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The Lead: Carla Simón's Unique Approach to Family DramaFamily reunions in European arthouse cinema are almost always unhappy events, on a scale of strife that ranges from simmering resentment to spectacular score-settling. Carla Simón, however, has a rare gift: she makes you leave the cinema with renewed faith that having relatives and keeping in touch with them may actually be a wonderful thing.No film-maker working in Europe now is as capable of turning birthday gatherings, garden parties or poolside barbecues into thrillingly sprawling canvases of human virtue and vice as this 39-year-old rising star. From a riotous water fight in the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning farming drama Alcarràs to a foul-mouthed dinner table singalong in her new film Romería, Simón directs kinship meetings with the attention to detail that other film-makers may invest in action sequences or dance routines.The Event Details: Romería and the Journey to Self-DiscoveryAmong the tricks Simón employs, she explains, is to ensure her actors only read the script once before the camera starts rolling, so they have to improvise to fill the gaps. She takes her casts to parties, for walks and on shopping trips, and if there are disagreements on the way, so much the better. The ultimate secret sauce, though, is to ignore WC Fields's notorious advice and always work with children and animals."I never get bored of working with kids," she says. "When you are only working with adult actors, shooting becomes more like executing an idea that you have in your mind, and I think that is not interesting. With children, you always have this feeling that that things are going to happen in front of the camera by chance. It keeps things alive."Her new film Romería, meaning "pilgrimage" in Spanish, dives deeper into the story of the biological parents she barely got to know. Eighteen-year-old Marina travels to her relatives in Vigo, in north-western Galicia, purportedly to find the death certificate of her biological father, which she needs to study film-making in Barcelona. The initial reaction is warm, but family is a room with dark corners and locked closets.The Personal Journey: Aids, Loss and Family SecretsSimón's fascination with freewheeling scenes of family life was undoubtedly honed through her own biography. Born in Barcelona in 1986, her father died when she was three and her mother when she was six. Both of them succumbed to Aids. She was 12 when her adoptive mother told her that her parents had been infected with the autoimmune disease through their use of drugs.All of her first three films have been strongly autobiographical: Summer 1993 tells the story of a six-year-old girl who moves to an unspecified location countryside to live with her aunt after the death of her mother, while 2022's Alcarràs is specifically set in the Catalan peach-growing community of her adoptive family.In the film, a cache of letters written by her late mother opens up a portal to the time when her parents met and discovered love – for each other, the Atlantic Ocean and drugs. The letters, Simón explains, are real. "She wrote to her friends and family while she lived in Vigo. Her Catalan is full of mistakes, because teaching Catalan was banned under the Franco regime. But they are the most important thing that I have from my mother, because suddenly I can hear her talking."The Impact Analysis: Spanish Cinema and the Legacy of AidsSpanish cinema has a track record in making films where child actors take centre stage: Ana Torrent's spell-binding turn as a young girl obsessed with the Frankenstein tale in Víctor Erice's 1973 film The Spirit of the Beehive is considered an all-time great performance by a minor, and Simón describes it as "a very, very important film for me".During the transition period after Franco's rule, Madrid gave birth to la movida, a countercultural movement that celebrated lifestyles that had been banned under military rule. "All these kids who were raised under Franco and religious oppression, suddenly freedom arrived and they embraced it", Simón says. "They didn't think much about the future or the consequences of what they were experimenting with. And then the drugs came in."When we talk about this generation in Spain, people sometimes use words like shame and blame, but I feel that's really unfair: people like my parents just had bad luck.The Future Direction: Beyond Family in Simón's Next ProjectHalfway through Romería there is a stylistic shift, from the Eurorealism she favoured in her previous works toward something more magical-realist: there is a mysterious cat you might expect to encounter in a Miyazaki film, and an unforgettable dance number set to Vigo punk rocker's Siniestro Total's song Bailaré Sobre Tu Tumba ("I'll Dance on Your Grave")."These three films I've made are kind of a cycle, because they all talk about my family, adoptive and biological. But since I became a mother a few years ago, I feel that my place in the family changed. When you have kids you feel it's a new period in your life, so I feel like maybe doing something that has nothing to do with my family."Her next film, she confides, is going to be a flamenco musical.

The Artist's Journey Through Love and LossFalling in and then out of love is a universal experience that often brings sadness, grief and heartbreak, and with time, hope and healing. Photographer Diana Markosian used her camera lens to document these complex feelings in her new project, Replaced.She brings the viewer on her journey of having, losing and reclaiming love, in a project that blurs documentary and fiction. "[The moments] no longer existed in the way they had, and I wanted to reclaim them," she says. "I wanted to feel that I could exist in my own story again."Recreating Intimate Moments Through ArtTo document their relationship, Markosian and her team worked with an actor to play her ex-partner. Each intimate image from the series, taken over three months, is a replica of an exact moment once shared with her ex and now shared between her and the actor. Her connection to him deliberately led to his being cast as her partner in the series so that the experience would feel as real as possible.With the actor, she visited Miami, Paris, Naples, Capri and Nice, all places she had once traveled to with her ex-partner. "These locations carry an existing weight of romantic myth," she says. "They are already shaped by cultural narratives of love, desire and idealized experience."The Emotional Toll of ReenactmentShe stayed at the same hotels and did the activities they had once done together, describing the experience as painful but cathartic. "It hurts so much, watching myself be replaced, watching those memories erased, and I didn't want to live in this any more," she says. "I'm so grateful that the project happened quickly."One of the most tender moments she recreates with the model appears in an image of them seated in a bathtub, holding one another with a red light glowing around them. Their vulnerability allows the viewer to reflect on a delicate moment between two people whose past love no longer exists, fostering empathy and prompting the audience to reflect on their own past relationships.Art as a Tool for Processing EmotionsCreating these intimate photographs enabled her to contemplate her journey. "I wanted to acknowledge how these same spaces can be reoccupied," she says, before adding: "If anything, [the project] just showed me how much I loved this person."For the past 16 years, Markosian has not let go of her camera, often using it to reach back and understand her past. "Art has given me a way of processing. I was studying writing, and suddenly found myself holding a camera and not wanting to let go of it; it became just a friend in my life," she says.A Career Built on Memory and ReconnectionShe first picked up a camera at 20, during graduate school at Columbia University. After graduating with a master's degree in journalism, she wanted to see the world, so she moved back to Moscow, Russia, where she was born. There she taught herself how to use the camera.Today, her lens serves as a tool for reconnecting with her past life and reclaiming it as her own. In her previous, highly regarded photo monograph Inventing My Father, she demonstrates her unique ability to reveal the unseen past through her images. Working on the book for 10 years, she depicts her journey of finding her father after 15 years of no contact, following her move to California in 1996 from Armenia, where he lives."Father, my previous work of the past decade, it's all rooted in memory, and I think what's beautiful about memory, there's a blend of fiction, interpretation, and it's very subjective," she says. "So I think I love existing in that territory because none of it is really real."

The LeadVictor Wembanyama returned from suspension with a dominant performance, scoring 27 points and grabbing 17 rebounds to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a commanding 126-97 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win gives the Spurs a 3-2 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series, positioning them one win away from advancing to the conference finals.The Wembanyama RedemptionWembanyama's return was highly anticipated after he was ejected in Game 4 for elbowing an opponent, which resulted in an automatic suspension. The young star expressed his eagerness to return, saying "Very, very much" when asked how anxious he was to get back on the court. He delivered in spectacular fashion, scoring 16 of the Spurs' first 24 points and finishing with a double-double in just the first half alone (21 points, 11 rebounds)."I think one thing, the one word I'd like to use, just 'mature,'" Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said of Wembanyama. "There's a lot that's happened in the last 48 hours, in the last game, and I think how that young man came out tonight and played in a variety of ways, in a variety of situations, not just in terms of his production, was extremely mature and then defensively, start to finish."The Statistical BreakdownThe Spurs received balanced scoring beyond Wembanyama's performance:Keldon Johnson: 21 points off the benchDe'Aaron Fox: 18 pointsStephon Castle: 17 pointsDevin Vassell: 12 pointsDylan Harper: 12 points, 10 reboundsFor the Timberwolves, Anthony Edwards led with 20 points, while Jaden McDaniels and Julius Randle each had 17 points. Ayo Dosunmu contributed 16 points and Naz Reid added 12.The Spurs led by as many as 18 points in the second quarter before settling for a 12-point advantage at halftime. After Minnesota tied the game at 61-all early in the third quarter, San Antonio responded with a 30-12 run to take control of the game.The Series ImplicationsThis victory gives the Spurs significant momentum and a 3-2 series lead. The team showed resilience and maturity, particularly from their young star Wembanyama, who channeled his frustration from Game 4 into a dominant performance."We played with the appropriate fear, discipline, execution, physicality, poise," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "And I thought we had it from an array of people tonight, and it was really good to see. We needed everybody, because at different moments of the game, different guys stepped up."The Timberwolves, meanwhile, struggled with consistency, particularly on defense. "We went away from what was working, and then, you know, defence just cratered," Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. "In the last six minutes of the third quarter, lot of it was just ball contain stuff. And, you know, offensively found stuff that was working, then we just started breaking off plays, you know. And that's my job. I gotta get us back on track. That's on me."The Path ForwardThe series now shifts to Minneapolis for Game 6 on Friday, with the Timberwolves facing elimination. If necessary, Game 7 would be back in San Antonio on Sunday."I don't see nobody in our locker room that [is] worried at the end of the day," Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards said. "Man, it's another basketball game. So you come out, put your boots on and get ready to go work."

The Clash Over AI in Garden Design The Chelsea Flower Show, a prestigious event in the gardening world, has become a platform for a heated debate over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in garden design. This year's show, held at the Royal Hospital gardens in Chelsea, London, features a garden designed entirely by AI, sparking concerns among horticulturalists that their work could be automated. The Role of AI in Garden Design Matt Keightley, an award-winning designer who has created gardens for figures including Prince Harry, is using AI to design his garden for the show. He is launching a new app, Spacelift, which can replicate the work of garden designers and create spaces from scratch. Keightley believes that AI can give people a starting point and the confidence to create their own gardens. The Concerns of Horticulturalists Horticulturalists have expressed alarm that their work could be automated in this way. Andrew Duff, the chair of the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers, argues that successful garden design is an art form that requires creativity, collaboration, experience, and human connection. He believes that AI cannot replicate the insight, empathy, and personal engagement that comes from working with a skilled garden designer. The Future of Garden Design The use of AI in garden design raises questions about the future of the industry. While some designers see AI as a useful tool, others are concerned that it could replace human designers. Tom Massey, a Chelsea gold medallist, believes that AI-designed gardens would be inferior because they lack the physical body and interaction with a natural space that a human designer can provide. The Impact on the Industry The debate over AI in garden design has significant implications for the industry. As AI technology continues to evolve, it is likely to change the way gardens are designed and created. While some designers see AI as a threat, others believe that it could be a valuable tool that expands the market for garden design. The Prediction As the use of AI in garden design becomes more prevalent, it is likely that we will see a shift in the way gardens are designed and created. While AI may not replace human designers entirely, it is likely to play an increasingly important role in the design process. The industry will need to adapt to these changes and find ways to work with AI in a way that benefits both designers and clients.

The Trump-Xi Summit: A Pivotal Moment in US-China Relations Donald Trump's state visit to China this week – the first by the US president in nearly a decade – comes amid a time of geopolitical upheaval, a new and intractable conflict in the Middle East, and a sometimes rocky relationship between the world's two major superpowers. There is much for Trump and Xi Jinping to discuss, but a few key issues are likely to dominate the agenda. Five Critical Issues on the Summit Agenda The high-stakes meeting between the two leaders addresses several pressing matters that could reshape the global landscape: The Iran Conflict and Hormuz Strait Crisis Trump is eager for China to lean on Tehran to advance peace talks and reopen the strait of Hormuz. To now, Beijing has sat back and watched the US struggle against Iran, at least publicly. But with about half of China's crude oil imports passing through the strait, Xi does want the waterway unblocked. China knows its exports will suffer if a global recession results from an oil supply crisis. Complicating the picture, the US this week put sanctions on several Chinese firms accused of assisting Iranian oil shipments and supplying satellite imagery allegedly used in Iranian military operations, claims that Beijing denied. Trump's arrival comes after Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Beijing last week. Taiwan: The Flashpoint in US-China Relations Beijing is keen to push the US on Taiwan, with Trump saying he is prepared to raise the issue of arms sales to the island, which China claims as a breakaway territory despite never having ruled it. In December, Trump authorised an $11bn arms package for Taiwan, the largest weapons sale ever to the island, but no shipments have been made yet. Xi may seek changes in how the US refers to Taiwan. Ideally, from the perspective of Beijing, this would be a statement from Washington "opposing" Taiwan's independence rather than "not supporting" it. Taiwan will be watching closely. Just two weeks ago, China's foreign minister in a phone call with Marco Rubio urged the US to "make the right choices" on Taiwan. With Trump known to veer off script, John Kirby, a former US state department and Pentagon spokesperson cautioned: "They just have to be so extraordinarily precise when you're talking about Taiwan because, quite frankly, the stakes are enormously high." The AI Cold War: Technological Supremacy at Stake China and the US are locked into a race on artificial intelligence that is becoming something of a technological cold war. In April, the White House accused China of stealing US AI labs' intellectual property on an industrial scale, claims Beijing denied. Meanwhile, Beijing has been frustrated by Washington's reluctance to allow Nvidia to export its most powerful processing chips to China. In January, the White House said Nvidia could export its second most powerful chip, the H200, but no shipments have been sent yet. Analysts and ethics leaders hope Trump and Xi will discuss non-binding AI guidelines, including sharing information about AI misuse and safety, which are seen as critical guardrails amid the advent of AI weaponry and military adoption. Trade War: Rare Earth Minerals and Economic Leverage Trump has repeatedly threatened China over trade, imposing tariffs above 140% last year. But Xi held some cards of his own and did not fold. Instead, China blocked exports of its rare earth minerals and magnets to the US. Trump, finally, backed down. The US has depleted notable levels of its weapons arsenal in the war against Iran, with many weaponry components requiring critical minerals that are linked to supply chains dominated by China. China is expected to announce purchases related to Boeing airplanes, American agriculture and energy, US officials have said. In turn, Beijing wants the US to ease curbs on exports of advanced semiconductors. Beijing also wants to reduce barriers to investment in the US, and hopes to establish a Board of Investment to match the Trump-back Board of Trade. Fentanyl: The Drug War and Political Posturing Fentanyl is a key item on Trump's agenda this week, Politico reported, citing an administration official granted anonymity to preview the closed-door sessions. The US has long accused Chinese businesses of knowingly supplying the chemical precursors to Mexican cartels who use them to make the drug. Trump knows that being seen to press China hard over fentanyl and precursors plays well with his Maga base. But Trump lost important leverage on the fentanyl front when China defied his tariffs threats. In March, the US and China clashed over fentanyl and trade at a UN drugs meeting. China wants to be removed from the state department's annual list of "major drug transit or illicit drug producing countries", due to be updated in September.

A Novel of Female Defiance"Yes, you will leave this place," the chorus of child protagonists in a community of sex workers say at the start of Tahmima Anam's incantatory and fiery new novel of female defiance, Uprising. "This story will save your life," we were told three times in Deepa Anappara's 2020 debut, also featuring precarious children dwelling in the margins. What is the distance between imagination and action, lived realities and dreams? How can solidarities be forged in such circumstances? Uprising holds within its pages some answers and a deep conviction – for a better life, a more just world – and then reaches out and fights for it.The Island Community and Its OppressionAs a journalist, Anam visited the infamous "floating brothel" Banishanta in Bangladesh; her new novel, set on an isolated island "at the end of the country, in the middle of a river that emptied into the sea", fictionalises the island's community and ecological precarity. Here, a generation of daughters grow up watching their mothers trapped in sex work – "we knew that the work was something that was paid for in money, and also in bodies" – and wish a different life for themselves. The women are controlled by the cruel Amma, who was once herself sold into sex trafficking. The victim becomes the perpetrator – and the children are discerning enough to know that their mothers are "not here because they had done something bad, but because something bad had been done to them". The first lesson of the island? No one is coming to save you – and living here changes you, as inexorably as the rising tides.The island is a prison. The mothers are ghosts of their former selves. The children, witnessing the "sexing", are all too grown up, stripped of their innocence. By the time they are born, their mothers' memories have faded "like paint in the sun"; they live on the island "tied to" their daughters. What, or who, will it take to break free from these chains?Feminism and Climate Crisis in LiteratureWhen the waters rise, customers stay away. The mothers speculate: "the swirling river was keeping the smaller boats from making the journey"; "the land was cursed". In a last-ditch attempt to lure men back for business, Amma sends for a new girl. Little does she know that Kusum Khan's arrival will signal the beginning of the end. A girl from the city with a history of participating in protests against the Dictator, she doesn't acquiesce to the island's rules, as the others have been conditioned to; instead, she sows the seeds for what will grow into a life-altering act of resistance. The children start to believe that she is their saviour – maybe even Bon Bibi, a legendary guardian of the forest. A different life seems graspable, just beyond the island's shore. When the titular uprising at last arrives, it summons an all-consuming storm, washing over the island. And the reader, too, is ready to join the revolution – their fist in the open air.Uprising is a feminist novel ("here they were: a wall of women") and a protest novel ("The moment Kusum entered the protest, she felt as if she was becoming a small organ in a living, breathing thing"). It is a coming-of-age novel, and a response to the climate crisis; a story of sisterhood protecting, and failing to protect; of structural inequality and the rotten core of patriarchal corruption; of unlucky women in an unfair world. "When the men came to reclaim the island, we stood rooted in place with our eyes closed, unable to watch. We stood rooted in place with our eyes open, unable to stop watching." While the mothers and daughters in Anam's fictional world are victims of specific generational violence, this observation can be applied to humanity at large: we are all watching – frozen, complicit – as injustices rise the world over.The Power of Rage and Radical HopeThrough her unwaveringly political and unflinchingly forthright novel, Anam shows the power of rage and radical hope. A new world can burn bright from the fires of injustice – and here, it's the mothers that hold the match.

The Arrest of Adan Funez Honduran authorities have arrested three people, including a powerful politician, accused of plotting the 2024 assassination of an environmental leader, an incident that became a symbol of government corruption. Adan Funez, former mayor of the city of Tocoa, was captured at his home on Tuesday on suspicion of masterminding the killing, following years of accusations by religious and environmental leaders. The Environmentalist's Killing Juan Lopez was an anti-corruption crusader who led a community effort against an iron oxide mining project in Colon, a rural region of northwestern Honduras, which activists said endangered the area’s dense jungles and crystalline waters, including protected reserve areas. Lopez was one of the fiercest critics of Funez, a local mayor at the time, as well as a supporter of the mine and a close ally of Honduras’s former president, Xiomara Castro, whose term ended this year. The Investigation and Charges In September 2024, Lopez called on Funez to step down because of a corruption scandal. Days later, the environmental and human rights defender was shot six times in the chest and once in the head by a masked gunman, fuelling demands for justice from Pope Francis, the United Nations and the administration of United States President Joe Biden. Accusations also emerged against Funez, a power-broker in the region’s decades-long bloody agrarian conflict. The death brought back stark memories of the global outcry over the 2016 murder of Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres. The Impact on Environmental Defenders Protecting the environment is a high-risk profession in Honduras. People like Lopez often act as unwanted eyes and ears in resource-rich areas of Latin America, the most deadly region in the world for environmentalists, according to nongovernmental organisation Global Witness. Global Witness documented 117 killings of environmental and land defenders in Latin America in 2024 alone, amounting to 82 percent of the global total. The Future Outlook The detentions come after a handful of other arrests months earlier, but Funez was long pinpointed by local environmental and religious leaders as the man who spearheaded the assassination. The trial of the three men is set to begin next June. Dalila Santiago, a close friend and leader in Lopez’s movement, said that, after rampant impunity in the Honduras, Funez’s detention on Tuesday came as a shock. She added that Honduran authorities must continue to go after others responsible and business leaders behind the mining project.

The Media Revolution The news industry is once again experiencing a revolution, one that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. This disruption transcends all news brands, impacting all journalists and all journalism, everywhere. The Shift in Consumer Behavior We're witnessing a significant shift in how consumers access news. TV news audiences have declined by nearly 4 million people in the past five years, while YouTube has seen a trebling of its news audience and TikTok a 10-fold increase. This shift is not just about platforms; it's about the rise of independent journalists and personalities. The Rise of Creator Journalism Independent journalists like Joe Rogan, Piers Morgan, and Emily Maitlis have built massive audiences on platforms like YouTube and Substack. Joe Rogan has 20.9m subscribers on YouTube, while Piers Morgan's Uncensored YouTube channel has gained significant traction. This creator journalism is not a sideshow; it's becoming the main event. The Data Analysis The global podcast market is projected to grow from $32bn to $114bn by 2030. The UK is Substack's second-largest and fastest-growing market, with over half a million people paying subscriptions directly to writers. The Impact Analysis This revolution matters because it's driven by commentary and conversation, and the established media has yet to break into this new world at scale. The challenge is clear: will we wake up to the existential nature of this great shift in our industry, or will we be left behind? The Prediction The established news media has everything it needs to succeed in this new world, including talented journalists, experienced experts, and brands that have meaning for audiences. However, success is conditional on whether the established media is willing to deploy those assets to win and not be left behind. The priorities are clear: restore trust, reconnect through authenticity, and reinvent the newsroom.

Dick Advocaat's Unexpected Return Dick Advocaat will lead Curaçao to their first World Cup and become the oldest manager in the tournament’s history after returning to the job. The 78-year-old was in charge when the Caribbean island reached the finals but resigned three months later because of his daughter’s health. The Context of His Return “Advocaat is returning,” the president of the Curaçao Football Federation (FFK), Gilbert Martina, said in a phone message. His fellow Dutchman Fred Rutten took over, but Curaçao suffered two comprehensive friendly defeats in March, losing 5-1 to fellow World Cup qualifiers Australia and 2-0 to China. On Monday, the FFK said Rutten, 63, had resigned following “constructive discussions” among federation officials. Reasons Behind the Comeback Reports in the Dutch media suggest Advocaat agreed to return to his former role because his daughter’s health has improved. What's Next for Curaçao? Advocaat's return could bring a new dynamic to the team as they prepare for the 2026 World Cup. The team's performance in the qualifiers and his experience will be crucial in their journey.