• Favourite is fourth at European Indoor Championships
• Agathe Guillemot wins as Hunter Bell has late slump

Georgia Hunter Bell was such a huge favourite for 1500m gold that a £50 bet on her to win at the European Indoor Championships would have returned just one pound of profit. She was Britain’s banker. A cast-iron certainty. And then, with 100m to go, it all went horribly wobbly.

At that point, the Olympic 1500m bronze medallist was leading and looked to have everything under control. But just when everyone expected her to switch on the afterburners, her legs turned into spaghetti – the result, it later transpired, of an ear infection.

King Okpabi, ruler of Ogale, says Shell has caused chronic pollution, while oil firm argues it is not responsible

His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.

It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.”

People snacked at home on more than 15% fewer occasions in 2024 than in 2020 and are choosing healthier options

Hold the biscuits, popcorn and chocolate and hand out the rice cakes, apples and halloumi, the UK is cutting back on snacks and shifting to healthier options amid tighter budgets and bulging waistlines.

Britons had a snack at home on more than 15% fewer occasions in 2024 than in 2020 – as a boom in self-treating during the pandemic lockdowns subsided, according to the retail market analysts Kantar. Even when snacking on the go is included, we are munching about 2% less than during the pandemic and even a bit less than before Covid reshaped our lives.

Trial of three ‘minions’ in spy ring for Russia heard of chaotic errors, tangled relationships, a cancer lie and a red button

• Three UK-based Bulgarians found guilty of spying for Russia
• The spymaster, the ringleader and the ‘minions’: who’s who of the spy ring trial

It began with a simple request, though it was written by one of the world’s most wanted men. “We’d be interested in a Bulgarian guy working for Bellingcat: Christo Grozev,” the author wrote at 7.46pm on 14 December 2020. Another message followed on Telegram: “Can we look into this guy or would it raise too many questions?” And so a spy ring of Bulgarians based in Britain but working for Russia began to form.

The author was Jan Marsalek, a fugitive businessman accused of involvement in a €1.9bn fraud on the German payments company Wirecard – and an agent for Russia. Earlier that year he had fled to Moscow, and now he had time on his hands. The message’s recipient was Orlin Roussev, 47, an IT specialist and private investigator who had been based in the UK for several years – and somebody Marsalek appeared to know well.

Jury convicts Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova and Tihomir Ivanchev over alleged plots around Europe

• The spymaster, the ringleader and the ‘minions’: who’s who of the spy ring trial
• ‘Dumbest thing I’ve ever done’: spy trial’s tales of scheming, bluster and a love triangle

Three Bulgarian nationals accused of spying for Russia have been found guilty of espionage charges in a trial that heard how they were involved in a string of plots around Europe directed by a fugitive based in Moscow.

After more than 32 hours of deliberations, a jury at the Old Bailey reached unanimous verdicts on Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab technician, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator, all of whom were living in London before their arrest.