With a soulful sound and soul-baring lyrics, the Afghan Whigs rode the post-Nirvana boom to the big leagues. Their frontman explains his exploration of the male ego – and how Usher got the band back together

The Afghan Whigs were always heavier than their grunge-era brethren. Not musically – their turbulent, sophisticated rock was rooted in soul and funk, and frontman Greg Dulli says the group only embraced distortion in order to be heard over the volume of metalhead drummer Steve Earle’s playing. “Any kind of jangle wasn’t gonna work.” But Dulli’s lyrics, inspired by the likes of Motown bards Holland/Dozier/Holland, were pitch-black, depicting lovers in co-dependent cycles of betrayal and recrimination. Afghan Whigs songs take place in a world where sin is irresistible, punishment inevitable and some kind of judgment inescapable.

“My songs acknowledge consequence, more than they deal in judgment,” Dulli says, between sips of water in the bar of a London hotel. Forty years on from their formation, the Whigs are resurgent. Their new album, Soft Control, ably holds its own with earlier dark masterpieces such as their 1993 breakthrough Gentlemen, and its bleakly funky conceptual follow-up, 1996’s Black Love – records that affirmed their frontman as alt-rock’s poet of arch romantic dysfunction. “I understood sorrow and loss and loneliness from an early age,” he says. His dad was the youngest of 14; several of Dulli’s uncles died when he was young. “I had been there, so why wouldn’t I explore it?”

As warming seas push native species to cooler waters farther north, once-rare visitors have become more common

‘It sounds silly but I thought it was a person in the water waving,” says Kurt Lander, skipper of the Yellowfin charter boat, based out of Brighton. But when he grabbed his binoculars, he realised the fluttering movement he had noticed in the middle of the Channel shipping lane was a pair of sunfish.

The huge fish were lying on their sides and flapping their fins. “Apparently, they do it as a visual attraction to birds,” he says. “They’re trying to get the birds to eat the parasites off them.”

I’ve started writing to my sister, my mum, my friends … Not everyone writes back, but when we connect it’s on a deeper level than any group chat

Last January, I received a letter. Most of my post was predictably boring – a statement from the water company, my credit card bill, the occasional update about my pension contributions – but this letter was different. The envelope felt heavier than the run-of-the-mill ones I was used to. It was postmarked Paris, a place I had little connection to, and, most strikingly, it was addressed in messy handwriting – my own.

I had completely forgotten I’d written it until it turned up on my doorstep. On a trip to Paris the year before, I had visited a letter-writing cafe. The idea was simple: you wrote a letter (usually to yourself), the cafe kept it safe and sent it a year later. So, alongside trying escargots for the first time, I wrote a letter filled with questions about my not-so-distant future and addressed it to my home, in London. What will you be doing? Where will you be living? Do you have a boyfriend?

Even after half a century in the limelight, the actor can still surprise. Who’d have guessed she went clubbing with Freddie Mercury? Or that she watched Blair and Brown strike their fateful deal at Granita?

A quick run-through of some of the 20th-century icons that Su Pollard has met. Paul McCartney? “Absolutely fabulous,” Pollard says. “He was sat leaning against a wall, next to Linda.” She does a great impression of McCartney’s accent. “‘Hey Su, how are you? Love the show. Can I have your autograph? For my mother.’” The show was, of course, the hugely successful BBC sitcom Hi-de-Hi!, set on an Essex holiday camp and for which Pollard, playing chalet maid Peggy, will for ever be best known.

Queen Elizabeth, after a Royal Variety Performance? “She was absolutely marvellous. What struck me – I’ve always said this – was her skin. I was drawn to her skin. It was all peachified. And beautiful smile, her own teeth. Very regal, very straight-backed, not very tall, and quite a voluptuous bosom.”

American Doctor follows three volunteer doctors as they try to save lives on the frontline and then return to the US to become advocates in congress

When she wanted to confront Americans about the consequences of their actions – or inactions – in Gaza, Poh Si Teng reached for a genre with mass popular appeal: the medical drama.

“Whether it’s The Pitt, Grey’s Anatomy, House, ER, even a comedy like Scrubs, you name it,” the documentary film-maker says via Zoom from her New York apartment. “I thought to myself, there’s something about medical dramas and doctors and human mortality in this space so let’s make The Pitt. The difference is it’s real and it’s set in Gaza and maybe this is the way to bring Palestine back to the United States.”

The president was forced to hide in a catering truck amid the Iran war, in an encapsulation of the conflict’s failures

For decades, Donald Trump cultivated a public image based on strength and dominance. He was a brash New York real estate mogul; a reality TV star who deployed his signature phrase: “You’re fired!” to eliminate contestants from The Apprentice; and eventually US president and undisputed leader of the Republican party.

In recent months, Trump has taken his boastfulness to an extreme, reportedly telling confidants that he’s “the most powerful person to ever live” and comparing himself with some of history’s most feared leaders, including Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Party’s ‘welfare to work’ policy would force long-term claimants to do community work or face losing benefits

Robert Jenrick went on to say that long-term benefits claimants will be made to clean up their local high street and do charity work or face having their benefits taken away.

He said as part of the party’s “welfare to work” policy, long-term claimants, who are fit to work, will be forced to do 20-hours of work a week in the community.

They’ll work to clean up high streets and parks, to beautify neglected places, to carry out minor repairs, to staff libraries and community centres to perform many other tasks from the list that we’ve published today.

We’ll also embrace local charities and community groups and ask them to help us and take part. If claimants refuse to participate or fail to show up, they’ll face penalties.

Crowdfund passes £150,000, while Cambridge chancellor criticises ‘racist feeding frenzy’ around academic’s death

A Windrush campaigner who launched a fundraiser for Jason Arday’s family has said the outpouring of support shows “Britain still cares”.

Arday, who was found dead on Friday, had resigned the previous week from his post as professor of sociology of education at the University of Cambridge after allegations of plagiarism were made against him.

Robert Smith, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma also among signatories to letter saying exploitation of Rosebank and Jackdaw fields defies climate reality

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More than 200 musicians including Massive Attack and Brian Eno have written to Andy Burnham urging him to reject plans for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

The letter, signed by 211 artists such as Bobby Gillespie, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma, called on the prime minister to reject the Rosebank oilfield, warning that the project would fail to lower energy bills or provide energy security as most of the oil was likely to be exported.

US president makes threat in comments to Fox News, as his son-in-law meets the Israeli leader in Jerusalem in effort to push Gaza peace plan

• Jared Kushner meets with Hamas ahead of talks with Netanyahu on Gaza

The UN rights chief voiced alarm Monday at the rising civilian toll of escalating hostilities in Yemen, urging restraint and an immediate de-escalation to avoid plunging the country back into a full-scale war.

“I urge all parties to halt immediately any actions that risk returning Yemen to full-scale conflict,” Volker Türk said in a statement, as renewed fighting between the Houthi rebels and the government undermined a 2022 truce.