Meeting comes as China hopes to reach a deal to avert further tariff pressure from Washington

Republican senator Steve Daines, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Sunday, as China hopes to reach a deal to avert further tariff pressure from Washington.

The meeting marks the first time a US politician has visited China since Trump took office in January. Earlier this month, China’s ministry of foreign affairs promised that China will “fight to the end” with the US in a “tariff war, trade war or any other war”.

Inquiry reveals undercover officer who fathered child with woman under fake identity was married to a second

An undercover police officer who used his fake identity to deceive a woman into a 19-year intimate relationship and fathered a child with her was married to a second woman at the time, a public inquiry has disclosed.

The officer hid his real identity from the first woman and never told her his actual job during their relationship. He used his fake name on the birth certificate of their son.

Gluten-free friands with hazelnuts and ginger, pistachio and kataifi chocolate … and no special gadgets required

Chocolate cake, in its many guises, must be one of the most-loved foods on the planet. I make this recipe often at home – it’s a moist cake filled with decadent ganache. It is rich and indulgent, as all good chocolate cakes should be, yet needs no gadgets to make. Serve it as is, or make it a showstopper and switch up the filling (perhaps with nuts, or cherries to cut the richness) and finish with a few edible flowers.

How the writer found her ongoing fixation on self-development was actually working against her

I have lied to people. Last year I read twice the amount of self-help books than I logged on Goodreads . The number would raise serious concern and some of the titles would, too. I say I’m a culture journalist, but I couldn’t share my Spotify Wrapped because my most listened-to music was healing ambient tracks called things like “Whole Being REGENERATION”. My podcast listening habits were hardly better: softcore manifestation content or prophesying rants from a growing crop of spiritual influencers who make David Icke look like Stephen Hawking. I’ve withheld most of my adventures in healing from friends and family. I hadn’t known how to explain to people what I was doing.

The why was easier: I’d rather not be my own worst enemy. I’d furiously backstep to the centre of many problems to find myself. I wanted to stop being someone with fairly unhealthy relationships and a discreet but unshakeable suspicion that I’m inherently unlovable, which is probably most people’s issue. I knew there was a version of myself with direction, with great intuition, if only I could trust it more. The original sins were not mine but now, a grown adult, they are my responsibility. A few years ago I told a close friend that I’m terrified I’ll wake up at 50, like Leonardo DiCaprio, dating a merry-go-round of inappropriately aged people, but without the Hollywood Hills compound and career. That could be fun, but if it happens, I’d rather it be an interesting choice than my unconscious fault.

Pennsylvania attorney for suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson shooting claims police violated his client’s constitutional rights in arrest

Following Luigi Mangione ’s arrest in the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson , authorities in the US heralded his capture as “ good old-fashioned police work ” that brought an end to a manhunt that had stunned America and the world.

It had been a period of high drama and blanket media coverage. In the days that passed since Thompson was fatally shot on a Manhattan sidewalk by an unknown assailant on 4 December, police tracked down surveillance footage allegedly revealing the still-unidentified Mangione’s face and widely distributed a now notorious still of him appearing to smile at a hostel, all in an attempt to find the fugitive.

Administration’s ‘unprecedented degree of resistance’ to judiciary undercuts its authority and weakens democracy

Donald Trump ’s second administration has shown an “unprecedented degree of resistance” to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.

The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings.

After the welfare cuts backlash the chancellor is being warned about how she wields the scalpel in her spring statement

The ferocious backlash against the £5bn in welfare cuts crafted to balance the books in this Wednesday’s spring statement highlighted an increasingly glaring conflict, between Labour’s pre-election tax pledges and the party’s wider purpose.

Since Rachel Reeves promised last autumn to deliver a single, annual budget, she has been confronted with rising debt interest costs, weaker-than-expected economic growth, and the near-collapse of the transatlantic alliance. “The world has changed,” as every Treasury press release now has it.

A day with a care worker in Bury showed me the intolerable pressures of her life – and then I heard the news of a new squeeze on benefits

Just under a fortnight ago, my working day began at 6.45am, on a silent cul-de-sac near Bury, in Greater Manchester. I was there to shadow Julia, a domiciliary care worker, on her daily morning rounds. She was about to let herself into the home of a 93-year-old woman. “She’ll be asleep in bed,” Julia told me. In 30 packed minutes, she had to wake her up, get her dressed, deal with any overnight accidents and mishaps, make her breakfast and “have a good chat with her, and get her communicating”.

Julia was in the middle of a seven-day working week, with between 10 and 15 “clients” to look after on each shift: elderly people, mostly, but also a 42-year-old mum of two recovering from a stroke. And as we drove from house to house, she explained the tension that runs through her working life: between the squeezed budgets that dictate how she does her job, and the profoundly human needs that she has to see to.

Writer joins more than 100,000 parents who pledge to withhold smartphones until children are at least 14

The writer of Adolescence has backed the Smartphone Free Childhood group, which has received the support of more than 100,000 parents pledging to withhold smartphones from their children until they are at least 14.

Jack Thorne, the co-writer of the Netflix drama about “incel” culture, said he supported the campaign’s “ parent pact ” – an online promise to wait until the end of year 9 before considering giving a child a smartphone.