The comic was determined to make a blockbuster standup show that didn’t address trans issues. Then she changed her mind – and scooped comedy’s biggest prize

There’s efficiency, then there’s the process that led to Sam Nicoresti winning the most prestigious award in live comedy. “A year ago my girlfriend asked me to marry her,” says Nicoresti on accepting the £10,000 prize last weekend. “[When] we were talking about how to pay for the wedding, I joked and said, ‘It’s easy, I’ll just win the Edinburgh comedy award’.” Can it be true? Is Nicoresti not only the first transgender winner of the so-called Oscars of comedy, but the first ever to manifest victory by force of strategic will?

“It’s amazing what you can do,” she grins, three days after her triumph, “if you set your mind to something.” And that’s what Nicoresti has done in the last 12 months, turning around a niche career in alt-comedy, pointing it towards stardom, and pressing her pedal to the metal. Her winning show Baby Doomer was palpably the set of a comic zeroing in on a mass audience – notwithstanding the hot-potato status of her subject, life as a trans woman, nor her background in leftfield humour with a collective called Weirdos. Nicoresti’s previous biggest hit was a satirical multimedia show with the memorable title Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture.

Search for artwork seen in estate agent’s photo continues after police raid on house finds tapestry hanging in its place

Argentinian police have said they will continue hunting for an old master painting looted by the Nazis and spotted by chance in an estate agent’s listing after a search of the property in the seaside town of Mar del Plata failed to uncover the work.

“The painting is not in the house … but we’re going to keep searching for it,” the federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez told local media. He said items that could be useful for the investigation, including two firearms, engravings and prints, had been seized.

Motorists queue, petrol stations run dry and prices surge in country that is one of the world’s top energy exporters

Russia prides itself on being an energy superpower, but some of its citizens are suddenly struggling to fill their fuel tanks after weeks of Ukrainian drone strikes crippled refining capacity across the country.

Petrol stations in several regions have run dry while prices have surged to record highs and motorists queue for hours.

‘There’s so much misery and unfairness in the world, but the people I’m attracted to photographing are those who project confidence and joy. And this guy was marvellous’

This photograph is named Man in a Three-piece Suit Dancing Within the Circle at a Wedding, Rockville Centre, NY, March 1976. The bride was Elaine Sherman, mother of my friend Rhonda, who I’d known since seventh grade. Mrs Sherman was getting married for the second time and the dancing man was the husband’s son-in-law, though I don’t remember his name or what he was dancing to.

As the title says, it’s a circle dance, where people get into the middle and do their thing. And this guy sure did – he was marvellous. I saw him and just grabbed my camera – boom! I was using a pretty wide-angle lens and a head-on flash: I like to have people all lit up, like stage lighting. All the way to the left of the picture is a woman with just part of her face showing – that’s my mom, Sunny, who was friendly with Elaine. I wonder now how I came to be looking down at the guy, because I’m only 5ft 1in. Was I standing on a stool or a chair? I doubt I’d have done that. I must have been holding the camera at some elevation.

A group of farmers, bikers, truckers and scientists from the political left and right are working to bring attention to the health risks of using toxic sludge as fertilizer

An unlikely alliance of farmers, bikers, truckers, a detective and scientists from across the political spectrum are working to pressure the Trump administration and Republican leadership to rein in the use of toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer on the nation’s farmland.

Sludge often teems with Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, which present a health risk to farmers and the public, and have destroyed farms and contaminated water across the country. The issue has touched the groups’ lives in different ways, highlighting its broad risks to health.