Exclusive: Bronze cast of Christ connected to Florentine artist to be sold alongside Spanish masterpiece

A precociously talented artist, scarcely out of his teens, was in 1620 commissioned to paint the portrait of an intrepid nun passing through his home city of Seville on her way to one of the farthest outposts of Spain’s vast empire.

His painting reveals a shrewd, formidable woman in late middle age, who clasps a book in her left hand while wielding a crucifix, almost as if it were a weapon, in her right.

Despite wet weather hitting yields, supermarkets are reporting a doubling in rhubarb sales compared to last year

It takes a while for the eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the shed. Slowly, the shapes of hundreds of pale stalks emerge from the gloom like an alien species, visible only by the glow cast by a handful of candles.

This candlelit ritual is the harvest of Yorkshire forced rhubarb, being carried out by growers Robert and Paula Tomlinson.

The Sky Sports pundit deserves an award for his accurate assessment of India’s Champions Trophy gerrymandering

I believe the robots are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside – let the robots’ laughter remind us how we used to be. The Onion, there, prescient as ever, 25 years on.

May I also say at this point that in a time of industrial-scale sporting bullshit telling the truth is, more than ever, a revolutionary act, all the more so when it involves standing in front of a camera in a rumpled ice-blue blazer, eyes blazing with righteous carved wooden woodpecker fury.

The religious festival is a month of fasting, prayer and community – not consuming and comparing ourselves with one another

• Nadeine Asbali is the author of Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain

Supermarkets have wheeled out the 20kg bags of rice. High-street stores have popped hijabs on mannequins. Cosmetic companies are churning out products scented with pomegranate, cardamom, saffron and “sticky date” – at Lush you can buy Salam shower gel, Noor lip butter and a massage bar that apparently smells like a turmeric latte. All this can only mean one thing in our modern, consumerist world: Ramadan is upon us.

Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, begins this weekend. Like many Muslims, I find it is my favourite time of the year (and not because I can bulk-buy rice for the entire year in my local Tesco). It is a time of spiritual growth and reflection, of turning away from our own desires and egos to focus on God, and of letting go of the trappings of the earthly world – including food and drink in daylight hours.

Nadeine Asbali is the author of Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain, and a secondary school teacher in London

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Criminal justice specialists call for new approach to identify emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions

The rise of “0 to 100” killers who go from watching torture, mutilation and beheading videos in their bedrooms to committing murder suggests there could be a link between extreme violence online and in real life, experts have said.

Criminal justice experts advocated a new approach, inspired by counter-terrorism, to identify an emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions, after cases such as Nicholas Prosper, who killed his mother and siblings and planned a primary school massacre.