Coronavirus has brought fashion to a halt. To mark Earth Day, we asked sustainable fashion designers, writers and advocates what changes they would like to see

Over the past few years, sustainable fashion has been inching towards the mainstream. Now, given the pandemic crisis, discussion of how to create a more ethical and less environmentally damaging model for an industry that is responsible for 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions every year is more relevant than ever.

With much of the usual churn on pause because of coronavirus and many of the cracks of the industry coming to the fore – not least in Bangladesh, where garment workers are facing destitution as big-name brands cancel their orders – some people in the industry are taking this hiatus as an opportunity to reassess fashion’s direction of travel.

Environmental biologists have warned that the potential spread of COVID-19 via sewage 'must not be neglected' in the battle to protect human health.

Researchers have uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick -- research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.

Your house number could be the key to the safe relaxation of COVID-19-related restrictions if governments follow a new exit strategy, which proposes the use of an 'odds-and-evens' approach to allowing people to head back to work and enjoy other activities after weeks of lockdown.

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.

Julia Garner excels as a junior assistant to a predatory media mogul boss in Kitty Green’s powerfully understated #MeToo drama

A performance of few words but immense physical eloquence by Julia Garner anchors this impressively chilling #MeToo-era drama about workplace harassment and abuse. Following a day in the life of a young woman with dreams of making her mark in the film and television industry, it’s a sobering portrait of a dirty little secret that was brought into the news spotlight by the Harvey Weinstein scandal. All the more powerful for its understated tone, this low-key piece packs a hefty punch as it exposes the web of silence that enabled a very modern horror story.

Garner (who won an Emmy for her work on TV’s Ozark) is Jane, a high-achieving college graduate who finds herself on the bottom rung of the ladder as a junior assistant to an unnamed entertainment mogul in New York. The appointment may hold promises of great opportunities ahead, but for now it’s fairly soul destroying. An opening sequence, played out to the lonely strains of Tamar-kali’s sparse score, finds Jane being driven to the office before dawn, turning on the lights above her colleagues’ desks – first in, last out. Her tasks are menial yet weirdly demanding: making coffee, changing the paper in the photocopier, ordering lunch, and arranging travel and accommodation for an ever-changing roster of offhand executives and needy clients.

Once the ‘go-to guy for feckless losers’, the actor is now spearheading Apple’s assault on British TV. He talks about flops, racism, chest hair – and Laurence Fox

In October 2005, Rafe Spall was starring in the role he thought he was born to play. Only 21 at the time, he’d bagged a part in Anna Mackmin’s reimagining of Francis Beaumont’s 1607 comedy The Knight of the Burning Pestle at the Barbican. The play isn’t just any old Renaissance play in the Spall household, it’s a hallowed text.

His father (Timothy Spall, you might have heard of him) had played the same part in a 1981 RSC version that changed his life for ever. It was while playing that role he met his wife, Shane, and the pair loved the play so much they decided to give their first child the name of the character his father played: Rafe. To make it seem even more preordained, it was Rafe’s grandmother’s favourite ever performance by his father. No pressure, then.

From his fateful game of chess to a moving turn in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Von Sydow was the last standard bearer of Bergman’s high-minded movie idiom

•Max von Sydow dies aged 90
•A life in pictures

The opening of the seventh seal in the Book of Revelation, disclosing the truth of God’s existence and the second coming, will result in a mysterious silence in the kingdom of heaven – then the sound of trumpets and the thunderous uproar of Earth’s apocalyptic ending. In the movies, no actor has ever represented these ideas more seriously, nor shown humanity’s anguish in the face of God’s implacable silence or unassuageable anger more clearly, than Max von Sydow. He was virtually a book of revelation in himself.

The passionate severity of Von Sydow – and his ability to impersonate the ascetic nobility of some impossibly remote priestly or knightly order but with very human flaws – formed the bedrock of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and the staggering series of films he was to make with Bergman in the 1950s and 1960s. Beyond that, he virtually epitomised an entire, distinctively high-minded attitude to cinematic art in Europe. His films for Bergman were composed in a movie idiom that drew on Ibsen and Strindberg, Sjöström and Dreyer – and of which, since Bergman’s death in 2007, Von Sydow could be said to be the final standard bearer.

Hollywood loves a good comeback, and post-coronavirus will be no exception, writes costume designer Kristin M Burke

Many events have killed the film industry: the 1918 influenza epidemic, the second world war, the invention of television, the invention of VCRs, the invention of the internet, 9-11, strike after strike after strike. And yet, like a phoenix, it rises, every time stronger than before. The appetite for its product is insatiable especially in times of political trouble and uncertainty about the future. People want to escape. They want to be entertained.

The way we make movies most certainly must change. In the best of circumstances, we are a crew of 75 people jammed into a room with very little ventilation, holding our breath until we hear “CUT”. We are in close contact with one another all day long. We never really thought about it before. All of that is about to change. Film sets usually function as big families, and moving forward, that family unit will take on a stronger, protective meaning. This is how we self-regulate in the post-pandemic era.

Mark Lawson and Dan Milmo discuss the sustainability of the streaming service. Plus: Lara Spirit on why you should register to vote before Tuesday’s deadline

Netflix has risen from obscurity to be one of the most powerful media companies in the world with more than 150 million global subscribers. It has launched critically acclaimed hits such as House of Cards, The Crown and Unbelievable, as well as showcasing the back catalogues of popular television series. But as part of its rapid growth, the company has racked up huge debts.

Joining Anushka Asthana to discuss the long-term sustainability of Netflix are the TV critic Mark Lawson and the Guardian’s deputy business editor Dan Milmo.

Wagner Moura and Ana de Armas give strong performances in a mostly effective retelling of the life and tragic death of a celebrated Brazilian diplomat

There’s an old school charm to Sergio, documentarian Greg Barker’s narrative portrait of UN diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a dramatic retelling of a life he already brought to the screen in a 2009 documentary of the same name. Barker’s knowledge of Sérgio’s life and accomplishments is backgrounded by a clear respect for who he was and so while the film is factually detailed, as one would expect, it’s also rooted in a desire to showcase his humanity, both in and out of work, with Barker deciding to lean into full-tilt romantic tragedy, perhaps also as a way of differentiating his two Sergios.

Related: Love Wedding Repeat review – laboured Netflix romcom farce

A manic pre-summer caper skirts near dark territory but remains a mostly kid-friendly tale of an unusual family

A year after Sony’s wonderfully inventive Into the Spider-Verse became the first non-Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks film to win the best animated feature Oscar since 2011, the race was again populated by outliers. Frozen 2 was snubbed and instead Laika crept back into the spotlight with Missing Link (after winning the Golden Globe) and Netflix snuck in with two originals – Klaus and I Lost My Body – marking the streamer’s first time breaking into the pack. While Toy Story 4 might have ultimately won out, the lineup continued to reflect both a widening field and an embrace of more left-field choices, a much-needed jolt of energy in what used to be a two-horse race.

Related: Trolls World Tour review – eyeball-frazzling sequel offers same again

Chris Hemsworth plays a super-tough mercenary on an all-guns-blazing mission to rescue a crime lord’s kidnapped son

Sadly, this has nothing to do with dentistry. Extraction is a made-for-Netflix action thriller from veterans of the Marvel Comic Universe – screenwriter Joe Russo, stunt-specialist-turned-director Sam Hargrave and star Chris Hemsworth. It’s based on the graphic novel Ciudad (which Russo co-authored), transferring the action from the Paraguayan city of Ciudad Del Este to Dhaka in Bangladesh.

Extraction is a little bit hokey and absurd, and the very end has an exasperating cop-out – but it has to be admitted that, in terms of pure action octane, Russo and Hargrave bring the noise, and there are quite a few long-distance “sniper” scenes in which people get taken out from miles away as the bullet travels through their skulls with a resonant thoonk.

A ridiculously titled film about a couple who stumble upon a stash of money is absurd and cliched but mostly entertaining

One of the most surprising reveals of last October’s unprecedented Netflix data dump was the astounding popularity of cheap psycho-thriller Secret Obsession. While the streamer proudly touted new films from Alfonso Cuarón, Paul Greengrass and the Coens in the same period, it was a no-star, dim-plotted slab of schlock that netted more viewers, with an estimated 40m households eager to find out just how secret that obsession really was. Modelled after a Lifetime TV movie (with a Lifetime TV director at the helm), it was an important victory for Netflix because it revealed a substantial audience for tiny-budgeted thrillers with generic titles, a bracket they could easily fill at little expense.

Related: The Half of It review – charming Netflix teen comedy takes on Cyrano

A talented trio of young actors enliven a familiar yet engaging tale of a queer love triangle at high school

There’s a satisfying ease to Netflix high school comedy The Half of It, a charming twist on the Cyrano de Bergerac formula that deserves slightly more attention than most of the streamer’s other made-to-order sleepover pics. A teen market that had been underserved by studios has now been exhaustively cornered by the company but often without much care or inventiveness, a conveyor belt of content that prioritises quantity over quality. It’s refreshing then to see a film such as this emerge from the same production line, slickly ticking all the same boxes but with a noticeable uplift in enthusiasm, grafting its own identity on to the boilerplate format.

Related: Never Have I Ever review – Netflix teen series slowly finds its voice

Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders gives a compelling lead performance as a young man trying to escape his father’s shadow

It’s an unusually stacked week for new films on Netflix (one they might regret when pre-pandemic content starts to dry up) with a teen comedy, a B-thriller and a romantic documentary all launching before the weekend, a feast for viewers at home but a glut that could overshadow one of their finer offerings quietly releasing alongside. All Day and a Night, a tough-minded drama from Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole, might not be quite worthy enough for their awards slate (although it’s a damn sight more compelling than The Two Popes …) but it’s a step up from what one might expect of an unhyped May movie from the streamer. Think of it as a classier boutique release, deserving of a higher shelf placement.

Related: The Half of It review – charming Netflix teen comedy takes on Cyrano

The director of King of New York, Bad Lieutenant and The Funeral recommends film and TV for a coronavirus age, in the hope that ‘the light becomes more evident in the darkness’

• Read the rest of our Lockdown watch series
• The best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

They come from some of the most prominent hockey families in Manitoba, a group of young men blessed with athletic gifts that allow them to be better than most at ...

Water utility workers in El Paso, Texas were forced to unclog pumps over 20 times in 24 hours after residents refused to heed their call to refrain from flushing personal protective equipment and other coronavirus-related items down the toilet.

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.

From yoga apps to an intelligent jumprope

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

Giant elliptical galaxies are not as likely as previously thought to be cradles of complex life, according to a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 2015, University of Durham astronomer Pratika Dayal and colleagues concluded that large elliptical galaxies have up to 10,000 times more habitable planets than the [...]

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has demonstrated that single-celled microorganisms such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae that normally do not inhabit hydrogen-rich environments can survive and grow in a 100% hydrogen atmosphere. “There’s a diversity of habitable worlds out there, and we have confirmed that Earth-based life can [...]

Astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa, have solved a longstanding mystery of X-shaped radio galaxies. Many galaxies far more active than the Milky Way have enormous twin jets of radio waves extending far into intergalactic space. Normally these go in opposite directions, coming from [...]

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, […]

While Jackbox clearly owes a great deal of its current popularity to the shelter-in-place policies, they've also been honing their craft for years. It's worth looking at what makes them work.

2020 and 2021 will be one of the periodic transitional eras in gaming as Sony and Microsoft debut their shiny new consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. To ease the process (and spur adoption of the next generation), EA may make its upcoming titles free to “upgrade” to your chosen console. On an […]

With conferences canceled indefinitely, companies are increasingly reliant on online events to hype product launches. As they prepare to release a next-gen console before the end of the year, expect plenty of live streams and blogs from both Microsoft and Sony in an attempt to flesh out all that their respective systems have to offer. […]

The notoriously independent-minded federal judge who once said he was disgusted by the conduct of Michael Flynn could block the administration's bid to drop criminal charges against the former adviser to President Donald Trump, legal experts said.

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.

U.S. coronavirus task force response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx will have a leading role in how the first drug to demonstrate a benefit in treating COVID-19 patients will be distributed to hospitals, the White House said on Friday.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn is in self-quarantine for a couple of weeks after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, an FDA spokesman told Reuters late on Friday.

A dialogue on sex, consent, ownership over bodies must be introduced from a young age so that it becomes part of a dominant narrative, say experts.

Loni SDM clarified that four employees have tested positive for coronavirus and not all of them, as claimed.

Neil Ferguson, whose modelling has informed the UK's coronavirus strategy, says that the need for intensive care beds will come close to, but not exceed, national capacity

The peak of the UK coronavirus epidemic now looks likely to arrive within the next month, according to analysis by the government’s science advisers

Join Pearse Keane to find out why the NHS is collaborating with AI company DeepMind and how deep learning could transform ophthalmology

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

A device that carries hot water down a tube into the gut may help manage diabetes by killing overgrown gut cells that release hormones key to metabolising food

There are three main strategies for leaving coronavirus lockdown, but each risks a dangerous second wave and further lockdowns if things don't go as planned

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

Metabolites from urine or blood samples can be used to predict how much a baby will grow six months ahead of time, which could improve interventions for chronic malnutrition

Taking deep breaths and forcing a cough can help clear mucus, but these techniques are unlikely to prevent or treat coronavirus infections – here’s why