As new settlers clear their forest habitat, the apes are coming into conflict with humans. But simply moving them to another part of the forest may not be the answer

The banana skins were an ominous sign. As was the branch that had been broken off to get to the fruit. Had Edi Ramli walked into the forest, he might have seen scattered balls of bark that had been ripped off trees, chewed like gum, then spat out. It takes a powerful jaw to do that. Closer to Edi’s home, there was an intricate construction of bent and broken branches high in a tree. The nest.

It was October, the fruiting season. The pile of half-eaten bananas was less than a minute’s walk from where Edi and his family slept. He felt nervous. He got on with his day. He picked sweetcorn and sold it at the market. He bought a carton of chocolate milk and biscuits for his grandson. He and his wife, Siti Munawaroh, ran the farm with their three adult children. They prepped the land, sowed seeds, tended crops. Survival depended on what they could grow.

They’re in restaurants, offices and supermarkets – there’s even a petition to let them on flights to the UK. But not everyone is happy about the growing number of dogs in public places

Out for dinner in London with her husband and two-month-old son, Gizzelle Cade noticed another woman coming into the restaurant with a pram. “It had all these little trinkets and toys,” says Cade. “I was like, wow, she put some cute little decor there.” The woman reached into the pram to get, Cade assumed, her baby – instead she pulled out a dog. Then she put an absorbent pad, the kind you use for puppy training, on the floor and placed the dachshund on it.

“I was completely taken aback,” says Cade. “To see pretty much an open bathroom where I was dining with my newborn – it was insulting.”

With the Greens now a viable alternative, a Labour leader will not win power again without the progressive vote. But they will need to earn it

Labour’s failures have made a rightwing authoritarian government not just a nightmare, but a plausible next chapter. Having enraged its natural voters – many of whom have flocked to the Greens – Labour MPs have clambered on to a lifeboat named Andy Burnham.

Do the rest of us blindly hop on board? Burnham is, indisputably, Labour’s best bet. He is the party’s most popular politician, and surely the figure best placed to win back voters lost to both the Greens and Reform. He has an easy northern charm, and some genuine progressive achievements to his name, secured with the limited powers he has as Greater Manchester’s mayor. But he has also benefited from not being at the centre of the great national political controversies of our age.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

The artist’s Austrian Pavilion, which features a performer ringing a bell with her body and another immersed in the audience’s own urine, is the talk of the biennale. Why is she so surprised by people’s reaction?

It’s a damp Venice morning. In the middle of the lagoon, art world luminaries with dripping umbrellas are climbing on to a boat with raked seating to witness a one-off performance. Stationed opposite them is a barge fitted with a large crane, its boom extended high above the water, its heavy anchor chain plunging into the turbid depths.

Women, naked but for tattoos and boots, emerge on to the deck of the barge. Directed by a bandleader in rubber waders, some pick up instruments and create an intense wall of sound. The electric guitarist clips herself on to the slippery crane, climbs to a vertiginous height and rocks out while straddling a steel bar. She is joined by a vocalist who screams and squalls like Yoko Ono. After 20 minutes of heavy drone, the boom rises, hoisting a cast-iron bell from the frigid water. Suspended upside down within it is a long-haired woman. As the bell rises above the Venice skyline, she begins to slam her body from side to side, sending a ringing out across the water.

Suifenhe, a small city in China’s economically depressed rust belt, is a microcosm of an evolving Chinese-Russian trading relationship

Suited and booted in a navy twinset tracksuit and colourful high-top trainers, Wang Runguo is hustling. Darting across the gleaming floors of his cavernous car showroom, the 45-year-old from one of China’s poorest provinces is closing on yet another deal. It is all in a day’s work for the man whose salary has more than doubled in the past year thanks to a well-timed pivot: from corn to cars; from China to Russia.

This time last year Wang was working for an agricultural company that grew corn and soya beans for the domestic market. Now he is a manager at Xingyun International Automobile Export, a company founded in August 2025 to cater to the booming new car export industry in Suifenhe, a small city in China’s north-east that borders Russia. “Recently, China and Russia have been moving closer together,” Wang says. “As we move closer, more and more cars are going there.”

Makerfield will be a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform – so prepare yourself for regrets, broken promises and baffling assertions about ‘red wall’ voters

It is a gruesome shock and yet was entirely predictable: we stand on the brink of a byelection that is three things at once. First, a straight popularity contest for Andy Burnham, which itself is a worry, because there must be a limit to how many times you can be called “King of the North” without it boiling your brain, and if that limit exists at all, it must surely have been reached. Second, it’s a limbering-up round for the coming Labour leadership challenge. Third, and most importantly, Makerfield is a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform when it matters. So what could be more helpful than for everyone involved – every cabinet minister, every backbencher, every commentator – to reach back into their memory and find the stupidest thing that was ever said about Brexit, and say it again in a more excitable voice. Get ready for Brexit-argument bingo; if you think you’ve heard them all before, that’s why it’s so fun.

Keir Starmer jumped first, even before the byelection was on the cards. After announcing a plan to nationalise steel – an industry that is already under government control – he made some huge admissions about Brexit, followed by some even larger promises. He said it had made us poorer, it had sent migration through the roof and it had made us less secure. It wasn’t what you’d call hold-the-front-page, since it’s common knowledge that Brexit has made us poorer; but it’s extremely surprising, of course, to hear the prime minister make a straightforward statement on the EU which relates to reality, rather than a convoluted set of red lines, related to an alternative universe in which Europe is begging to take us back, but we’re holding firm.

Exclusive: Potential investors fear Andy Burnham could push to bring utility companies into public ownership

A rescue deal for Thames Water is under threat because of a potential change in prime minister, government insiders have said.

Ministers are negotiating a takeover deal for the stricken water company with a consortium of creditors led by American investment firm Elliott Management.

Pay growth eases to 3.4% as businesses face pressure from soaring energy costs

Unemployment in the UK has unexpectedly risen to 5% while wage growth has slowed, according to official figures, in the first snapshot of how companies are reacting to the impact of the Iran war.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of unemployment was up in the three months to March, from 4.9% in February, a rate that City economists had expected to hold.

Study of Channel finds levels of toxic Pfas in Solent at 13 times safe limits in some places, with much coming from treated sewage

Scientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study.

In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity.

Port has upgraded offshore wind facilities and is to expand quays, ferry terminals and cruise ship services

The operator of Belfast harbour plans to spend £1.3bn over the next 25 years to take advantage of strong economic growth in Northern Ireland, in what would be one of the largest non-governmental investments in the region’s history.

The Belfast Harbour Commissioners said the money would be spent on upgrading the port, with the possibility of residential property developments that could add another £750m in investment on top.