The only thing more dodgy than Reform’s financial dealings is the egregious lunchtime combination of oysters, Guinness and champagne

How many sarcastic air quotes is too many for quoting Nigel Farage’s suggestion that Reform have been ““““““““hoaxed”””””””” by some undercover investigators into appearing to seek to get round electoral law to bag a £500k donation from a foreigner, as well as commissioning off-the-books polling and failing to identify it to newspapers? I don’t feel eight was too many. I could run to nine. Amazing, really, that it’s been as long as a few weeks since Farage had a crash-out and forced a byelection. All any of us wants is for Nigel to once again resign after a staged shitfit and ask a few thousand members of the public to judge him.

For whatever reason, though, the law of our country does not amount to an “ONLY THE PEOPLE OF CLACTON CAN JUDGE ME” tattoo, and so it is that as Reform’s conference gets under way today, the party has been reported to the police for allegedly using foreign money to fund its activities. It’s all based on a covert sting carried out by Verbatim – an investigative group founded by journalists from the non-profit Centre for Climate Reporting – and broadcast last night on Channel 4 News.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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Horgan’s hilarious new show probes the perils of ageing and the horror of being single again – and it has sex scenes so wild you’ll be laughing for weeks. The creator and her co-stars open up about Youth

When Sharon Horgan walked into HBO to pitch her new series, Youth, she basically just said “sandwich generation” to them. Alex, the protagonist, is squished between a teenage son and two elderly parents. That’s the classic; the rest of it – the recent divorce, the dating hell, the busy, creative professional life full of pricks – is the icing on the sandwich (if you like). Horgan had been incubating some of the characters for five years, but “honestly”, she tells me, “I said about three sentences and a week later, they said yes. I’ve never had that experience before.”

You might think you can imagine it, but Youth is unlike any portrait you’ve ever seen in the gallery of (for brevity) menopausal women doing everything for everyone. There’s an urgency and valour to it that is very much drawn from Horgan’s own experience. “Everything just changed for me when I hit my 50s,” she says. “I was very bamboozled but I really had a hunger to make time count.” Not every situation is lifted directly from her own life, post-divorce – she’s also borrowing from her friends, she emphasises – but in general terms, the pressures, the worries, the outrages, the surprise and the delight are all so exquisitely drawn that even if it’s not Horgan herself, you hope someone, somewhere, is living this in real life.

Fury at Russia’s death and destruction has fuelled art, action and resistance. But eventually, rage’s fire is all-consuming

Twice, I have heard Ukrainians perform Verdi’s Requiem. Once in Lviv, last Maundy Thursday, and once last month, under the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. In St Paul’s, performed by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra with the Philharmonia Chorus, the great Dies irae – “day of anger” – unfurled in an operatic gale of fury, reverberating so powerfully around Wren’s lofty spaces that the music felt like thunder echoing between mountain peaks.

In Lviv, where it was performed by a Ukrainian chorus and orchestra, the evening began with a call to remember the war dead. Lviv’s lay a mile up the road: 153 graves when I first visited in autumn 2022, and by this year more than 1,000. Ranks and ranks of soldiers killed in their 20s, 30s and 40s, each grave planted with flowers and plants, flags flying above. On that occasion, Dies irae – in the more sober acoustic of the Lviv Philharmonic Hall – seemed to contain the furious ache of grief. Certainly I have never heard a more wrathful day of anger.

The CEO is the throughline in a history of billion-dollar blunders that have caused real harm, culminating in last week’s settlement

Last week, Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, agreed to a settlement of up to $18bn after dozens of US states accused it of harming children with addictive products. The settlement’s regulatory implications for social media will affect every user, far beyond teens.

But if Meta is truly interested in prioritizing the safety of users, the board should request the resignation of Mark Zuckerberg and restructure to put safety above profit.

O2 Arena, London
Fans scream ‘eat zucchini’ as if their lives depend on it as the six-piece’s remaining members strut their way through chest-rattling hits, ludicrous bangers and flaccid flops

It takes a certain amount of resilience to be a Katseye fan. Since debuting three years ago via the boot camp meets reality TV show The Debut: Dream Academy, the multinational K-pop hybrid girl band have put their so-called Eyekons through the wringer. Last month alone they lost their second member to a “personal health and wellness” related hiatus, with Sophia joining Manon (who stepped away in more mysterious circumstances back in February) on the sidelines. Weeks later, they landed their first US No 1 album with Wild, a collection led by the carbonated dance-pop rocket Pinky Up – a song referred to by the band’s many online detractors as “skibidi toilet music” (ie slop).

Even as this debut arena tour arrived in the UK, there were fears the newly reshaped quartet might be reduced to a trio after Megan sprained her ankle. But if the fans are worried, they don’t show it, their ear-piercing screams drowning out the opening Hootie Frutti, a sonic melange that somehow makes Brazilian funk sound leaden. By the time petulant hyperpop bop Internet Girl kicks in they’re screaming lines like “eat zucchini, eat zucchini” as if their lives depend on it.

High food prices are affecting everyone right now, but it turns out they are affecting some people way more than others. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks at the grocery price situation and official healthy eating advice in different countries to find out how food prices are hitting lower-income households harder and whether it’s even mathematically possible to eat a government-recommended healthy diet

James Orr and Dan Jukes, aides to Nigel Farage, stepped down after an investigation by Channel 4 News

British ministers have hit back after the Argentinian president said “winds of change” favourable to his country’s claim to the Falklands were “blowing around the world”, Kiran Stacey reports.

The Electoral Commission has issued a statement this morning saying it is in touch with the police about the undercover investigation into Reform UK. In a statement, it said:

We are considering all relevant information, in line with our regulatory remit, and we are in touch with the Met police.

The Electoral Commission has not approved the donor vetting process for Reform, or any other party. Parties are responsible for ensuring their internal processes and controls are fit for purpose.

Jury returns to tell judge for a third time it cannot reach a verdict in case of Massachusetts woman who killed her children

• Judge set to declare mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case after jury deadlocked third time

After the judge read out the note from the jury, prosecutors expressed they were in favour of a mistrial, whereas Lindsay Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington had asked the judge to send jurors back to continue deliberating.

In asking the judge to hold off on formally declaring a mistrial, Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington said he wanted to file an appeal directly to the Massachusetts supreme judicial court regarding the apparent holdout juror.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has told SBU to deliver ‘appropriate, tangible response’ to Kyiv strike

The head office of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency has been hit in a Russian drone attack, sending plumes of black smoke rising into the air in the heart of Kyiv.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he had instructed the SBU to deliver an “appropriate, tangible response” to the strike, while the foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, described it as a “major escalation”.

Energy secretary could recommend new North Sea drilling next week, as ministers also consider approval for Rosebank oilfield

• UK politics live – latest updates

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Ministers are poised to approve a controversial new gasfield in the North Sea this month, according to government sources, and are considering approving a major oilfield later this year.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, will give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen as soon as next week, according to people close to the decision, and the formal approval could follow a week after.