Kits could allow ambulance crews to identify patients with blood clots in their brain, allowing for quicker treatment

• How lateral flow tests are becoming a diagnostic gamechanger

Ambulance crews in Cambridgeshire are piloting the use of finger-prick blood tests to diagnose the deadliest form of stroke, with preliminary data suggesting they may be up to twice as effective as relying on patients’ symptoms alone.

The tests, which work on a similar principle to the lateral flow tests (LFTs) used to detect Covid, are designed to rapidly identify whether someone suspected of having a stroke has suffered a large vessel occlusion (LVO), where a blood clot blocks a major artery in the brain.

There is little middle ground in the battle over zonal pricing – and the energy secretary has only months to settle dispute

How would you prefer your electricity prices to be set – nationally or locally? There is little middle ground in the bitter lobbying battle over zonal pricing, the proposal that Great Britain’s electricity market should be split into regions with prices set by local supply and demand. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, must decide in the next few months, in time for this summer’s auction for new wind and solar projects.

One camp – led by Greg Jackson, the politically plugged-in founder of Octopus Energy, the UK’s biggest retail energy supplier – argues that customers’ bills will “skyrocket” unless zonal pricing is adopted. It points to the wasted money spent paying windfarms to shut down when, for example, it is blowing a gale in Shetland and the local grid is overloaded with more power than can be transported south.

There is little middle ground in the battle over zonal pricing – and the energy secretary has only months to settle dispute

How would you prefer your electricity prices to be set – nationally or locally? There is little middle ground in the bitter lobbying battle over zonal pricing, the proposal that Great Britain’s electricity market should be split into regions with prices set by local supply and demand. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, must decide in the next few months, in time for this summer’s auction for new wind and solar projects.

One camp – led by Greg Jackson, the politically plugged-in founder of Octopus Energy, the UK’s biggest retail energy supplier – argues that customers’ bills will “skyrocket” unless zonal pricing is adopted. It points to the wasted money spent paying windfarms to shut down when, for example, it is blowing a gale in Shetland and the local grid is overloaded with more power than can be transported south.

The colour and detail in this collection of nonfiction by the grandfather of New Journalism brings the city to gripping, dazzling life

The critics have never quite called off the search for the great American novel; meanwhile, the hunt goes on for the only slightly less prized great American article. It’s a piece of journalism that captures the spirit and meaning of the republic. Hardboiled but with a soft centre, in the US feature-writing tradition, it might be set in New York, the most American of places.

Indeed, you can still catch staffers at the New Yorker magazine having a crack at it, though they’d never admit it. Their copy might include a zigzagging fire escape, or a genie of steam escaping from a sidewalk, or perhaps a yellow cab hopscotching over potholes. But never all these motifs together! That would risk unfavourable comparison with the cherished chroniclers of the city’s past: EB White, AJ Liebling, Dorothy Parker and others.

Familiar from the Covid era, the tests are becoming incredibly versatile, with potential uses including detecting killers such as strokes and sepsis

• Speedy finger-prick tests to diagnose strokes trialled in Cambridgeshire

Swab, swoosh, splat. During the pandemic, many of us got used to using lateral flow tests to check if we were infected with Covid or were likely to infect others. But despite the gag-inducing testing routines of the pandemic thankfully fading into memory, we may not have seen the back of those small diagnostic cartridges.

Boots UK recently launched finger-prick lateral flow tests (LFTs) to detect levels of vitamin D, iron or cholesterol in people’s blood, as well as an influenza test. Trials of LFTs to rapidly diagnose strokes are under way, and the type of sample that can be loaded on to these tests is expanding rapidly, from fingerprint sweat or river water to cat vomit.

The colour and detail in this collection of nonfiction by the grandfather of New Journalism brings the city to gripping, dazzling life

The critics have never quite called off the search for the great American novel; meanwhile, the hunt goes on for the only slightly less prized great American article. It’s a piece of journalism that captures the spirit and meaning of the republic. Hardboiled but with a soft centre, in the US feature-writing tradition, it might be set in New York, the most American of places.

Indeed, you can still catch staffers at the New Yorker magazine having a crack at it, though they’d never admit it. Their copy might include a zigzagging fire escape, or a genie of steam escaping from a sidewalk, or perhaps a yellow cab hopscotching over potholes. But never all these motifs together! That would risk unfavourable comparison with the cherished chroniclers of the city’s past: EB White, AJ Liebling, Dorothy Parker and others.