by the 36th anniversary would be broken.

The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and the Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds attended the “family listening day” event on 3 February, which the Ministry of Justice funded, organised by the campaign group Inquest.

Series of events mark 165th anniversary of birth of forgotten pacifist who exposed conditions in British concentration camps

She took on the might of establishment and empire to expose the suffering of women and children held in British concentration camps but her story has “faded” from the history books.

From 12 April a series of events are being held at the Cornish home where the pacifist, whistleblower and activist Emily Hobhouse grew up, around the 165th anniversary of her birth, part of efforts to shine a new light on her fight for justice.

With a byelection looming, the focus is on Runcorn where people voted for Labour in great numbers last year – but so far they feel short-changed

Crises suit him – whether in Southport, Ukraine or the White House. Facing the headwinds of the Donald Trump storm, Keir Starmer’s “we have your back” pledge yesterday at a car factory in Solihull heralded a welter of “further and faster” and “fight for the future” to match his apocalyptic “the world as we knew it has gone”. The psephology supremo Prof John Curtice says of the prime minister: “He’s brilliant at bad news.” Coping with catastrophe is his forte.

Yet the planet-wide tremor didn’t feature on the doorsteps of voters last weekend, as I listened to their conversations with Labour canvassers for the Runcorn and Helsby byelection next month. Fear of economic cataclysm as a result of Trump and his tariffs hadn’t arrived yet. But it is coming.

Elections set for 3 June after months of political turmoil triggered by Yoon Suk Yeol’s shock declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, the country’s acting president said on Tuesday, after predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from office over a disastrous declaration of martial law.

The government “is to set June 3 as the date for South Korea’s 21st presidential election”, prime minister Han Duck-soo said, adding that the day would be designated as a temporary public holiday to facilitate voting.

Monica Feria-Tinta is one of a growing number of lawyers using the courts to make governments around the world take action

In November 2024, Monica Feria-Tinta, a veteran of UN tribunals and the international criminal court, strode through a heavy black door into a Georgian building in London’s august legal district for a meeting about a tree in Southend. Affectionately known as Chester, the 150-year-old plane tree towers over a bus shelter in the centre of the Essex seaside town. The council wanted to cut it down and residents were fighting back – but they were running out of options. Katy Treverton, a local campaigner, had travelled from Southend to ask Feria-Tinta’s legal advice. “Chester is one of the last trees left in this part of Southend,” said Treverton, sitting at a large table in an airy meeting room. “Losing him would be losing part of the city’s identity.”

Feria-Tinta nodded, deep-red fingernails clattering on her laptop as she typed. She paused and looked up. “Are we entitled to nature? Is that a human right? I would say yes. It’s not an easy argument, but it’s a valid one.” She recommended going to the council with hard data about the impact of trees on health, and how removing the tree could violate the rights of an economically deprived community. Recent rulings in the European court of human rights, she added, reinforced the notion that the state has obligations on the climate crisis. This set a legal precedent that could help residents defend their single tree in Southend. “It isn’t just a tree,” said Feria-Tinta. “More than that is at stake: a principle.”

The UK is known for its national parks: areas of outstanding natural beauty with rolling hills and crystal-clear streams and lakes. But research has shown that England’s most protected rivers are full of pharmaceuticals.

In episode one of a two-part series, biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston tells Madeleine Finlay about the problem of chemical pollution in our waterways, and how it could be contributing to what the World Health Organization has described as ‘the silent pandemic’ – antimicrobial resistance.

‘Rivers you think are pristine are not’: how drug pollution flooded the UK’s waterways – and put human health at risk

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

His gleefully puerile take on punk brought him fame, an art collection and a Beverly Hills mansion – then the band split and he was diagnosed with lymphoma. How did he bounce back?

Mark Hoppus is prodding at his phone, attempting to find a photograph of the swimming pool at his mid-century modernist home in Beverly Hills. “The house was built in 1962. It has this really cool circular design – the whole house is a semi-circle, built around the pool, and the pool kind of mimics the semi-circle of the house itself, then it goes out into a normal pool shape,” he says. “So it looks like a dick. I have a dick-shaped swimming pool,” he nods.

There is more prodding. For a 53-year-old cancer survivor, he is oddly boyish – and not merely in his enthusiasm for swimming pools that look like genitalia: his skin is unlined; his hair stands up in a vertiginous, spiky quiff; he is wearing a pair of Vans skate shoes. “I’ll look it up on Google Maps so you can see it … let’s go to satellite view. It’s a dick that can be seen from outer space – here, see!” He hands me the phone triumphantly. “There’s the head and there’s the shaft.” He has a point – it does, indeed, look a bit like a crudely rendered penis and testicles.

Harsh weather is normal in Mongolia but the climate crisis has made conditions even more extreme. As millions of animals die and age-old traditions become harder to maintain, nomadic herders are forced into towns, where coal-fired heating has led to a health crisis

• ‘Everyone is breathing this’: how just trying to stay warm is killing thousands a year in the world’s coldest city