After more than three decades together, Simon Hattenstone and his partner Diane Taylor decided to have a civil partnership. It was a beautiful celebration before the shock of the pandemic

Diane and I had been living together for more than 30 years, and our children were 28 and 26 when we got civilled. We’d never wanted to get married. It seemed a bit too pipe and slippers. It also felt like tempting fate. We were really happy without being married, so why change things? And you can’t have more of a commitment than children. But we always said if they introduced civil partnerships for heterosexual couples, we’d get civilled.

I think friends assumed we did it primarily for tax reasons – to ensure that if one of us died, the other wasn’t left in the shit. There was an element of that. But more importantly, we actively wanted to get civilled. It actually felt really romantic – tying the civil knot as an expression of love after all this time together. It was such a beautiful day, in every way. 3 January 2020, just after civil partnerships had been legalised for opposite-sex couples, and we almost made history. We were only the fourth heterosexual couple to be civilled in Haringey. Get in!

The US president’s grotesque theatrics on the world stage are an opportunistic distraction from his falling domestic ratings

Of all the commandments for living under Donald Trump, the first is always this: don’t believe him. Nothing he says can be taken at face value; everything should be fed into a polygraph. Those of scrupulous courtesy can wrap it up in red ribbon, or uncork that aphorism about how the man must be taken seriously but never literally. All the same, scratch a Trump promise and underneath will glint a pretext. Scrutinise his grand plans and you find only shabby tactics.

The Manhattan Democrat turns into a Florida-dwelling Republican; the troll who demanded Barack Obama’s birth certificate will hem and haw over releasing the Epstein files. From real-estate deals to Trump University, all that this guy swears is solid gold soon settles into so much bullshit.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

On Ulva, in the Inner Hebrides, Banjo Beale and his husband are transforming a rundown mansion into their dream hotel, while another adventurous couple have created a charming bothy for hardier folk

Ulva House is a building site. There are workmen up ladders, hammering, plastering, but I leave my muddy walking boots by the door. There’s no central heating or hot water and Banjo Beale and his husband, Ro, have been camping out here for weeks, but he greets me, dazzlingly debonair, in a burnt orange beanie and fabulous Moroccan rug coat.

The 2022 winner of the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, who went on to front his own makeover show Designing the Hebrides, Banjo’s vibe is more exuberant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen than quizzical Kevin McCloud. His latest project with Ro, the transformation of a derelict mansion on the small Hebridean island of Ulva into a boutique hotel, is the subject of a new six-part series, airing on BBC Scotland. I’m here for a preview of the finished rooms.

This six-part adaptation of the bestselling 2020 novel about a murder investigation is twisty, absurd and bingeable. It’s great January viewing

A woman lies bloodied and twitching her last on the bonnet of a car parked deep in a wood. Another woman arrives home bloodied, gasping with fear and for wine, and starts scrubbing her hands before clearing her flat of – well, everything.

A female voiceover intones that there are two sides to every story. “Which means someone is always lying.” Absolute nonsense, obviously, but it sounds great and more importantly it confirms what we were hoping: that we are in the presence of a glossy, efficient adaptation of a bestselling thriller and it is time to switch off our brains and enjoy (unless you are the type who likes to try to solve the mystery before the characters do, in which case, Godspeed and let me know where you get the energy from).

The musician’s elegant electropop marked him out as one of the ‘cool French dudes’, before an attempt to literally crash the Song Contest fell badly flat. Now back with an adventurous new album, he talks about the man who stole his identity and why he doesn’t care for ‘good taste’

A few years ago, a stranger stole Sébastien Tellier’s identity. The impostor – sporting the musician’s trademark sunglasses and beard – posed as the Frenchman at fancy parties, nabbed free clothes from Chanel (Tellier used to be an ambassador for the brand), and even held meetings with bosses from Hollywood studios (Tellier has dabbled in soundtrack work). “He [also] took a lot of drugs like ketamine in front of a lot of people,” Tellier continues with perfect nonchalance from his Paris home, sunglasses and beard present and correct. The crime was only rumbled when a confused woman got in touch to tell him she’d been partying with “Sébastien Tellier” in France only to see on Instagram that the real Tellier was playing a gig in Belgium.

This experience has been alchemised into pop gold via Copycat, a sparkly synthpop workout on his upcoming eighth album, Kiss the Beast. “My name you steal it / Hat and success,” Tellier croons for the song’s chorus over a chunky bassline, disco strings and synths that crackle and spark like fireworks. It’s typical Tellier, mixing the serious – things got so bad with the impostor that Tellier was briefly forced to show his passport at the school gates when collecting his two small children – with the playfully naive.

The president has vowed to kill off ‘woke’ in his second term in office, and the venerable cultural institution a few blocks from the White House is in his sights

On 30 May last year, Kim Sajet was working in her office in the grandly porticoed National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The gallery is one of the most important branches of the Smithsonian Institution, the complex of national museums that, for almost 200 years, has told the story of the nation. The director’s suite, large enough to host a small party, has a grandeur befitting the museum’s role as the keeper of portraits of the United States’ most significant historical figures. Sajet was working beneath the gaze of artworks from the collection, including a striking 1952 painting of Mary Mills, a military-uniformed, African American nurse, and a bronze head of jazz and blues singer Ethel Waters.

It seemed like an ordinary Friday. Until, that is, an anxious colleague came in to tell Sajet that the president of the United States had personally denounced her on social media. “Upon the request and recommendation of many people I am herby [sic] terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery,” Donald Trump had posted on Truth Social. According to the post, Sajet was “a highly partisan person” and a “strong supporter” of diversity and inclusion programmes, which by an executive order on his inauguration day, 20 January, he had eradicated from federal agencies. “Her replacement will be named shortly,” continued the message. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Mayor says ICE claims incident was self-defense are not true, and tells agency to ‘get the fuck out of Minneapolis’

• Minnesota Democrats voice outrage after fatal ICE shooting: ‘Leave our state immediately’

Federal agents shot and killed a woman during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Ilhan Omar, the Democratic Minnesota congresswoman, said the victim was “a legal observer” of action by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which had sent a surge of agents into the city in recent days tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.

Exclusive: Chancellor says Reform leader wants to keep children in poverty based on skin colour after U-turn

Rachel Reeves has said she was angered by Nigel Farage’s suggestion that only British-born families should have the two-child benefit cap lifted, saying the Reform UK leader would keep children in poverty based on their skin colour.

The chancellor, who will introduce legislation to lift the cap on Thursday, said it had been a burden for her not to be able to do so sooner, but it had been vital to do it at a moment of market stability.

Exclusive: Trinity Hall’s new policy described as a ‘slap in the face’ for state-educated students

A Cambridge college is to target the recruitment of students from elite private schools, interrupting decades of efforts to boost access for state-educated and disadvantaged pupils, the Guardian has learned.

Fellows at Trinity Hall college last month approved a policy to approach a small group of private schools, including St Paul’s Girls, Eton and Winchester, to improve the “quality” of students applying, claiming that “reverse discrimination” was a concern.

The Trump administration is asserting control over Venezuelan oil, after seizing a pair of sanctioned tankers on Wednesday

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended plans to open up her country’s oil market to Washington, as Donald Trump’s vice-president JD Vance reiterated that the US would have complete control of the country’s supplies.

Rodríguez said on Wednesday that America’s attack to remove her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, put a “stain” on the countries’ relations, but added it was “not unusual or irregular” to trade with the US, adding that Venezuela was “open to energy relations where all parties benefit.”