In her 1998 essay What’s a Good Gay Film?, film critic B. Ruby Rich considered what queer audiences were looking for.

She wrote that queer cinema-goers were seeking “films of validation and a culture of affirmation: work that can reinforce identity, visualise respectability, combat injustice and bolster social status”. They were tired, she argued, of stereotypes of queer suffering and trauma. Instead, they required “nothing downbeat or too revelatory; and happy endings, of course”.

But if a straightforward happy ending is what you are after, Departures is not the film for you. This miraculously self-financed and stylish debut feature is not purely affirmative. At times, the screen shimmers with sadness. And yet, wryly and playfully, the film also resists becoming gloomy. Tonally sophisticated, it combines the bleak with the whimsical, ultimately sidestepping the crude dichotomy of happy or unhappy endings altogether.

The film opens with a love-scarred Benji (played by the film’s writer and co-director Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) recalling a recent relationship. In flashback, he remembers meeting handsome Jake (David Tag) in the airport as they both wait for a flight to Amsterdam. Jake bewilders Benji: his flirtation is suggestive but always deniable, never quite declaring itself. Charismatic and assertive, Jake engineers it so that they sit together on the flight, telling the air steward that he is Benji’s carer – a description which quickly becomes grimly ironic.

Later, Jake rejects the suggestion that he is gay but demands that Benji give him a blowjob regardless. Monthly trips to Amsterdam follow and the two men develop a form of intimacy, but one which affords the softer, more pliable Benji little power.

In such a brief synopsis, the scenario risks sounding cliched. Familiar narrative devices pile up: the physically asymmetrical gay relationship in which the self-consciousness of one man makes them susceptible to the coercive manipulations of the more assured partner in a whirlwind of sex and drugs and emotional control. A comparable dynamic played out in another recent queer film, Pillion.

Benji, longing for this to be more than a once-monthly dose of overseas sex, withstands put-downs and disappointments. His quiet, emotional expressions of desire (played movingly by Eyre-Morgan) contrast with Jake’s struggle to accept his attraction to men. Tag is excellent and his portrayal of Jake is sometimes harsh and defensive, but also shows vulnerability, which prevents him from becoming a one-dimensional monster. Because of these tensions, the relationship’s unhappy ending feels like a dead cert.

Lessons from Heartstopper

Departures takes familiar cliches and gives them new life, turning them into something unexpectedly revealing. Its understated story recalls many films about gay suffering – from A Single Man to All of Us Strangers – but it refuses to stay within that familiar emotional frame.

Instead, the film disrupts expectations through bold, stylised touches that feel borrowed, perhaps improbably, from the Heartstopper playbook. The result is a work that plays with recognisable influences while twisting them into something more strange, lively and original.

Heartstopper, the popular Netflix queer teen drama, deliberately avoids the more difficult or painful stories often told about queer life. Instead, it offers the kind of wish-fulfilling, happy endings that Rich suggested many queer viewers have long desired. Every glance, touch and kiss between its characters is punctuated with playful on-screen doodles — bursts of electricity, fluttering butterflies and swirling text that insist we are watching Love with a capital L.

Departures borrows these same twee, saccharine stylistic gestures, but uses them in a very different context. Applied to a darker, sometimes even sordid story about control and sadness, they take on a mischievous, unsettling edge.

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As Benji’s voiceover details his suffering, scratchy lettering and illustrations dance around the screen. When he first sees Jake and his weary voiceover acknowledges the pain to come, doodled hearts burst around the handsome stranger to the music of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. As Benji submissively performs oral sex for Jake, the Hallelujah Chorus plays and animated fireworks fill the screen. And as Jake prepares to get into a fight with Benji’s friends, the needle of a Toxic Masculinity Meter shoots up to maximum. Here is a version of Heartstopper for an audience which knows that happy endings are often only the stuff of comic books.

In Departures, the collision of the sombre, unsettling narrative with the comic stylings of those twitching onscreen graphics suggests a more complex emotional situation in which neither cynicism nor romanticism is left unchecked. Instead, they synthesise in a complex portrait of Benji, who can neither maintain nor give up his romantic belief that Jake might love him.

Colliding styles

One of the film’s most striking ways of expressing this tension comes in a series of non-narrative sequences. Here, the characters dance – or perhaps merely convulse – under harsh strobe lights, their bodies flickering in and out of view, shifting into new poses and even seeming to become different selves between flashes.

It’s a simple but powerful device, inspired by the club scenes the men encounter on their trips to Amsterdam. Yet it opens up something more unsettling: brief glimpses of gay men caught between pleasure and pain, ecstasy and distress, moving to the uncertain rhythm of a contemporary queer world where nothing quite feels stable or fixed.

In the 1990s, Rich rejected the idea of easy affirmation, describing herself instead as an “old-time outlaw girl” who craved films “that push the edge, upset convention, defy expectation, speak the unspeakable, grab me by the throat and surprise me with something I’ve never seen before”.

Departures may work with familiar characters and a recognisable story, but its force lies in how it collides styles and tones in unexpected ways. It’s the kind of film that, in Rich’s terms, grabs you by the throat. What stays with me most is its sardonic yet romantic energy and the strangely undefeated presence of Benji at its centre.

This film deserves to find an audience who want more than easy viewing. It deserves viewers who will dance along to its tonal shifts and cherish the funny, sad, ironic almost-happy ending it serves up in its closing credits.

“I am not a politician; I speak of the Gospel.” Pope Leo XIV’s recent remarks, made during his apostolic journey to Africa, immediately suggest that his clash with Donald Trump operates on a different level to the US president’s usual political spats.

This is not the classic kind of confrontation that Trump has often had with foreign heads of state and government in the past, such as in recent months with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, whose refusal to fully back the US and Israel in their war against Iran attracted Trump’s ire. Rather, it is a clash rooted in fundamentally different moral and political visions: between a president who treats power in transactional terms and a pope who frames war, migration and human dignity as matters of moral principle.

When Cardinal Robert Prevost was named as Pope Leo in May 2025, Trump and his administration initially appeared to welcome the new pontiff warmly. In fact, in a post to his Truth Social platform the US president appeared to take credit for his election as pope, writing that Prevost “was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”.

But the war in the Middle East launched by the US and Israel has made the differences between their positions clearer – further heightening tensions between them. On Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, it became clear that Leo had decided to take a firm line against the war in Iran, saying that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’”.

His Easter message was equally clear: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them.”

Day’s later the pope denounced the US president’s apparent threat to destroy the whole of the Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable” in comments which roundly criticised the war and called for a “return to dialogue, negotiations”.

Trump responded in harsh terms, describing the pope in a Truth Social post as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy”. He went on to say that he did not want a pope “who thinks it is OK for Iran to have nuclear weapons”, adding that “Leo should use common sense, stop doing the bidding of the radical left, and focus on being a great pope rather than a politician”.

Returning to Washington from Florida, Trump also told reporters: “I don’t think he’s doing a good job. I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.” The pope replied on Monday by saying that he was not afraid of the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war.

Trump did not stop there. He went so far as to publish an image portraying himself as Jesus Christ, a move that appeared to go too far even for many of his conservative supporters. The reaction was strong enough to force him to delete the post and backtrack.

This could hurt the US president

Trump has clashed with the Vatican before, but this confrontation unfolds in a very different setting. Pope Francis, the first Argentine pope and the first pontiff from the global south, was often openly critical of Trump, particularly on migration. In 2016, he famously suggested that a leader who thinks only of building walls rather than bridges is “not Christian”, crystallising the tension between them.

The key difference was that Francis was also a divisive figure within sections of the American Catholic Church. He was frequently targeted by conservative Catholic commentators and church networks in the US, and in 2019 he remarked that “it’s an honour that the Americans attack me”.

Leo, by contrast, is the first US pope – and that changes the political equation. His voice is likely to carry different authority among Catholic voters, who are an important part of Trump’s electoral base.

In the last presidential election, 55% of Catholic voters supported Trump, including 62% of white Catholics. Senior Catholics also occupy prominent positions in his administration, including Vance and Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio.

That is why Leo’s criticism may prove more politically consequential. It does not come from an external moral voice alone, as was often the case with Francis, but from an American pontiff speaking into a church and an electorate that Trump cannot afford to ignore.

Early reactions suggest that many Catholic voices in the US have rallied behind Leo, making this not only a diplomatic clash, but a potentially significant domestic one too. (This could also really hurt J.D. Vance. As the likely contender to succeed Trump on the Repulican ticket, he is deeply invested in his Catholic faith and is about to publish a book devoted to his conversion.)

From an international perspective, the break with the pope has also had visible repercussions. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, long regarded as Trump’s closest ally in Europe, went publicly in defence of Pope Leo, the bishop of Rome, drawing criticism from Trump himself, who defined the Italian prime minister’s behaviour as “unacceptable”.

To conclude, this is not a political confrontation like the many others the world has become used to with this US president. The stakes are higher at home and on the world stage. At home, it risks alienating many Catholic voters whose support will matter not only in the midterm elections but also in the next presidential race. Internationally, it may complicate Trump’s relationship with European conservative parties, many of which have long sought close association with the Vatican.

The pope, as the leader of a vast global community, cannot be treated as though he were just another political opponent.

A newly-announced shake-up is set to see households given about two months to settle bills rather than having to pay an entire year’s demand in two weeks.

Local Government Secretary Steve Reed said the current system had left families terrified of bailiffs knocking on their door because of month’s council tax bill was missed.

Cllr Katie Lomas, City of York Council’s Labour financial spokesperson, said the changes would support the authority’s ongoing work to help people pay their bills.

Martin Lewis, of the Money Saving Expert personal finance website, said the current system was the most vicious and damaging form of legal debt collection.

It comes after shake-up was unveiled by the Government on Wednesday, April 15.

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The announcement follows a campaign from Money Saving Expert’s Money and Mental Health Policy Institute to reform the system which has remained unchanged since council tax was introduced in 1993.

Changes are set to see people given 63 days to settle outstanding bills and councils will be required to work with them on agreeing repayment plans.

Billing for council tax will be shifted to 12-month payments by default, rather than the current 10 months schedule which is the norm for many local authorities.

Charges for costs councils incur by recovering outstanding payments through liability orders will be capped at £100.

Payment schedule changes are set to come into effect from next April with the rest of the changes due to be introduced a year later in 2028.

The name and definition of the Severely Mentally Impaired council tax discount is also set to be changed when parliamentary time allows.

Those changes aim to remove stigma which puts people off applying for support.

The Government said it would put an end to the current system which left families who fell behind on payments facing financial ruin.

Money Saving Expert’s Mr Lewis said the current system had caused counter-productive misery for millions.

Martin Lewis has campaigned for the changes (Image: Agency)

The financial advisor said: “Council Tax debt collection is so aggressive it’d make banks blush.

“How people who can’t find a month’s money are expected to find a year’s I don’t know.

“Yet if they can’t pay, within just three more weeks, they are often taken to court, have ‘admin costs’ added, and soon see bailiffs sent in.

“For councils too, it is worth remembering that this grotesque system is often catastrophic for people’s finances and wellbeing, leaving many needing more help and support, and ultimately the same council having to pick up the pieces.”

Local Government Secretary Mr Reed said the changes would make the system fairer and support families who have been left behind.

The Labour secretary of state said: “Too many families are facing aggressive enforcement action, with people left terrified of bailiffs knocking on the door because one month’s council tax bill was missed.”

York Council’s Labour Finance Executive Member Cllr Lomas said the work local officials already did helped people to get benefits and support they were entitled to.

Cllr Lomas said: “We’ve been providing the payment option of 12-monthly instalments for several years, encouraging the use of direct debit and keeping liability order costs 80 per cent below the Government’s £100 cap, for residents receiving council tax support.

“We provide council tax information with all bills as well as on our website and all residents can now register for e‑billing and we would encourage them to do so.

“We will also continue to send physical copies to all residents who want them or have no digital access.”

A trail of damaged homes and buildings dotted a wide swath of the U.S. on Saturday after a burst of destructive winds and reported tornadoes tore off roofs, uprooted trees and rendered rural roads impassable with debris.

No deaths were reported following Friday’s storms, which barreled through the Upper Midwest and delivered the latest round of severe weather to batter the region. Officials braced residents for a long recovery in some rural communities.

“We are extremely fortunate that this storm did not result in loss of life or serious injury,” Stephenson County Sheriff Steve Stovall said of the storm that hit Lena, Illinois.

Officials in Wisconsin and Minnesota echoed those sentiments.

In central Wisconsin, a reported tornado that tore through the cities of Kronenwetter and Ringle left behind damaged homes and some residents briefly trapped in their basements, Ringle Fire Chief Chris Kielman told reporters.

Marathon County Sheriff Chad Billeb said he had not seen this much devastation during his 34 years in law enforcement.

“A lot of people are going to need a lot of help,” Billeb said.

In Kronenwetter, neighbors were helping each other clear debris from their properties, and Wisconsin Public Service was working to restore power. Police Chief Terry McHugh said it could be a lengthy process.

He noted that the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin has partnered with United Way of Marathon County to help residents whose homes were damaged.

In Olmsted County, Minnesota, sheriff’s officials said tornadoes caused “multiple levels” of damage. At least 30 homes were damaged in Marion Township, with a number of those sustaining damage that was described as significant. Officials went door to door to check on people.

The National Weather Service said the damage was likely caused by tornadoes and surveys of the affected areas would be conducted over the weekend.

On Friday in Illinois, Leo Zach, 14, had just gotten to the high school band room for a music competition when the building started shaking and the power went out. The room was packed with students, and some were very scared and had panic attacks.

“I’m definitely on the luckier side of how that could’ve happened,” he said. “I was just trying to stay calm, help other people.”

When they got outside, they found some of the windows blown out in the gym and part of the school’s roof ripped off.

Photos and video posted online showed a garage totaled, bricks torn from buildings and fences demolished.

Lena is a village of nearly 3,000 people, located about 117 miles (188 kilometers) northwest of Chicago.

Rachel Nemon was going to pick up her stepson from Lena’s middle school when she had to pull into a car wash to take cover from the storm. She watched a large tree get ripped from the ground and sparks fly feet in front of her.

“This is something that you see online, not in real life, especially in a small town in Illinois,” she said.

The popular park was closed after ‘discarded items’ were reported to police

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Kensington Gardens has reopened after police confirmed ‘no harmful substances’ were found. The popular park, situated next to Kensington Palace and Hyde Park, was closed according to The Royal Parks yesterday (April 17).

Specific details were unclear as the Met Police stated they were “assessing a number of discarded items”. Members of the public were asked to steer clear of the location ‘until further notice’.

One witness reported spotting a forensics team near the bandstand in the centre of the park. However today (April 18) police confirmed the re-opening of Kensington Gardens after ‘several suspicious items’ were found.

An update on the Met Police website revealed that among the items were two jars containing a ‘powdered substance’. There were also reports of an online video featuring a group who claimed to have targeted the nearby Embassy of Israel with drones carrying dangerous substances.

This prompted the police presence at the park, however it has now been confirmed no harmful or hazardous substances were identified. Commander Helen Flanagan, of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: “We recognise this incident and consequent police activity may have caused concern among local residents and the wider public.

“We are grateful to them for their understanding while our work was undertaken. Although the items found have been assessed as being non-hazardous, we continue to investigate whether they may have any link to the online video.

“This work is being carried out by officers from Counter Terrorism Policing London and our enquiries remain ongoing. While the Embassy of Israel was not attacked, we continue to work closely with the Embassy and its security team to keep the site safe and secure.”

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Ants are a common and frustrating pest, but this simple tip will stop them coming back.

Discovering a swarm of insects in your home can be deeply unsettling, particularly when you’re unsure of where they’ve come from. The question most of us ask when confronted with seasonal household pests, such as ants, is how to eliminate them quickly.

That’s precisely what fans of Mrs Hinch were discussing in the Facebook group ‘Mrs Hinch Cleaning Tips’. One worried homeowner sought advice after returning home to find “hundreds” of ants emerging from beneath the washing machine and kitchen cupboards, prompting a wave of responses.

Many suggested using a widely available spice that Nicole Carpenter, president of Black Pest Prevention, says “creates an unfavourable environment for ants, making them want to leave your space.”

Fellow Facebook group members shared their tried and tested remedies, with one user claiming: “Cinnamon works. I did it and they never came back.”

Another commented, “They hate cinnamon, it got rid of ours.” A third added, “We live out in the country, and for some reason, I get them in the kitchen every few years. I use cinnamon and they are gone in a day and don’t come back.”

Pest specialist Nicole clarified that while this warming, aromatic spice can be deployed to repel ants from your home, it’s worth noting that “the scent of cinnamon itself doesn’t kill ants”

Nevertheless, it functions as an effective deterrent owing to its powerful aroma, which disrupts the pheromone trails ants rely upon to locate food.

That said, it must be applied correctly to achieve the best results, reports the Express.

How to deter ants with cinnamon

Cracks and gaps in the foundation, walls, and around windows and doors are typical entry points for hungry ants.

It’s worthwhile inspecting poorly sealed or damaged door and window frames, which can offer straightforward access for these unwelcome visitors.

If you spot ants entering through these areas, mix cinnamon with a small amount of water and apply it using a cotton bud along their route into your property.

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While cinnamon is frequently compared to vinegar and essential oils, which serve as alternative natural ant repellents, it functions differently to other substances.

According to Ismael Girard, CEO of Pest Agent, the key ingredient in cinnamon that may disturb ants is cinnamaldehyde.

He explained: “This substence tampers with ants’ pheromone trails, making it harder for them to navigate toward their food sources or return to their colonies.”

Ants are typically attracted to spaces like the kitchen, where they can easily locate food sources to transport back to the rest of their colony.

Consistent cleaning, appropriate food storage, and immediate cleanup of spills and crumbs are essential to avoid attracting ants.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Progressive leaders from around the globe gathered in Barcelona on Saturday to try and galvanize their forces and defend a rules-based world order.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, hosted two overlapping events about democracy and progressive politics in Spain’s second-largest city.

Democrats U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were present alongside the leaders of Brazil, South Africa and high-ranking officials from other left-leaning governments.

While no foreign leader criticized Trump by name in public, the staunchly unilateral position of the American president that breaks with decades of U.S. foreign policy, including his derision of NATO and the United Nations, hung over the meetings.

“We all see the attacks against the multilateral system, the repeated attempts to undermine international law and the dangerous normalization of the use of force,” Sánchez said.

Trump again lashed out on Saturday on social media at Sánchez, who has faced Trump’s scorn for not allowing the U.S. to use jointly operated military bases in Spain for operations related to the Iran war and for refusing to raise military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP.

“Has anybody looked at how badly the country of Spain is doing. Their financial numbers, despite contributing almost nothing to NATO and their military defense, are absolutely horrendous. Sad to watch!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Sánchez says the right’s time is running out

Spain, like the U.S. and other developed countries, is in debt, but it has one of the world’s leading economies under Sánchez.

Sánchez told the rally of progressive politicians and party members held later on Saturday that the populist right “screams and shouts not because they are winning but because they know their time is running out.

“They know their vision of how the world should be ordered is falling apart due to the tariffs and wars,” he said. “Their embrace of climate change denial, of xenophobia, or sexism is their greatest error.

“They have tried again and again to make us embarrassed of our beliefs. That ends now. From now on they can be the ones who feel ashamed.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and other leaders and officials, including Cabinet members from the United Kingdom and Germany, were in attendance at the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy that kicked off Saturday’s double-header of political events at the Barcelona convention center.

Sen. Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, spoke at the progressive rally and he didn’t shy away from blasting Trump while celebrating the loss of power of Trump’s ally Viktor Orbán in elections in Hungary last week.

“Donald Trump is out to end our democracy,” Murphy said. “We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover, we are in the middle of it.”

But, he said, “Americans are watching what is happening across the world, and the victory in Hungary just one week ago lifted our sails.”

Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential candidate who has faced a violent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement migration crackdown in Minnesota, threw barbs at U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who campaigned for Orbán and has backed far-right parties in Europe.

“Unlike our current vice president, I’m not here to arrogantly lecture or scold you, I am not here to pick a fight with the Pope or host a rally for any local wannabe authoritarians,” Walz said.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders all sent video messages played at the rally.

Progressives exchange ideas

Among concrete proposals to come from the events, Ramaphosa said South Africa will present a draft resolution to establish an International Panel on Inequality, aiming to tackle the growing wealth gap both within and between nations, to the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Sheinbaum plugged her idea that governments commit to spending the equivalent of 10% of their military budgets on reforestation projects.

“Each year, instead of planting the seeds of war, we will plant the seeds of life,” she said.

Sánchez argued for the importance of regulating social media to stop the spread of hate speech and disinformation. His government also said that it is working with Lula’s Brazil on a tax for the ultrarich.

Lula, who met with Sánchez in a bilateral summit on Friday in Barcelona, kept the focus on how to invigorate the progressive moment. He avoided naming Trump except when he called for U.N. Security Council members to “fulfill their obligation and guarantee peace.”

“Stop this madness of war because the world cannot bear any more wars,” Lula said.