FluxDash

A warm spring morning in Shanghai on The Bund, where several pre-wedding shoots are happening simultaneously. Photograph: Olivia Martin-McGuireThe black-and-white wedding photos of couples married in China used to resemble ID cards. Now a much more elaborate tradition is emerging, writes Jenny Valentish by Jenny ValentishThe photographer and his crew sit outside the tank, grinning. “Beauty, how long can you hold your breath under water?” one calls out to the sopping wet woman in the wedding gown.

The feet of Amillia Taylor, born in Miami after just 22 weeks in the womb. Photo: Baptist Health South/GettyThe feet of Amillia Taylor, born in Miami after just 22 weeks in the womb. Photo: Baptist Health South/GettyHealthAgainst all oddsAmillia Taylor shouldn't be alive. She was born at less than 22 weeks - in the US, where babies aren't considered 'viable' until 23 weeks. But her desperate mother lied to doctors about how far gone she was, and Amillia is now the most premature baby to have ever survived.

BooksReviewRichard Gott is delighted by a radical retelling of history in tiny chunksEduardo Galeano is a famous Latin American writer, little known in Anglo-Saxon countries until Hugo Chávez presented Barack Obama earlier this year with a copy of his classic 1973 book The Open Veins of Latin America (now once again available from Serpent's Tail). Galeano is a radical journalist from Uruguay, but he is also a poet and a novelist, and the brilliant inventor of a special genre of historical writing.

OpinionNikki HaleyNikki Haley’s comment on the US civil war was no gaffeSidney BlumenthalWhen asked about the cause of the civil war, she failed to mention slavery once. That is no surprise Nikki Haley’s feigning of staggering ignorance about the cause of the US civil war unintentionally revealed her quandary in the Republican party. It was not a gaffe. Though it was a stumble, it was not a mistake, but a message she has delivered for years and that has served her well until now.

Alexis Petridis's album of the weekMusicReview(XL Recordings) Knitting garage with techno and chopped-up vocals, the pounding yet poppy debut album from Monmouth brothers Ed and Tom Russell is masterfully done Overmono take their name from a suburb of their Welsh home town. You could take that as a knowing joke from a duo steeped in wilfully urban-sounding music, who specifically intended their celebrated 2021 Fabric Presents mix to evoke a winter’s night in south London.

StageReviewLinda Gross Theater, New York The prolific Oscar nominee has fun playing a woman unmoored by the absence of her husband and son in a dark farce with questionable politics Fatuous and skimpy, Florian Zeller’s The Mother suggests that when a marriage declines and grown children leave home, a person could go crazy. Oh sorry. Not a person. A woman. In this oddly regressive work, described in the script as a dark farce, a ferocious Isabelle Huppert stars as Anne, a 47-year-old wife and mother unmoored by the detachment of her husband (Chris Noth in grizzled businessman mode) and the absence of her son.

The ObserverVinylThe Observer view on the vinyl revival: LPs are the antidote to a frenetic digital worldObserver editorialOur rediscovered love of the record format reveals a need for ceremony and connection to tangible objectsTo some, if not most, the news that sales of vinyl records are now at their highest level this century – in 2023, they rose for a 16th consecutive year to 5.9m – will come as little surprise, for all that we were once told the format would soon be as dead as a dodo.

Ned BeaumanReviewPast, present and future mingle in a terrific genre-bender, now longlisted for the Booker. By Joe DunthorneLiving in Berlin just before the second world war, everything goes wrong for Egon Loeser, and it has nothing to do with the Nazis. In Ned Beauman's terrific second novel, longlisted this week for the Booker, his protagonist, a German set designer, is too sex-starved, self-pitying and, usually, hungover to notice that history is happening all around him.

BooksReviewRachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian’s account of how the Democrats failed to oust Trump is timely – and worrying On Thursday, the House January 6 committee voted unanimously to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump. He has indicated he is considering testifying but surely the likelihood of him doing so under oath is nil. He lacks all incentive to appear. The committee’s long-term existence is doubtful. Trump a narcissist and a ‘dick’, ex-ambassador Sondland says in new bookRead moreIn their joint account of Trump’s two impeachments, Rachael Bade of Politico and Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post suggest the US is exhausted by the pandemic and perpetual investigation.