Analysis of 60o gardens shows wilder lawns feed caterpillars and create breeding habitat Good news for lazy gardeners: one labour-saving tweak could almost double the number of butterflies in your garden, according to a new scientific study – let the grass grow long. In recent years nature lovers have been extolling the benefits of relaxed lawn maintenance with the growing popularity of the #NoMowMay campaign. Now an analysis of six years of butterfly sightings across 600 British gardens has provided the first scientific evidence that wilder lawns boost butterfly numbers ..read more

Marcus Decker dared to protest on climate and was punished. Now he could be deported. Is that a humane democracy? When the traditional ruling class was obliged to concede to demands for democracy, it gave away as little as possible. We could vote, but it ensured that crucial elements of the old system remained in place: the House of Lords, the first-past-the-post electoral system, prerogative powers and Henry VIII clauses, and above all a legal system massively and blatantly biased towards owners of property. In combination, these elements ensured that the system remained predisposed to elite ..read more

Researchers say early deaths may have been avoided over 10-year period if technology installed Research has estimated the health impacts from the coal-fired power plants that operate across India. Six hundred coal power plants generate more than 70% of India’s electricity. Despite regulations passed in 2015, fewer than 5% of these plants operate with modern systems to clean up air pollutants from their chimneys. In China, 95% of coal-fired power plants were fitted with clean-up technologies by 2013 ..read more

Rishi Sunak has killed them off, at least for now. So while your Sambas take a breather and wait for the storm to pass, here are some other looks led by trainers not yet tainted by having cropped up in the halls of government ..read more

Cinemovel is screening Oscar-nominated Io Capitano to packed houses around the country, highlighting the perils migrants face on the journey to Europe At about 1pm on Monday a 35-seater bus arrived in Pikine, a city east of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. A portable screen, projector, sound system and generator were unpacked to set up a temporary cinema in a lively neighbourhood where the scent of hibiscus and orange blossom fill the air. Pikine’s cultural centre was the first stop for Cinemovel, a travelling cinema that is showing the Oscar-nominated Italian film Io Capitano in the streets and ..read more

(Republic) Subtly detailed album splits the difference between 1989’s glossy pop-rock and Midnights’ understatement – and lets her ex Matty Healy have it in no uncertain terms The two cliches used to describe the new release by a major star are that it’s long-awaited and eagerly anticipated. You could hardly describe Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album as long-awaited – it’s barely 18 months since her last album, Midnights, a blink of an eye in the release schedule of a pop superstar. She’s also put out another three hours of music in the interim, in the shape of bonus track-packed re-recordings ..read more

Flights have been pushed back to summer after the House of Lords spoke out for Afghans and refugees – here’s what to expect over the coming weeks Rishi Sunak’s plan to fly people seeking asylum to Rwanda this spring appears to have been put back to the summer after House of Lords insisted on changes to the scheme. On Thursday the prime minister’s spokesperson said the Lords were responsible for any delay after attaching unwanted amendments to the deportation bill ..read more

As the author of a book about a pivotal uprising in 18th-century Jamaica, Vincent Brown was enlisted in a campaign to make its leader a national hero. But when he arrived in Jamaica, he started to wonder what he had got himself into ..read more

Women in Theatre Lab will act as incubator for playwriting and acting talent and address gender inequality Gemma Arterton, Joanna Scanlan and Stella Kanu are some of the figures backing an initiative to promote women in the theatre, who are being overlooked across the industry, according to the project’s founder. Women in Theatre Lab will primarily act as an incubator for playwriting and acting talent. Its founder, Jennifer Tuckett, said the group would also put pressure on Arts Council England (ACE) to launch a review of gender inequality across the arts ..read more

Exclusive: 80% of Welsh dairy farms inspected, 69% of English ones, 60% in Scotland and 50% in Northern Ireland breaching regulations The majority of UK dairy farms are breaking pollution rules, with vast amounts of cow manure being spilled into rivers. When animal waste enters the river, it causes a buildup of the nutrients found in the effluent, such as nitrates and phosphates. These cause algal blooms, which deplete the waterway of oxygen and block sunlight, choking fish and other aquatic life ..read more