With Manchester City found guilty of more than 100 charges of rule-breaking, they could soon find themselves relegated from the Premier League or worse. The Guardian reporter and Manchester resident Helen Pidd speaks to football fans on matchday to find out how they feel about the charges, how the club's Abu Dhabi owners have changed the city, and who has really benefited from all their investment

A former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has been accused of selling classified documents. Kate Connolly reports on the fallout

Just before 9am last Tuesday morning, police swarmed a red brick house in Nordwalde, close to the Dutch border in western Germany. It looked like a terror operation, with masked officers entering the property en masse.

But when they emerged with their suspect, he wasn’t even handcuffed. Perhaps it was his age. Or maybe his reputation. Because the white-haired 80-year-old being taken into custody was August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s spy agency, the BND.

Features writer Elle Hunt and indigenous activist María José Andrade Cerda on the growing phenomenon of influencers around the world trying to reach uncontacted tribes

The Sentinelese, living on North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal, are one of the most isolated peoples on earth.

Part of an archipelago governed by India, it is prohibited by law to venture within 5km of their island. And when a missionary did manage to land on the beach in 2018, he was killed by bow and arrow.

Their opposition to Putin led to two of the group being sent to brutal prison camps. Then another was found to be spying for the Kremlin. Shaun Walker reports

It’s January 2012 and Pussy Riot are filming a video in Red Square, Moscow. As snow covers the cobbles and dusts the onion globes of St Basil’s Cathedral, the clock on the Kremlin chimes 11am. Eight women in colourful balaclavas leap on to a stone platform, one with an electric guitar. They start playing their latest song, Putin Has Chickened Out. It’s pretty punchy, with lyrics such as: “The rebellious column is heading to the Kremlin / Windows are exploding in FSB offices.”

The group had formed a few months earlier after Vladimir Putin announced that he planned to return to the Kremlin for a third term as president. Inspired by the Arab spring the previous year, they hoped to bring revolution to Russia and stop Putin. Instead, the state cracked down hard. Three Pussy Riot members were found guilty of hooliganism after later protests, with two spending two years in some of Russia’s harshest jails.

Ulrich Siegmund, the charismatic young leader of the AfD party in Saxony-Anhalt, has been labelled Germany’s most dangerous man by Der Spiegel. John Kampfner explains why

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has long had a taste for provocation. But one of its cover stories last month really captured people’s attention. It carried a picture of a young east German politician called Ulrich Siegmund. He looked pretty good, his chin covered with designer stubble, his hair combed into a neat quiff, his green eyes staring right into the camera, under the headline “Der gefährlichste Mann Deutschlands”: Germany’s most dangerous man.

You might think Siegmund would hate that Spiegel cover. Far from it. On the campaign trail in recent weeks he has been autographing copies: he even filmed himself signing one for his 800,000 TikTok followers. If the polls are correct, Siegmund could soon become the first far-right leader of a German state since Adolf Hitler’s time.

One of Donald Trump’s closest and most devoted aides, Natalie Harp, has faced intense media scrutiny this week, after a Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, name-checked her in a speech that went viral. So what do we know about Harp, who is often referred to as the ‘human printer’? And why is everybody talking about her relationship with Trump? Helen Pidd speaks to international news editor Paul Owen

Jenny Kleeman investigates ‘Biotech Barbie’ Cathy Tie, the controversial entrepreneur hoping to revolutionise human reproduction by letting parents edit their embryos

Meet Cathy Tie: serial entrepreneur, self-described “Biotech Barbie”, and the woman aiming to revolutionise reproduction by using Crispr to edit human embryos.

Beneath the tech-startup polish lies a provocative mission: to take the biological lottery out of the hands of nature and place it into the hands of parents.

Former Scottish Labour leader says she understands that expressing respect for author caused ‘worry, anger and upset’

The incoming chair of the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall says she is “truly sorry” after she expressed “huge respect” for JK Rowling in an interview with the Guardian. Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, said she understood that her words had caused “worry, anger and upset and I am truly sorry about that”.

In an interview for the Today in Focus podcast in Edinburgh to mark her appointment as Stonewall’s chair, Dugdale was asked what she thought of the way in which Rowling has talked about transgender people.

Jonathan Freedland on what Keir Starmer said – and didn’t say – to the House of Commons about the Mandelson vetting failure

“I think the whole Mandelson story, in a way, is an example of how much the Trump presidency has sort of wobbled and shaken the Starmer premiership,” Jonathan Freedland tells Helen Pidd. “And may in the end be responsible for the decision which ultimately costs this prime minister his job.”

On Monday, Keir Starmer addressed the Commons on revelations in the Guardian that Peter Mandelson had failed the UK security vetting process before taking up the role as US ambassador – but the foreign office had overturned the decision.

Exclusive: Former Scottish Labour leader says she feels more scared as a lesbian today and calls for a kinder debate on transgender issues

Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, says she is now “quite scared” as a lesbian in Britain and has started to feel nervous holding her wife’s hand in public.

Speaking to the Guardian in Edinburgh on the announcement of her appointment as the chair of Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, she said it was “completely possible” gay rights in the UK could be eroded with the rise of rightwing populism.

Lisa O’Carroll reports on the ‘resetting’ of the relationship between the UK and the EU

This week, the Guardian reported that Labour is planning to bring in new legislation that will forge closer ties between the UK and the EU. Nearly 10 years on from the Brexit vote, the Guardian’s senior correspondent Lisa O’Carroll speaks to Helen Pidd about what a UK-EU reset would look like.

Lisa and Helen also discuss the strength of the EU in the wake of Viktor Orbán’s defeat in the Hungary elections on Sunday.

Flora Garamvolgyi on JD Vance’s visit to Hungary in the run-up to the country’s elections on Sunday

“Hungary has been a model for the Trump presidency for a while now,” the Guardian journalist Flora Garamvolgyi tells Helen Pidd. “And US Republicans looked at Hungary for these past years as a model to follow.

“[Viktor] Orbán is currently on his fourth consecutive term. And the fact that he has been so successful and he had similar narrative, similar ideologies to US Republicans in terms of immigration, for example, I think they have found a link to connect with Orbán and they were studying his success.”

Journalist Jean H Lee on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of Kim Jong-un, and the future of North Korea

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has attended many photo ops with his daughter Kim Ju-ae in recent months, adding to speculation she will be designated as the future supreme leader.

Jean H Lee, journalist and former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press, tells Helen Pidd what we know about the teenager.

Margaret Sullivan on the the billionaire father and son buying up the US media

Speaking at a press conference last month, the US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, criticised CNN’s ‘fake news’ coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran.

‘The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,’ he told the room of journalists.

Embassy Village offers 40 canal-side flats and support with budgeting, cooking and finding work, to help men start new lives and rediscover community

It costs a lot to live by the canal in central Manchester, with even the pokiest of studios renting for £1,000. But in Embassy Village, the city’s newest waterside community, residents do not need to be rich. Quite the opposite, in fact. To live there, you have to be male, homeless and ready to get your life back on track.

Nestled between the River Irwell and the Bridgewater canal, just across from the fashionable Castlefield district, Embassy’s 40 studio flats have been built under two Victorian viaducts carrying the city’s trams and trains.

After a 1,088-day wait, a jury acquitted the man Nichols accused. She describes her experience of the system as a complainant – and explains why she went public

• Warning: this article contains graphic testimony

• Charlotte Nichols on her rape trial ordeal – podcast

Sitting in the House of Commons, waiting for the speaker to call her name last week, the MP Charlotte Nichols was doing breathing exercises to try to keep calm. “I was just trying to get myself into the headspace where I could say what I wanted to say without either completely garbling it or just crying or bottling it at the last minute.”

She didn’t bottle it. She stood up, asked MPs to be gentle with her, and then went public with her biggest secret.

The Reform UK leader has a lucrative side-hustle sending paid-for Cameo messages. But an analysis of more than 4,000 show they include videos for a neo-Nazi group and a rioter. Henry Dyer reports

Reform and the Greens both insist they can win the Greater Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton from Labour – and if they do, it could be another nail in the prime minister’s coffin. Helen Pidd reports on how the candidates and voters are feeling

A byelection is usually called when something bad has happened. In Gorton and Denton it is because Andrew Gwynne, the former Labour MP for the Greater Manchester constituency, became embroiled in an embarrassing WhatsApp scandal. Gwynne was suspended by Labour and then retired because of ill-health. On Thursday, his former constituents go to the polls to elect a new MP.

The byelection comes at a terrible time for Keir Starmer, with Reform riding high in the polls and his approval ratings at an all-time low. Then Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, said he wanted to stand.

A succession of political leaders have been trooping to Beijing in recent months. Is it an indication of a new world order? Tania Branigan explains

Xi Jinping had a busy January. First came the Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin. Then it was Mark Carney of Canada’s turn. He was followed by the Finnish prime minister, the Uruguayan president and then, last week, Keir Starmer.

But what does this rush to China mean? The Guardian leader writer Tania Branigan says much of it is to do with Trump. “There are real opportunities that people see in China – and at a point where the US looks so erratic, so hostile to people who have traditionally been among its staunchest allies. There is a sense that it just makes sense,” she tells Helen Pidd.

Tom Burgis on Donald Trump’s friend Ronald Lauder, a billionaire with business interests in Greenland

“The thing to remember, always, with Trump is that everything is about the psychodrama,” the Guardian investigations correspondent Tom Burgis tells Helen Pidd. “Everything is who’s in his ear, what bit of his vanity or insecurity has been activated.”

In this episode, Tom explains the backstory to the US president’s interest in Greenland. According to John Bolton, the former national security adviser, the story began in 2018 with a conversation between Trump and the billionaire Ronald Lauder.