It is the most essential thing we do - yet many of us arguably breathe badly. The author of Breath explains how that can be changed

In the last stages of writing his book, Breath, James Nestor was stressed. “Which was ironic when writing a book about breathing patterns and mellowing out,” he says. The book was late; he’d spent his advance and was haemorrhaging even more money on extra research that was taking him off in new, potentially interesting, directions – was it really necessary, he wondered, to go to Paris to look at old skulls buried in catacombs beneath the city? (It was.)

Then a couple of months before the book’s May 2020 publication date, the Covid pandemic hit, and Nestor was advised to wait it out. He couldn’t afford to. “One of the main motivations for releasing it at that time was to get that [on-publication] advance,” he says. “But I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to release it. I said: ‘How are you going to promote a book that can’t be sold in stores, that I can’t tour for?’” He expected, he says, “absolutely zero to happen”.

Kicking under-16s off the social platforms is tempting, but it ignores the root of the problem: the older generations who made them so toxic in the first place

Kemi Badenoch is evolving into one of those politicians who, whatever she says, it’s not just likely to be wrong, it’s likely to be the opposite of what’s right. She says Greenland is not a big deal (a “second-order issue” is how she described it to the BBC) – it is a big deal. She says net zero is too expensive – the opposite is true: net-anything-but-zero is a cost we can’t afford.

But her promise to ban under-16s from using social media, echoing Australia’s recent move, is hard to write off completely; people across the spectrum, including Andy Burnham, agree with it. Nobody who has ever met a teenager, or read the news, will be completely at ease with the role of social media in young lives. There are horrific effects, which have been well documented and inadequately addressed ever since the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online.

Protests have rocked Iran, a brutal crackdown is under way and Trump has threatened to intervene. Ellie Geranmayeh on a dangerous moment for the country’s leaders

Since December, protesters have been out on the streets in Iran. At first it was small shop or business owners, upset at the impossibly high cost of living and a slumping economy made worse by war, corruption and sanctions. But soon the demands swelled – with calls for the end of Iran’s regime. A crackdown followed, then an internet blackout.

For Iranians abroad it was a terrifying time. Mahsa Pirae’s mother was killed by security forces during the “Woman, life, freedom” protests in 2022-23. She tells Annie Kelly of her fear for the rest of her family – her father, brother and friends who are out on the streets demonstrating. “We’re watching the videos and pictures of the dead bodies and we’re looking for a familiar face and every single picture is breaking us.”

Cut out flying and you shred skiing’s carbon footprint. And opting for a high-altitude resort that needs less artificial snow makes it even greener. Les Arcs in the French Alps ticks both boxes

I’ve always wanted to try skiing, but it’s not a cheap holiday and I have always had a lingering suspicion that some resorts are like Las Vegas in the mountains, with artificial snow, damaging infrastructure, annihilated vegetation and air-freighted fine dining – in short, profoundly unsustainable.

However, if there’s a way to have a green family ski holiday, then sign me – and my husband, Joe, two kids and my mum – up. Here’s how to do it.

Use of private providers, poor training and inadequate regulation mean obtaining care has become a ‘wild west’

• NHS ADHD spending over budget by £164m as unregulated clinics boom

When Leigh White remembers her brother Ryan, she thinks of a boy of extraordinary ability who “won five scholarships at 11” including a coveted place at Bancroft’s, a private school in London. He was, she said, “super bright, witty, personable, generous and kind”.

Ryan killed himself on 12 May 2024. A report written after his death acknowledged significant shortcomings in the support he received while seeking help for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

A rise of murders is traumatising inmates and staff, and making life harder for staff. But even in prison, violence isn’t inevitable

There are hotspots for violence in prison. The exercise yard, the showers. There are peak times, too. Mealtimes and association periods are particularly volatile.

But first thing in the morning is not when you expect to hear an alarm bell. I certainly didn’t, at 6am in my office on the residential wing of a high-security prison in late 2018. All prisoners were locked up at that time. But overcrowding has long been a problem in UK prisons, and keeping three men in cells designed for one can be a recipe for disaster.

President posts online as US weighs response to situation in Iran, which is major facing anti-government protests

Donald Trump has said any country that does business with Iran will face a tariff rate of 25% on trade with the US, as Washington weighs a response to the situation in Iran, which is seeing its biggest anti-government protests in years.

“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” the US president said in a post on Truth Social on Monday. Tariffs are paid by US importers of goods from those countries. Iran has been heavily sanctioned by Washington for years.

Exclusive: Total spending in England expected to double existing budgets, with funding for private providers rising threefold

• ‘He tried so hard to get help’: the tragic results of NHS right-to-choose for ADHD patients

The NHS is overspending by £164m a year on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) services, with an increasing amount going to unregulated private assessments, a Guardian investigation has found.

Analysis shows that total spending on NHS ADHD services is expected to be more than double existing budgets. Further data shows the amount spent on private ADHD services has more than tripled over three years.

Broadcaster’s submission calls on Florida court to throw out defamation case where US president is suing over editing of 6 January 2021 speech

The BBC is to attempt to have Donald Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit over the editing of a speech for Panorama thrown out, according to court documents.

The broadcaster faced criticism for airing an episode of the investigative documentary series that featured an edited clip of Trump’s address to a rally on 6 January 2021, which it is alleged gave the impression he encouraged supporters to storm the Capitol building in Washington DC.

Former ambassador to US had earlier declined to give apology for keeping in touch with sex offender after his conviction

Peter Mandelson has issued an apology for his association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – after declining to do so in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

The Labour peer, who was sacked as US ambassador when details of his support for Epstein emerged in September, gave an interview to the BBC in which he suggested that as a gay man he knew nothing of the disgraced financier’s sex life.