It seemed like a fait accompli that Hoyle would deny the application for a Commons vote – but he had other ideas

What the hell has Keir Starmer done to upset the speaker? Was it that row they had after prime minister’s questions a few weeks back, when Keir appeared to have taken objection to Lindsay Hoyle’s ad libbed remarks about not being responsible for Starmer not answering any of the questions? Has Hoyle finally had enough of the government announcing policy decisions in press conferences and media briefings, rather than in statements to the House of Commons?

Or is Lindsay just a bit bored? Perhaps he has decided to liven things up a bit in the dog days of the current parliament. Go out with a bang. Place himself centre stage. Lights. Camera. Action.

Equally inspired by childbirth manuals, Georgia O’Keeffe and her own hormones, pregnancy and motherhood, Hollowell paints beautiful anatomical abstractions. She opens up about her cosmic birth and out-of-body experience

‘It’s magical,” says Loie Hollowell. “It’s such good timing!” The artist, speaking via Zoom from her studio in Queens, New York, is referring to the Artemis II moon mission. Little did she know, when she named her latest painting series Overview Effect, after the term used by astronauts to describe the experience of seeing Earth from space and the profound feelings of awe and interconnectedness it provokes, that she’d be coinciding with this space odyssey. But she is not surprised anyone would want to leave Earth for a while. “We’re having so many problems here,” she says.

Overview Effect, currently at London’s Pace Gallery, features large-scale canvases combining twin concave and convex sculpted circles. If you folded the canvasses in half vertically, the halves would fit perfectly together. The works, which radiate outwards in rings of glorious colour that are both vibrant and soothing, are a continuation of earlier works focusing on pregnancy and birth through abstraction. Her Split Orb paintings and Dilation Stage series of pastel drawings responded to the difficult birth of her son in a New York hospital. Overview Effect is a result of her daughter’s easier arrival: a “cosmic” home birth that she found far more empowering.

On the runway at Gatwick, the visceral reality of forced removals was laid bare. If only more could see what is done in our name

It’s Gatwick airport, mid-afternoon, and on the runway there is turmoil. Public policy playing out in full view of the public. Voters, citizens, seeing what they don’t normally see.

“Murdaar, murdaaaaar,” screams the bucking, brawling, brawny man as a clutch of male security officials, with solid intent and hi-vis yellow jackets, collectively fight to pin him into a seat at the back of the airliner. “Me caaan go back a Jamaica,” he hollers, the visceral sound reverberating around the 777. “Dem kill me bredda. Dem a go kill me.”

Hugh Muir is executive editor, Opinion

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Hannah Khalil’s new play sprang from her surprise at seeing the great Egyptian actor had performed at the Festival theatre in the 1980s. She explains how it entwined with a story of her mixed-heritage identity

A few years ago the playwright Hannah Khalil was queuing for the loos at Chichester Festival theatre when she spotted Omar Sharif, in a prince’s costume, on the wall. The photograph was part of a gallery showing stars who had graced the Chichester stage. “I was like: ‘Omar, what the hell are you doing in Chichester?’” says Khalil. “I really wanted to know more.”

You could call that moment a bolt out of the loo: instantly, it set her on the trail of her latest play, Love Omar. When had the Egyptian actor visited Sussex and what had local audiences made of him? Khalil’s director husband, Chris White, hails from Chichester. “I began asking his parents because they have lived there for a long time,” she says. “They vaguely remembered him coming to do the show.”

After Donald Trump’s second election, I realised the insidious hold my phone had over my life. So I turned to something I’d loved in childhood to better occupy my attention

After a long day of looking at screens for work, I used to go to bed and stare at my phone until I fell asleep. When not doomscrolling news headlines, I’d crash out to hateful comments on social media or revisit workplace dramas via mobile versions of Teams and Slack. I was always plugged in.

It was a ritual that would start well before bedtime. As the evening wound down, I’d surf algorithms for hours on end, barely paying attention to whatever television programme was on in the background, only half-listening to conversations around me. Whether it was the incessantly dystopian news cycle, toxic opinions on pop culture, or posts railing against obtuse LinkedIn speak, there was always another online scab to pick.

Russian backing for the ruling junta has not stopped rebel fighters striking significant blows in recent days

• Mali in turmoil after insurgents seize towns and kill defence minister

When Assimi Goïta, the leader of Mali’s military junta, sat down with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin last summer, it symbolised Moscow’s commanding sway over Mali at the expense of the west.

As the two men spoke, roughly 3,500 miles to the south, about 2,000 Russian troops were propping up the regime in the landlocked desert country, as part of Moscow’s broader push for influence across the Sahel region.

The prime minister faces a standards investigation over Mandelson affair and testimony from Morgan McSweeney

Keir Starmer has told Labour MPs to “stick together and fight together” as ministers launched a massive operation to shore up his fragile position before a critical day for his premiership.

The prime minister faces the double threat of a standards investigation into his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US and potentially damaging testimony from Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff.

King Charles and Queen Camilla visiting US for four days with any meeting between king and president to be off-camera to avoid awkwardness

• King Charles arrives in Washington for state visit fraught with tension

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Here’s more about the timing of King Charles’s visit today with Donald Trump at the White House.

According to Trump’s official schedule, the president will greet King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House at 4.15pm ET. Shortly after, they’ll have tea and then tour a beehive at the White House.

Exclusive: Sources say chancellor is examining exceptional measures to protect household budgets

Rachel Reeves is considering imposing a one-year rent freeze on private sector homes amid growing alarm in government about the impact of the Iran war on voters’ budgets.

Landlords in England would be banned from raising rents for a limited period of time under the proposals, which are being debated within government as part of a major cost of living package to be launched in the coming weeks.

Fiona Hill tells MPs UK is ‘vulnerable’ because it does not educate people on how to deal with information warfare

Britain is becoming a soft target for Russian and other state propaganda because the UK is not prepared to educate people on how to deal with information warfare, according to a former White House adviser and security expert.

Fiona Hill told a parliamentary committee that she feared the UK had become “extraordinarily vulnerable” to online manipulation feeding into the electoral system because there was a lack of discussion about civil defence.