Marianne Faithfull: posthumous EP to be released for Record Store Day

Four new songs recorded by Marianne Faithfull in the year prior to her death are to be released for Record Store Day on 12 April.Burning Moonlight was due for announcement in February, but postponed following Faithfull’s death on 30 January at the age of 78. Her family requested the release of the music, which comes via Decca Records and will be available as a digital edition on 6 June.Following the completion of the project, Faithfull said: “It’s a good time to look back. It helps me to remember all the things I’ve done

Noel Clarke’s wife tells court his accusers are liars who fabricated claims

Noel Clarke’s wife has said his accusers are liars who have deliberately fabricated sexual misconduct claims about him.Giving evidence in the actor’s libel case against the Guardian, Iris Clarke said her husband was generous and caring, and that people he had worked with and helped had taken advantage of him.Noel Clarke, 49, who wrote and produced the Kidulthood trilogy, is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) over seven articles and a podcast published between April 2021 and March 2022.Among GNM’s witnesses are Gina Powell, a film producer and documentary maker, who worked for Clarke from 2014 to 2017 and alleges “a pattern of abusive behaviour, financial exploitation, bullying and sexual misconduct”.Iris Clarke said Powell had never seemed uncomfortable around her husband and so could not be telling the truth

Seth Meyers on Trump’s Tesla photo-op: ‘This is how oligarchy works’

Late-night hosts talked Donald Trump marketing Elon Musk’s Tesla cars with taxpayer money and how Trump’s tariffs are sinking the US economy.The one silver lining of the economic downturn since Trump took office, according to Seth Meyers, is that Tesla shares are plummeting too. Musk’s car company is now worth half of what it was at its mid-December peak.On Tuesday, Trump intervened to pump up Tesla’s stock price by doing a promo for the company with taxpayer money. He transformed the south lawn of the White House into a Tesla car lot, looking to “buy” a new car with Musk himself

Noel Clarke aims to create ‘moral equivalence’ between himself and accusers, court hears

Noel Clarke is trying to create “moral equivalence” between his alleged sexual misconduct and the behaviour of his accusers, the high court has heard.Giving evidence in his libel claim against the Guardian, the 49-year-old actorclaimed that some of his accusers voluntarily engaged in or initiated sexually loaded banter, were promiscuous and bragged about their sexual exploits.On the third day of cross-examination, Gavin Millar KC, representing the Guardian, said to him: “You do this repeatedly, you turn the allegation back on the woman. It’s a sort of moral equivalence, that ‘she’s as bad as I am’.”Millar said “time and again” Clarke sought ways to turn the allegations made against him back on his accusers

Letter: Graham Marchant obituary

I had the pleasure of serving with Graham Marchant when I was drama director of what was then the Arts Council of Great Britain, from 1986 to 1994. The obituary originally described Graham as the Arts Council’s “first and only” director of arts co-ordination. In fact, when he moved to the South Bank in 1989, he was succeeded by an equally fine arts manager, Iain Reid, who carried on Graham’s marvellous tactful capacity to manage effectively the competing claims of the artforms he co-ordinated. For both, it was no small task.

Jimmy Kimmel: Trump ‘Intentionally crashing the economy for reasons unknown’

Late-night hosts talked the floundering US economy under Donald Trump, as Republican allies seek to deflect blame away from Trump’s tariffs.“Welcome to another episode of ‘how the hell do we make this funny?’” Jimmy Kimmel joked on Tuesday evening. In the seven weeks since Trump took office, “it’s been much worse than I think anyone thought it would be,” he continued. “We’re friends with Russia now, we’re dumping the Department of Education, we’re forcing ourselves on Canada.”And then there’s Trump’s tariffs, which he is using as a cudgel to encourage Canada to join the US