The singer just wanted to tell Melissa McCarthy how great she was looking. Was it a good idea to mention a weight-loss drug?

Name: Barbra Streisand v Melissa McCarthy.

Age: New.

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Freedom to Write index says there are 107 people in prison for published content in China, with many accused of ‘picking quarrels’

The number of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100, with nearly half imprisoned for online expression.

The grim milestone is revealed in the 2023 Freedom to Write index, a report compiled by Pen America, published on Wednesday.

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Children should be banned from most social media until 18 amid attempts to ‘monetise’ them, says Macron-commissioned study

Children should not be allowed to use smartphones until they are 13 and should be banned from accessing conventional social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat until they are 18, according to a report by experts commissioned by Emmanuel Macron.

The French president had asked scientists and experts to suggest screen use guidelines for children with a view to France taking unprecedented steps on limiting their exposure . It was unclear how the government might now proceed after the report’s publication. Macron said in January: “There might be bans, there might be restrictions.”

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Rachel Coster’s TikTok show, which documents the extremely messy dwelling spaces of New York’s young men, has clearly struck a nerve

Snowboarding boots on the kitchen table. A steering wheel in the bedroom. And clothes absolutely everywhere, with no system to determine which, if any, are clean.

These are just a few of the sights that indicate you’re in a boy room. It’s a bedroom with no form and little function, inhabited by an adult male who doesn’t think much about either concept. The decor, if you can call it that, generally consists of arbitrary trinkets – a favorite old skateboard on the wall, a handful of childhood action figures on the windowsill. The floor is often difficult to see thanks to the density of piled-up sneakers or trash. The best you can say for the furniture is that there might be some; otherwise the resident sleeps on a bare mattress set directly on the floor, with a single pillow and a coverless duvet insert.

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Ian Russell says parental controls could weaken trust and ‘punish children for tech firms’ failures’

• Ian Russell: Tech companies need to change

Government proposals to ban the sale of smartphones to under-16s and raise the minimum age for accessing social media risk causing more harm than good, the father of Molly Russell has warned.

Ian Russell said it was “no surprise” there is a groundswell of pressure for tougher regulation of social media platforms but said plans for a fresh crackdown were flawed.

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If the government is going to strengthen the Online Safety Act, banning social media for under-16s is not the answer

• Smartphones ban may cause more harm than good, says Molly Russell’s father

In the six years since my youngest daughter Molly died , it is striking how little has changed. Children and young people continue to face a wave of inherently preventable online harms on often negligent social media platforms. In a ferocious battle for market share, the risks on sites such as Instagram and TikTok have, in some respects, become worse.

It is therefore no surprise that there is a considerable groundswell in demands for much more to be done. Across the UK, grassroots parents’ groups are increasingly calling for a fundamental reset in the relationship between children and their smartphone use.

Ian Russell is an internet safety campaigner and chair of the Molly Rose Foundation

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

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We’d like to hear from people who have been purchasing luxury goods and experiences in recent years, and how they feel about their spending habits

We’re interested to hear about people’s spending habits in the area of upmarket or luxury goods, services and experiences, and whether they are generally happy with their spending on non-essentials.

We’d like to know whether you have spent money on expensive non-essential items such as designer clothing, high end housewares, luxury holidays, expensive beauty or wellness treatments, or exclusive dining, for instance, in the past year, and if so, whether you have struggled to afford this.

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The singer-songwriter’s brand of stubborn protest songs with a strain of tenderness has kept him relevant for 40 years. Here he talks about why he’s fighting for trans rights, his late-night tweeting habit and his forthcoming tour – with his son

Recently, Billy Bragg showed his two young granddaughters a little promo film he put together celebrating his 40 years of making records. The girls were nonplussed by the early scenes on picket lines and spiky festival stages, but towards the end, recognising an avuncular white-bearded bloke with a guitar, they brightened: “Look, it’s Grandad Bill!” they chorused. “It was actually all Grandad Bill,” their father pointed out, but they weren’t having any of it.

Meeting Bragg at the station car park in Weymouth – not far from where he lives along the Dorset coast – and heading up to a cafe on the headland overlooking the sweep of the bay, I sympathise a little bit with their sentiment. The first time I saw the singer in the flesh was sometime late in 1984, when he was giving it his full “one-man Clash” performance on student stages at miners’ benefits. Even at the time that felt like it might be a hard act to grow old with; yet here he is in the seaside retirement resort, still fighting the good fight.

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In our atomised society, we don’t just reject ideas and identities, we dehumanise those who hold them. There is a way out

The Bondi Junction attacker and the teen who allegedly stabbed the bishop used knives, but judging from the online reaction to both events, many of us have a different weapon in our hands: our smartphones.

Some fault lines simmer under our headlines – landlords v renters, ute drivers v EV advocates, zoomers v boomers. But sporadic moments of horror reveal our trust deficit.

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