MonarchyPair 'tried to blackmail royal with gay sex claims'Two men attempted to blackmail a member of the royal family with claims he performed oral sex on another man and was dishonest in his business dealings, a court was told today. Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan tried to extort £50,000 from the alleged victim – who cannot be named, but is not a senior royal – using audio and video recordings of a long-standing royal employee recounting the allegations, the jury at the Old Bailey heard.

Retro-futurist landscapes inspired by rock idols and writers – in pictures Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Maxine Gregson’s artworks – which have been described as “nostalgic futurism” – combine postcards and magazines bought on eBay, as well as her own photography, with snippets of lyrics and literature. “Joni Mitchell is a big inspiration,” she says. “I’ve also created pieces inspired by Bob Dylan, Joseph Heller and John Cheever.

Apparently invincible … Frank Sinatra and John F Kennedy at the president’s inaugural ball in January 1961. Photograph: GAB Archive/RedfernsApparently invincible … Frank Sinatra and John F Kennedy at the president’s inaugural ball in January 1961. Photograph: GAB Archive/RedfernsTV reviewTelevisionReviewThis documentary’s examination of the singer, the president and organised crime is exhilaratingly grubby. The twisting, steadily intensifying story is a corker Politics overlaps with showbiz and organised crime much more than it ought to, but the similarities are undeniable.

BooksHistorian Fergus Bordewich salutes the civil war general turned 18th president for his attempt to reconstruct the south Beginning in Ulysses S Grant’s first term, the civil-war general turned president focused his energies on a new campaign. Although this one also involved the army, it primarily relied on the forces of the American legal system to combat a rising threat in the south – the racist violence of a new clandestine organization, the Ku Klux Klan.

Nintendo This article is more than 7 years oldNintendo denies Alison Rapp firing is linked to harassment campaignThis article is more than 7 years oldOusted marketing officer tweeted that she had been sacked due to outspoken views on feminism, which the company has denied Nintendo has denied that an internet harassment campaign targeting one of its staff was related to its decision to fire her. Alison Rapp, a marketing officer at Nintendo of America’s product development division, Treehouse, wrote a series of tweets on Wednesday evening, informing followers that she was no longer deemed “a good, safe representative of Nintendo”.

Pass notesPoliticsThe government has wrapped up malevolent nuggets of news and released them all on the last day of term – in the hope that we’ll be feeling too festive to notice Name: Take Out the Trash Day Age: As a phrase, 15 years old (it was brought to prominence by an episode of The West Wing in 2000). As a practice – immemorial. Appearance: Annual. Round here we do the bins on a Thursday.

Herman Bekele, 14, from Annandale in Virginia. Photograph: Andy King/Discovery EducationHerman Bekele, 14, from Annandale in Virginia. Photograph: Andy King/Discovery EducationCancer This article is more than 2 months oldUS student, 14, wins award for developing soap to treat skin cancerThis article is more than 2 months oldHeman Bekele was inspired by Ethiopian workers laboring under the sun, and wanted to help ‘as many people as possible’ A middle-school teen has been named “America’s top young scientist” after developing a bar of soap that could be useful in the treatment of melanoma, a skin cancer that is diagnosed in about 100,000 people in the US each year and kills approximately 8,000.

The ObserverWorld newsWill KJ-T strike Olympic gold? Will Sunak go for an early election? How much will Taylor Swift fans bring to the UK economy? From tech to fashion, food to politics, the Observer’s top writers predict who and what will make the headlines Fashion and lifestyleby Ellie Bramley Fashion and lifestyle have a knack for the surprise. The out-of-the-blue rise of butter moulding, say, or the sudden coolness of a shoe with a cloven toe.

FictionReviewThis massive saga about Finnish immigrants in early 20th-century America combines fascinating detail with overlong narrationKarl Marlantes’s previous novel, 2010’s Matterhorn, and his crushing memoir, What It Is Like to Go to War, explored his experiences as an officer in Vietnam; they were the work of a reflective, hugely brave and – by necessity – ruthless soldier. After these existentially wrenching books, he stated he would move away from writing about war.

Pop and rockObituaryGavin Clark obituarySongwriter and singer whose dark vision won critical acclaim If you have seen Shane Meadows’s 2006 film This Is England, then you have heard Gavin Clark, singing the Smiths song Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want over the closing credits. The singer, who has died unexpectedly aged 46, pulls off a fairly remarkable feat – investing a song already heavy with melancholy with so much more of it that the end result is difficult to listen to.