Famous Last Words is a series of interviews conducted with notable names and only released after their death and it offers an incredible opportunity

Exactly one day after the death of actor Eric Dane, a new show appeared on Netflix. Entitled Famous Last Words, it consisted of an interview with none other than Eric Dane himself. While at first the timing of the release might have seemed coincidental at best and exploitative at worst, the reality of the interview was something else entirely.

Dane, it transpired, had recorded the interview in full knowledge that he was dying. What’s more, he conducted it on the understanding that it would only be released in the event of his death. Because this is the conceit behind Famous Last Words. It exists as a living obituary, as an opportunity to go on the record for the very last time to contextualise their life in a manner of their choosing.

Our photographer shares his favourite images from the Games in Italy

I’ve been lucky enough to attend six summer Olympic Games, but I’d never before photographed a Winter Olympics. They’ve always been too far away and the UK has never been a major snowsport country, which has limited their news appeal. This time it was different. With Team GB anticipating a record medal haul and the Games staged in northern Italy, I headed off with nervous excitement, lured by the promise of fast action sports occurring amid beautiful snowy vistas. I covered ski jumping, big air, ice hockey, biathlon, curling and much more. A lot of it was alien to me but it was very enjoyable. There were new rules to learn, new challenges to face – I’ve certainly never had to wear sharp crampons at a football match.

The Games were full of contrasts. From a sporting perspective, the gentle gracefulness that I observed at the figure skating was offset by the full-on brutality of ice hockey brawls, while the delicate precision of curling was juxtaposed by the frantic chaos of short-track speed skating. From a geographical and cultural perspective, Livigno, which is perched high up in the Alps close to Switzerland, seemed like a giant playground for modern snow sports – geared towards those who like to twist and twirl high in the sky – while Cortina, in the Dolomites, was far more old-fashioned and populated by the traditional skiing establishment. Milan, meanwhile, featured a cluster of modernist, edge-of-town arenas, with international fans happily catching the metro to and from the events. But, in my experience, transportation wasn’t always so convenient. The huge amount of travelling between venues – I went to all but one – was exhausting and getting a late night bus over the mountains between Livigno and Bormio in a blizzard felt a bit hairy.

I was disturbed, but I wasn’t shocked. It’s a bigger problem that in these toxic times, so many of us endure this and other slurs in our daily lives

At the outset of the Baftas, the gilded crowd anticipated historic wins, emotional speeches and enjoying the familiar glow of a cultural institution congratulating itself on progress – whether fully warranted or not.

Then, as proceedings began and as Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, two of the leading actors of our time, stood on stage, there was the N-word – shouted from the audience by John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner who also lives with TS and is the inspiration for the Bafta-winning film I Swear.

Nadine White is a journalist and film-maker

Soon to go on display at the National Gallery of Art in DC, it took a female artist to portray the biblical figure not as shamed and repentant but in the throes of ecstatic rapture

A woman knocks her head back. Her eyes and mouth are closed but she is awake. With flushed cheeks, red lips and long, golden hair, she glows from a sharply lit flame in a room otherwise cloaked in darkness. Wearing textures ranging from a lace-trimmed chemise blouse – slipping down her right shoulder and exposing her porcelain skin – to a heavy yellow and purple material, she appears to be alone. Unaware of our presence, she exists in a state of sublimity, but also freedom.

The woman we are looking at is Mary Magdalene “in ecstasy”, painted in the early 1620s by Artemisia Gentileschi, the Italian baroque artist famed for her heroic and powerful depictions of mythological and biblical women. Recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, it will go on view – free of charge – from 24 February. While it is, monumentally, the institution’s first acquisition by Gentileschi, it is also a picture that shows the saint “neither repentant nor suffering”, as curator Letizia Treves has written. An important distinction because, for centuries, Magdalene’s image has been shaped not just by scripture, but fabulated and conflated by powerful men.

Amid talk of artificial intelligence taking our jobs, the big unasked question is: how will we be fed?

How will we be fed? That’s the biggest question not seriously being addressed amid all this talk about whether or not artificial intelligence will end up taking over all of our jobs.

Formidable though the technology appears, similar fears have popped up repeatedly since the Industrial Revolution, and most working-age adults remain employed. Still, what is sorely missing is a serious debate about what to do if this future in fact materializes.

Arousal may be spontaneous, or arise in response to sensory stimulation, memory, fantasy or emotional connection. Here’s how to understand the differences

What turns you on? Depending on the person, the answer to that question will vary wildly. But what is really going on under the, ahem, hood when we start to get in the mood?

The first scientists to really take the physiology of sex seriously – or at least break the taboos around talking about it – were William Masters and Virginia Johnson, sexologists who began their studies in the 1950s (and got married in 1971). “They came up with what’s known as the four-stage model, which was that the body gets aroused, you hit a plateau, you have an orgasm, you go back down to baseline,” says Dr Angela Wright, a GP and clinical sexologist based in Yorkshire.

Video footage shows former peer being driven away shortly after being escorted from his London home by officers

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Peter Mandelson has been arrested by detectives investigating claims he committed misconduct in public office during his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Video footage showed him being driven away from his home in an unmarked car shortly after being escorted from his home by officers.

Bridget Phillipson announces plans to make special educational needs system less reliant on cash-strapped councils

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Bridget Phillipson has presented sweeping plans to overhaul special educational needs provision in England, with a package of measures designed to make the system less reliant on cash-strapped councils and give schools greater responsibility.

The education secretary’s long-awaited Send proposals will result in hundreds of thousands fewer students getting education, health and care plans (EHCPs) than would otherwise have been the case.

PM asks ethics adviser to examine conduct of Cabinet Office minister amid Labour Together scandal fallout

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Keir Starmer has opened a formal investigation into a Cabinet Office minister involved in falsely accusing journalists of having links to pro-Russian propaganda.

The prime minister’s decision follows revelations in the Guardian that Josh Simons, who was running the thinktank Labour Together at the time, was also involved in telling British intelligence officials that another journalist was “living with” the daughter of a former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn. Officials were told by Simons’ team that the former adviser was “suspected of links to Russian intelligence”.

Call comes amid fresh scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor’s alleged links to Epstein, including claims over security arrangements at his New York home

The intense focus on the former Prince Andrew’s association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has centred on the women who were trafficked for sex as young girls by the latter, and the police investigation into claims Mountbatten-Windsor handed him sensitive information while serving as the UK trade envoy.

Over the weekend, it shifted slightly to the police officers who were tasked with guarding Andrew for years as he carried out his public role as a senior royal. They are now being told to come forward and speak to detectives about what they saw and heard while on duty.