To campaigners’ dismay, the UK’s biggest hubs, Heathrow and Gatwick, are pushing on with plans to increase capacity

Christine Taylor has lived her entire life in the shadow of London’s Heathrow airport, her childhood bedroom affording a view of one of its two runways. She grew up in Sipson, a village that can trace its history back more than 1,000 years, but now sits immediately north of Britain’s busiest airline hub.

Now living a mile to the east in Harlington, Taylor, 62, is experiencing a rare moment of quiet, thanks to the dramatic reduction in air traffic caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Excellent film-maker that he is, Watiti seems to fit the Marvel blueprint far more easily than he does Star Wars’ more venerable, old-school template

When entertainment reporters play Hollywood roulette, the practice of attaching directors and stars to forthcoming movies based on little more than rumour, their little white balls nearly always seem to land on Taika Waititi’s number. If you’ve been keeping a close eye on this column over the past year, you’ve probably spotted the white-hot Kiwi director being touted for a remake of Flash Gordon and the next Deadpool movie among other projects, neither of which have yet come to fruition.

Waititi’s next film, according to reports this week, will be a Star Wars episode. Will he end up making it to the first day of production on this one? The chances seem better, as Disney has officially confirmed the appointment via the space saga’s official website, with 1917 co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns helping deliver a script. But this is Star Wars we are talking about – Colin Trevorrow, Josh Trank, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, David Benioff and DB Weiss are among the numerous film-makers who have cheerily signed up to try to bring back the glory days of the long-running series in recent times, only to ultimately fall foul of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy’s merciless Force choke.

Staff of the magazine that kicked off the French New Wave say its new elite owners pose a threat to editorial independence

The mass resignation of the staff of Cahiers du Cinéma, the film journal that launched the French New Wave, has reignited debate in France about the possibility of critical independence in a society whose major stakeholders frequently operate in several spheres.

On Thursday, the 15 staff writers and editors announced their resignation, saying they believed its new owners posed a threat to the magazine’s cherished independence.

The actor said wearing a fat suit for the 2001 movie taught her what it is like to be humiliated as an obese person. Why are TV and film characters so rarely treated with dignity and respect?

‘Disaster” is how Gwyneth Paltrow has summed up her role in the 2001 film Shallow Hal, which will surprise few people who have actually seen it. Jack Black plays Hal, a man so shallow he has to be hypnotised in order to date a fat woman, who, through his boggled eyes, he sees as a very thin woman.

The nastiness of Shallow Hal, which has long appalled critics and fans alike, was front and centre in the trailer, where Hal’s friend attempts to “rescue” him from speaking to a fat woman, Rosemary, who is, in fact, willowy Paltrow dressed in a fat suit. But because he cannot see what she looks like, he falls for her “inner beauty”. It is an uncomfortable mix – a film that pretends to preach body acceptance while simultaneously inviting laughter at bodies that don’t fit into jeans size six and under. Take the scene where she is called a “rhino”, or the one where she cannonballs into a swimming pool causing a tidal wave. The message built into the script’s DNA is simple: fat is funny; it is OK to laugh at fat people.

Alan Yang’s film about the lack of understanding between generations strikes a chord, and is so relevant as coronavirus racism spreads

• Read all the Lockdown watch films here
• The best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

Inflamed by President Trump’s casual phrase “Chinese virus”, anti-Asian sentiment is erupting all over the world. As a British-Vietnamese person who has been spat on because of the colour of her skin, the film Tigertail is a glimmer of hope – a way of showing the truth, and connecting Asian communities at a time when panic and misinformation serve to break us apart. Alan Yang’s multi-generational love story Tigertail weaves in Yang’s cultural self-discovery and features memories of Taiwan, as experienced by the protagonist Pin-Jui. Weighted against the present tide of anti-Asian bigotry, this tender story about honesty and lost love is more relevant than ever.

“American culture has been negligent in portraying Asian-American people as fully realised human beings,” Yang told the Deadline podcast. Yang, who worked on Parks and Recreation before co-creating Master of None, recalled the trepidation he felt in the early days of his career, in a cultural landscape where east Asians were rarely represented, or stereotyped as hardworking automatons. Yang said he had felt restricted to using only white characters in his early pilots, fearing that all-Asian or Asian-American scripts would never be accepted. But this was before the film successes of Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell and Parasite brought real Asian faces to mainstream culture.

Like dozens of women in the entertainment industry, the actor, model and writer Zoë Brock has claimed she had a traumatic encounter with the film producer Harvey Weinstein. Now she is faced with a settlement offer that she believes would allow him to escape blame for the alleged assaults. Also today: Lily Kuo on the spread of the deadly coronavirus in China

The actor, model and writer Zoë Brock was on a retreat in the New Zealand bush in 2017 when an email pinged into her inbox. It was from a friend sending a link to a breaking news story of allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The claims from several women against the film producer were eerily familiar to an incident that Brock alleges happened to her.

This week, Weinstein goes on trial charged with rape and sexual assault. But for dozens of women with claims against him, their only recourse is to civil courts. Brock tells Anushka Asthana that while she is part of the class action suit against Weinstein, she is deeply unhappy with the terms of the proposed settlement, which she believes would allow him to accept no blame for the allegations.

This heartwarming documentary traces the lives of a baseball star and her partner, now in their 90s, who pretended to be ‘just good friends’ for decades

This documentary from Netflix is a real heart-soother. Directed with tremendous sensitivity and intimacy by Chris Bolan, it’s a love story about two women now in their 90s – Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, who have been together since the 1940s.

For decades they kept up the pretence of being “just good friends” to their families before finally coming out a few years ago. Talking to outsiders, they still describe each other as “cousins”. The legacy of shame and fear among older people in the gay community is explored in the film, but the overwhelming mood here is love.

The actor, best known for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire JRR Tolkien novel

Andy Serkis is to give a continuous, live reading of The Hobbit – lasting around 12 hours – in aid of charity. The actor, best known as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire book from start to finish with no breaks.

Money raised from the performance will be split equally between NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings.

Out of 200 employees tested at a German meat processing plant, 151 tested positive Thursday for coronavirus, triggering an "emergency mechanism" to delay the easing of social distancing restrictions.

Bill Maher said Republicans "don't care" about Tara Reade's sexual assault allegations, saying such claims are simply used as a "unilateral weapon" against Democrats.

The Magic Keyboard isn't perfect, but it pushes the iPad toward the inevitable future of computing, writes TIME's tech critic

Comfort, however, can be an issue

A team of Australian scientists and wildlife ecologists has captured koala drinking behavior in the wild for the first time. Each day, wild koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) eat around 510 grams of fresh eucalyptus leaves, and the water in the foliage they feed on is believed to contribute about 75% of their water intake in both [...]

A team of researchers from the University of Exeter has studied potential drivers of ‘rock juggling’ in two species of otters in zoo environments. Although elusive in the wild, otters are noted to be very playful and inquisitive animals based on observations in captivity. The animals are often seen lying on their backs and batting [...]

Neuroscientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have released the third version of their Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework (CCFv3). A mouse brain contains approximately 100 million cells across hundreds of different regions. As neuroscience datasets grow larger and more complex, a common spatial map of the brain becomes more critical, as does [...]

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions into isolation, video games are seeing a surge in usage as people seek entertainment and social interaction. When we surveyed gaming-focused VCs in October, Andreessen Horowitz partner Jonathan Lai predicted that “next-generation games will be bigger than anything we’ve seen yet,” eventually reaching “Facebook scale.” This month, […]

Gaming platforms have earned serious clout with investors in recent years. Add in the VC excitement surrounding collaboration tools and it’s no surprised there’s interest in backing another gaming chat app. Guilded is creating a chat platform designed for competitive gaming and esports that focuses heavily on keeping gamers organized and connected with their teams. […]

AI algorithms for deep-reinforcement learning have demonstrated the ability to learn at very high levels in constrained domains.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday abruptly asked a judge to drop criminal charges against Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn following mounting pressure from the Republican president and his political allies on the right.

Noida Police Commissioner has written to national carrier Air India, requesting the airline to ensure that pilots and crew involved in repatriation flights should stay back in Delhi.

The stranded people hail from Tamil Nadu and they were working in the United Arab Emirates.

AAP national executive member & spokesperson, Preeti Sharma Menon, filed a complaint with Mumbai and Kolkata police

The case against them has been registered for forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

Trapped in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, over a thousand migrant workers staying in Hyderabad's Tolichowki took to the streets on Sunday demanding to be taken home.

Government should tell the people clearly about the exact state of the pandemic to enable them to prepare accordingly, said Congress senior spokesperson Ajay Maken.

Chennai, May 09: Tamil Nadu government has announced some relaxations in the Coronavirus lockdown in non-containment zones from May 11. The extension includes working hours of standalone and neighbourhood shops and allowing private establishments to function with a reduced number of employees

New Delhi, May 09 (ANI): An Air India flight carrying 129 passengers from Dhaka, Bangladesh has landed at Delhi airport. The stranded Indian nationals are being brought back to the country through government’s initiative, ‘Vande Bharat Mission’.

Around 250 Indian students and tourists were seen queuing with their luggage at the airport as they prepared for the journey home.

Misogynistic campaign against Safoora reiterates that gender equality in our country is a distant dream.

Our eyes are open to what Pakistan is doing, Singh said, hours after the NIA arrested a "notorious narco-terrorist" who acted as a conduit for Pakistan-based terror groups.

High salt intake seems to impair the immune cells in humans that fight bacteria because of a side effect of the hormones that help get rid of salt

Following a healthy diet or exercising could impact how your brain ages, but the effects on cognitive skills later in life depend on specific gene variants that not everyone has

Does a cell surface protein explain why the coronavirus is more likely to kill people with diabetes or heart disease? Researchers are trying to find out

The advice on widespread face mask use to protect against covid-19 varies wildly, but there is some evidence that they stop sick people spreading the virus

Touch is key to social relationships, and while coronavirus social distancing measures may limit physical interactions, there are still many ways to connect from afar, says evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar

Building muscle reduces the risk of cancer and stroke, boosts brainpower, burns through calories and more – it might even be better for you than cardio

Our brains influence all aspects of our lives, including our sexual desires. This means brain injuries can have some surprising effects, says Amee Baird

A long-standing hypothesis suggests the BCG vaccine also serves to generally enhance the immune system, meaning it could protect against covid-19, and trials are under way to find out

Some dogs and cats may be passing gut microbes to their owners that withstand last-resort antibiotics, which can be needed to fight off pneumonia from a coronavirus infection

In a small trial, implanting electrodes into the brain helped women with severe anorexia gain weight and feel less anxious and depressed

It can be difficult for doctors to assess the level of consciousness in people who have had serious brain injuries, but observing their reaction to strong odours may help

Once the coronavirus pandemic is over, we must work out how to stop the spread of poor information that has helped make a bad situation that much worse

A study of brain cells in a dish adds to growing evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be caused by herpes viruses, but antiviral treatment may help stop it

Mouse neurons trapped inside cages grow long appendages to connect to each other. Trapping the cells allows us to precisely control their growth