Shona McCarthy says public authorities have routinely ignored needs of world’s largest arts festival

The Edinburgh festival fringe should be given the same status as major sporting events like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, its outgoing chief executive has said.

Shona McCarthy, who stands down this week after nine years running the fringe, said its needs were routinely ignored by public authorities, who expected it to fend for itself despite its status as the world’s largest arts festival.

National Gallery, London
This epochal exhibition is full of works so intimate and expressive that the painters of a medieval Italian city 700 years ago suddenly seem close at hand

Seven centuries ago a poet penned the most ecstatic art review ever written. Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch, had commissioned the Sienese artist Simone Martini to paint a portrait of his beloved, Laura. The result was so marvellous, he wrote, that if all the famous artists of ancient Greece “competed for a thousand years they wouldn’t have seen a tiny bit of the beauty that’s conquered my heart”.

Petrarch’s rave review has it right. Conquering the heart is what Martini and other 14th-century painters from Siena do in the National Gallery’s devastatingly exact, epochal exhibition about the moment western art came alive. Simone’s painting of Laura is lost but you see why he was the artist for the job. He is so expressive, so tender, exploding any idea of medieval art as remote.

Jatiya Nagorik party, popular among the country’s vast youth, could shift electoral landscape but needs to show democratic, secular credentials

In the shadow of Bangladesh’s parliament building, crowds poured into the streets, many adorned in the red and green of the national flag. Just six months ago, these same roads had been a battleground littered with bullet casings and bodies, as students fought against armed police to bring down the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina.

This time, students who successfully overthrew the prime minster were here for a different purpose: to launch their Jatiya Nagorik or National Citizens’ party (NCP) in the presence of thousands of supporters.

Sports ground exclusions and mandatory work for offenders in England and Wales ‘part of mix’ under sentencing review

Criminals could be banned from pubs, sports grounds and social events under proposals being considered as alternatives to prison, a minister has said.

Sarah Sackman, the courts minister, told the Guardian that such exclusions, as well as mandatory work for offenders, were “very much part of the mix” under a review of sentencing being conducted by the former Conservative Lord Chancellor David Gauke.

• Manager thrilled at 7-1 mauling of PSV Eindhoven
• Win is club’s biggest away victory in Champions League

Mikel Arteta paid tribute to Arsenal’s players for a “special night” as they thrashed PSV Eindhoven 7-1 to record their biggest away victory in the Champions League.

Martin Ødegaard, the captain, was inspired as he scored twice with Riccardo Calafiori, on as a substitute, rounding off the rout with Arsenal’s seventh goal to surpassing the Gunners’ 5-1 victory at San Siro against Inter in 2003.