For decades, Wildings was the poshest shop in town. But since it closed down in 2019, the storied building has fallen into disrepair and been commandeered as a drug den and a skate park. What happened?

I’m standing outside a lift in a department store in Newport, Wales, looking at the sign, wondering where to go. Stay on the ground floor for shoes, giftware and presents, ladies’ accessories and Estée Lauder? Or up to the first floor for furniture and ladies’ fashions – Annabelle, Tigi-Wear, Autonomy? It’s the second floor for cookshop and homeware. Lingerie is on three, plus Alfred’s coffee shop and tea room. Maybe I’ll go straight there for a cappuccino and a ponder …

But nothing happens when I press the button. The panel is hanging from the wall by its wires and doesn’t look safe. I’d be nervous about stepping into this lift. Plus, it’s dark. I’m using the torch on my phone to read the sign. There’s no giftware on this floor, no presents, no cosmetics counter. Once, this floor would have smelled of perfume; now, it’s musty, cold and empty. Because, on 19 January 2019, after 144 years of trading, this department store, Wildings, closed its doors for ever.

Samantha Niblett says her campaign is about ‘taking control of our Britishness’ – bring on the union jack dildos

We could almost be back in the San Francisco of the 1960s. Tune in, turn on, drop out. Make love not war. A hippy counterculture that turned its back on the American involvement in Vietnam. One determined to shape a new world order.

Fast forward to today and we have one MP who is hellbent on making 2026 the summer of sex. One who wants to focus politicians’ attention on the joys of the orgasm. To return to the simpler pleasures of life. Though without the need for everyone to take acid. The world is hallucinogenic enough. And who’s to say she’s wrong?

With an eye on elections in 2027, Italy’s far-right PM appears to be making a tactful pivot away from US president

• Europe live – latest updates

Six months ago, Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, stood surrounded by men on a stage in Sharm el-Sheikh, where world leaders had gathered to discuss the Gaza peace deal.

In front of her, Donald Trump showered praise and insults on the assembled leaders, before describing Meloni as a “beautiful young woman”. Turning towards her, he added: “You don’t mind being called beautiful, right? Because you are. Thank you very much for coming.”

(Play It Again Sam)
Unsettling breathing, arrhythmic clatter, gloomy piano and military snares underpin a Beefheartian portrayal of a boorish warmonger on the band’s ominous return

Even by the standards of a band noted for their unhurried approach, Massive Attack’s recorded output has dwindled to a trickle in recent years. They’ve seldom been out of the press, but less as a result of their music than their political campaigning: frontman Robert Del Naja was among the 500 people arrested at last Saturday’s Palestine Action protest. It is six years since they last released any new music – a trio of YouTube videos on which their music effectively acted as a soundbed for spoken-word pieces about global system change – and a decade since they released something you could actually buy, a single called The Spoils. Their most recent album, Heligoland, came out in 2010: Taylor Swift was still a country star, Harry Styles was still at school, Instagram and TikTok had yet to be launched.

It means that any new release automatically carries a sense of event, particularly if you’re old enough to remember how significantly Massive Attack altered the musical landscape of the 90s. You could formulate an argument that their debut album, Blue Lines, was the single most influential British album of its era: it spawned an entire subgenre, trip-hop, in its wake; 35 years on, you can still hear its echoes everywhere, from the mainstream pop of Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey to the nu-soul of Joy Crookes and Greentea Peng to the endless swathes of anonymous “lo-fi beats” that get millions of streams on Spotify.

Dougie and Teresa don’t see eye to eye when it comes to supermarket packing. You decide whose argument checks out

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

She says if you’re bagging stuff at the checkout, you’re holding up the people behind you

He just doesn’t understand the system. The packing shelves at the back are there to help customers

Sid Lowe is our Spanish football correspondent and has been covering an increasingly busy beat for years. He answered your questions on everything from the Champions League to La Liga … and lookalikes

trollercoaster asks: Why have so many Spanish clubs competing in the Champions League or European Cup been relegated? It happened with Real Betis and with Villarreal. We have seen leading Spanish clubs fall to the second division and even to lower leagues, see Deportivo.

Sid:

There are lots of elements at play here, and they are not all the same going back over time, as the structure of Spanish football has changed (collective TV deal, etc), while some clubs had their own specific issues (Depor’s success, built on money they didn’t really have, was what brought their fall, for example). The short-term reason for some teams – look at Athletic this season, for example – is that they don’t always have the resources for both competitions. There’s definitely a financial component to it. Villarreal’s relegation in 2012 was baffling but internally they had overspent – which is unlike them, a stable and financially strong club – although they did learn from that.

Look at the second division now and it is full of massive clubs (historically). Zaragoza are the really clear example … Sporting, Málaga, Depor, similar with Oviedo until last summer. Often laden with debt, often unready for the sudden fall off of income, etc …

I don’t know … I’m not sure that I feel that the people I bigged up (early) have started suffering better fates … have they? It might not have been that bad before. Or maybe it was, ha.

There’s a related issue here, actually, which is part of the daily battle … most pieces are on-demand, so to speak, (the desk asks about an issue or I suggest an issue or whatever), but on Mondays, the regular column linked to the weekend games, I more or less write what I want (over a 38-week season there might be three or four weeks when the desk suggests/wants a certain topic and I’m not totally mad: if it’s clásico weekend then very likely that will be the focus). Which is why you get Leganés or Levante.

Guardian investigation uncovers decision by UK security officials to deny clearance before Mandelson took up role as US ambassador

• Officials debate withholding Mandelson vetting documents from parliament

• Five key questions: Who overruled the decision to deny Mandelson security clearance?

Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to the US, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

According to multiple sources, Mandelson was initially denied clearance in late January 2025 after a developed vetting process, a highly confidential background check by security officials.

Pentagon chief said that the US is ‘reloading with more power than before’ and Iran has choice of ‘the easy way or the hard way’

• US and Iran in indirect talks to extend two-week ceasefire

Iran has stopped all petrochemical exports to prioritise domestic supply and prevent shortages of raw materials, Reuters reported.

The state-owned National Petrochemical Company ordered firms to suspend exports until further notice.

John Swinney unveils his party’s manifesto, saying cost of living is the ‘defining issue’ for voters on 7 May

• UK politics live – latest updates

The SNP will cap supermarket prices for essential goods like bread and milk if it retains power, John Swinney has pledged, after describing the cost of living as “the defining issue of this election”.

With polls pointing to a fifth Holyrood term for the Scottish National party, its leader said he would use devolved public health powers to fix prices on 20 to 50 items such as bread, milk, cheese, eggs, rice and chicken because their rising cost was “impacting our nation’s nutrition”.

Retrial ordered in case of Benjamin Field, found guilty in 2019 of murdering Peter Farquhar, 69, in Buckinghamshire

A church warden who was jailed for life for the murder of a university lecturer has had his conviction quashed at the court of appeal and a retrial has been ordered.

Benjamin Field was jailed for at least 36 years in 2019 after being found guilty of murdering 69-year-old Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.