When Tess Morgan's son came home with a tattoo, she was griefstricken. She knew her reaction was OTT (he's 21) but it signalled a change in their relationship
Though they have the best away form in the Premier League, United don't perform at home because of the manager's mindset
When I joined Liverpool in 1992, the first game of the season was a Charity Shield match at Wembley. We lost 4-3 to Leeds and, as we all piled back on the team bus, I'll never forget the bus driver "Helmet", we called him saying to me: "Don't worry, lad, we go to Wembley at least once a season here."
That was my introduction to Liverpool. The club that expects to go to Wembley. The club that expects success. As we now know, that was also the beginning of the end of Liverpool's dominant period, and later that season, Helmet took me aside once more to say, incredulously: "I can't believe we're not going to Wembley," as though it should have been a given.
Your days are dwindling and you don't want your children to find those rubbery items you hid at the back of the wardrobe
This article originally appeared in the New York Times
Labour's two-point fall in Opinium/Observer poll leaves it just one point ahead of the Tories, with Ukip up to 15%
Labour's support has slumped to its lowest level since soon after the 2010 election, according to a new Opinium/Observer poll. Ed Miliband's party now has a lead of just one percentage point over the Conservatives.
The findings showing a clear bounce for the Tories after George Osborne's budget will put more pressure on Miliband, whose party was 10 points ahead of the Tories a year ago.
Top diplomats discuss Ukraine and agree to meet in Paris
Vladimir Putin calls Barack Obama late Friday
Halfway home from Saudi Arabia, US secretary of state John Kerry has abruptly changed course. He will now stay in Europe for talks on Ukraine.
The news followed reports from Russia that Kerry had spoken to the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, by phone, a day after President Vladimir Putin called President Barack Obama. The Russian foreign ministry said Washington had initiated the call between Kerry and Lavrov, adding that they discussed Ukraine and plans for further contact.
Aircraft reported to have been completely alight after it went down in field between towns of Ongar and Writtle
Two men have been killed after a light aircraft crashed into a field in a rural area of Essex.
Emergency services were alerted to a major incident at around 2.55pm that a plane had gone down in a field between Ongar and Writtle.
Poll suggests 27% would pay £10 but 56% against, with only 12% saying they would pay to guarantee next-day appointment
Britons are overwhelmingly against paying to see a GP to help the NHS balance its books, even if that means their local surgery closing, an opinion poll reveals.
There is growing interest in charging as a way to help the NHS meet rising demand for healthcare at a time when it is likely to receive only tiny budget increases. Even the chairman of the NHS in England has said the next government will have to consider charging in order to help the health service survive. But while one in four (27%) said they would be willing to pay £10 for a GP visit rather than see their practice shutting down, more than double that 56% were against.
Chelsea's title challenge has run aground south of the river. This derby was supposed to be awkward rather than treacherous but, eclipsed by Crystal Palace's sheer refusal to wilt, the side who had led going into the weekend ended up feeling forlorn. José Mourinho strode from the pitch consoling a distraught Gary Cahill, one of the few visiting players to deserve better, and straight into the home dressing room to congratulate the victors.
This was a result to confound logic even in a gloriously unpredictable top flight. Palace had secured a solitary point from 14 games against the Premier League's top nine before this match, their winless streak stretching back to the start of February with goals having long since dried up. They had not managed one from open play since that last success though, befitting a contest that deviated from the prescribed script, Chelsea scored one for them here. John Terry's own goal early in the second half had Mourinho writing off his team's chances of regaining the title. He scribbled one word down on a piece of paper, preferring not to damn his own out loud, when asked what his team needs if they are to improve. "Balls," read the note. That summed it up.
The prime minister is not even standing in Sunday's local elections, but in the divided capital the talk is of no one else
Turkey may be in turmoil and the vast city of Istanbul in ferment, bridling at the antics of a government struggling to cope with scandal and sleaze, but in Kasimpasa quarter, the prime minister's troubles raise barely a shrug.
A conservative, lower-middle-class district bordering the Golden Horn and predominantly inhabited by Turks from the Black Sea coast, Kasimpasa loves Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the powerful prime minister increasingly reviled across Turkey and tarnished internationally.
Attack is the second in the Afghan capital in less than 24 hours, after insurgents targeted a guesthouse used by a US aid group
Taliban fighters attacked the Kabul headquarters of the Afghanistan's independent election commission (IEC) headquarters on Saturday, the latest in a spate of attacks ahead of next week's presidential vote.
No injuries were reported from in the initial stage of the attack, but security forces and Taliban fighters were still shooting at each other.
Corporation to break 80-year tradition of commissioning oil paintings of outgoing director generals and take photos instead
In an attempt to cut costs as it faces a squeeze on the licence fee and head off further allegations of corporate extravagance the BBC is to scrap the controversial tradition of commissioning an oil painting of each outgoing director general.
Warm spring weather forecast for much of the UK next week, making parts warmer than Madrid and the French Riviera
Rogue companies could be fined hundreds of thousands of pounds if they continue to flout the law
Ministers will announce a crackdown on nuisance phone calls by firms and charities this week, with some rogue companies set to face fines worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Maria Miller, the culture secretary, wants to lower the threshold for taking action against companies, which are currently liable only if it can be proved that their calling has caused "substantial damage or distress".
South Africa 196-5; England 193-7
Three wickets by Wayne Parnell put Proteas in semi-finals
So England's little adventure to Chittagong is over. South Africa defeated them by three runs late on Saturday night. A second miraculous run chase was beyond them. The target of 197 was too much, no matter how wet the ball was.
They have never scored so many to win a T20 match and if they were going to do so here they needed a knock on the scale of Alex Hales's on Thursday. But that was an extra-special innings. They don't happen every day.
Special databank said to hold 300 reports on chancellor
Der Spiegel and Intercept cite document supplied by Snowden
The National Security Agency appears to have included Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, on a list of world leaders subject to surveillance.
The news, the latest extracted from documents supplied to media outlets including the Guardian by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, was reported on Saturday by the German magazine Der Spiegel and The Intercept, a website set up by the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald with the support of the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar.
Chinese aircraft spots objects in newly targeted zone more than 1,000km north-east of area previously being searched
Sir Michael Wilshaw to demand that early years providers prove they are preparing under-fives for academic rigours of school
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of education, will this week warn childminders and nurseries that they will need to show more evidence to parents that they are preparing young children for the academic rigours of school.
He will insist that proof be provided to parents that progress is being made in key areas, and is also expected to usher in a new set of standards for providers of early years education. A source close to Ofsted said Wilshaw believed that there were "serious weaknesses in the information provided to parents, meaning it is difficult to hold providers of early education to account".
Floating voters in dozens of key seats say their decision will be based on the parties' housing manifestos
The number of people who are forced to rent their homes from private landlords because they cannot afford to buy could determine the result of the next general election in dozens of key parliamentary seats, research reveals today.
Arianna Huffington has had a remarkable rise from poverty to become editor of the world's second-biggest news website, the Huffington Post. And as her new book shows, it has taken extraordinary determination
We are in the queue for the ladies' lavatories and all around Arianna Huffington women are gathering in clusters, exclaiming at the talk she has just given, admiring her hair, telling her she's fabulous. She has just spoken to them about the need to work less and sleep more and they bring forth their own stories from their overburdened lives. "I was in six different cities this week," one woman tells her. "I flew in from Buffalo this morning and when you said that we are working ourselves to death, I thought, 'That is my life!'" Another tells her how she's so overstretched that "I went to work last week and didn't realise until I got there that I had forgotten to put on my skirt! I had to go out and buy one from J Crew!"
Arianna, glamorous, approachable, smiling, laps it up. "I love the story about the skirt!" she says. "You should write about that for us." It sounds like the sort of invitation you might offer someone to submit to the parish magazine or the company newsletter, though, of course, when Arianna says "us", she means the Huffington Post, the second most popular news site in the world that she created from nothing and that is now, after a £315m deal, part of the AOL empire. "I love getting people to write things," she tells me. "I find stories everywhere." And then she gets out a bunch of business cards and starts scattering them around. One goes to the skirt lady, one to the Buffalo lady, one to someone who had just popped in to go to the loo and looks a bit startled.
The Paltrow-Martin uncoupling met with little cynicism in California, where a new generation of 'gurus' have found success through association with celebrities
Even in California, where people come to convince themselves of just about anything, it is not common for a celebrity couple on the verge of divorce to declare undying love and say they are closer now than ever.
So when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announced their "conscious uncoupling" last week, apparently ending their 10-year marriage but not their planned holiday together in the Bahamas or their commitment to each other, it raised as many eyebrows here as it did on the rest of the planet.
The Swedish phenomenon on her new album, the music industry's sexual double standards and her ideal festival experience
The Observer's A-Z of festivals 2014 in pictures
Ed Vulliamy: my life in festivals
Win a pair of tickets to the festival of your choice this summer
It suits Lykke Li to be interviewed in a photographic studio. White walls and bright lights contrast with the 28-year-old singer's uniformly dark clothing, exaggerating the thick slope of her black eyeliner. The Swede is only in London for a few more hours before jetting off to Berlin to continue the promotional warm-up to the release of her third album, I Never Learn. She calls it the final part of a trilogy or "thrillogy", as she pronounces it in dainty, accented English, her voice layered with the rolling Rs of the Swedish language and describes an album that is as sparse and spacious as the empty studio she sits in.
"The ultimate aim was to do something stripped back. I wanted to do something as pure and naked and bare and honest as possible. The most powerful thing would be to do something like Odetta, just strumming the guitar and 'Argh!'" She imitates the sound of the late US folk singer, famed for a roaring acoustic style that underpinned the civil rights era. "It's the ultimate task to do something stripped back, so you're not hiding behind anything."
Arsenal were outplayed in the first half, but came back strong in the second to stay in the title race
Attributing poor ratings to a feud with gun rights advocates, the host said a muted goodbye to the struggling news network
There was no big celebration for Piers Morgan, no cake delivered to his desk on-air, no interviews with his favorite guests, no serenade from Bette Midler. On the last episode of CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, the former British tabloid editor exited mostly quietly, after three years of ho-hum interviews and poor ratings.
For 58 of his 60 minutes, Morgan, a dutiful CNN-er until the end, talked exclusively about The Plane. Or, as CNN chyrons have branded the subject for what seem like hundreds or thousands of consecutive hours: "THE MYSTERY OF FLIGHT 370".