The government's decision to extend an emergency early-release scheme in prisons to alleviate overcrowding has been described as a "national scandal".

Until just a couple of months ago, prisoners could be released up to 18 days before their release date under the end-of-custody supervised licence (ECSL) scheme. It has since been increased to 70 days to try to ease the pressure on prisons – but the move has been roundly criticised.

What is the scheme trying to achieve?
The original ECSL scheme was announced in October last year and targeted prisons "with fewer than 1,400 spaces for new inmates", said LBC. The extension of the early-release window from 18 days to between 35 and 60 in March, and now 70 from the end of May, "suggests little progress has been made".

It is well known that many UK jails are over capacity, with "fewer than 250 places left available in men's prisons", said The Times. The government says the 70-day move is a temporary measure and that offenders would "continue to be supervised under strict conditions such as tagging and curfews".

But Labour's shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said the quiet rollout was a "cover-up" by the Conservatives, who are perpetrating a "national scandal".

Who is eligible for early release?
Criminals serving more than four years cannot take part in the scheme. Those serving any term for sexual offences or terrorism are also ineligible.

However, "violent offenders, including domestic abusers", as well as "burglars, thieves and fraudsters" serving a sentence of less than four years, can take part, said The Times.

Why is it being criticised?
There is concern that the ECSL scheme is "being amended, at pace, and often with little warning", adding pressure to workers in the probation service, said Sky News.

That has led to criticism that it is ultimately "unsafe", as offenders are being released at such short notice that appropriate accommodation and deterrents like location tags are not being found or fitted in time.

Additionally, there are concerns about the type of offenders being released, with particular worry over "domestic abuse and stalk perpetrators".

To effectively reduce the numbers of inmates, said Sky News, "broader reform is necessary".

A long-standing feud between two of the world's most famous hip-hop artists has "exploded into full-bore acrimony and unverifiable accusations".

Canadian music titan Drake and Compton-born Kendrick Lamar, the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize, have "rapid-fire released" multiple songs over the past two weeks. The tracks have been "littered with attacks", accusing their rival of sexual and physical abuse, as well as jabs at "hypocrisy, generational trauma and more", said The New York Times.

On Tuesday, the saga took an alarming turn when a security guard was shot and seriously injured outside Drake's Toronto home. An investigation is ongoing and neither artist has commented publicly on the incident.

What's the background?
Drake and Lamar have long maintained an "icy frenemy rapport", said the NYT, but the feud went "nuclear" in March after Lamar's guest verse on the track "Like That" was widely perceived to include a jab at Drake – unleashing what has become a furious war of words.

At first the beef seemed like nothing more than "two insanely accomplished rich guys chasing a thrill", said Pitchfork, but it has since escalated into some of the "most bizarre, uncomfortable, overwhelming and evil diss tracks ever".

What next?
Lamar is clearly winning, said Ryan Broderick, author of the Garbage Day internet culture newsletter. He has waged a "total online war against Drake", packing his verses with "investigative journalism" and "dense references" for fans to pick apart online.

Those who adored Drake for pop megahits like "Hotline Bling" or "One Dance" won't care about the outcome of the beef, said Billboard, but in the rap world, Drake's loss against "hip-hop's cerebral assassin will certainly muddy his standing". After all, "you don't get brownie points for coming in second place in hip-hop".

The allegations the pair have flung at one another go well beyond "typical rap beef shenanigans" and are "so serious they will hang over their legacies forever", Pitchfork said. Listening to these superstars drag each other through the dirt – "for what? Entertainment? Competition? Ego? Boredom?" – sounds like "the death knell of an entire era".

"Made in England" celebrates the "gorgeous, radical work" of the British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and is aimed at "the expert, the enthusiast and the student alike", said Screen Daily.

The duo first collaborated in 1939, and their "golden age" spanned "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", a "romantic anti-war epic said to have rubbed Winston Churchill the wrong way"; the "heart-clutching afterlife fantasy 'A Matter of Life and Death'; the sensualist convent psychodrama 'Black Narcissus'; and the luminous, fairytale-riffing ballet tragedy 'The Red Shoes'".

The documentary is presented by Martin Scorsese, who has championed the duo's work since the 1970s, after the British establishment had turned its back on "these homegrown masters", said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. "How remarkable" that a director who emerged in the era when gritty realism "supplanted the romantic idealism of Powell and Pressburger" was to give their work a second lease of life.

Director David Hinton "paints a sweeping portrait of a unique collaboration" that elevated their talents "into something close to magic", said Time Out. All in all, it serves as a "grand introduction to some of their unforgettable images". And even a "10-second clip of 'Black Narcissus' or 'The Red Shoes' holds more punch than most other films".

"Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger" was screened at the Berlin Film Festival and is in UK cinemas from 10 May

The economy is recovering, but feelgood factor remains elusive
David Smith in The Times
Official stats are about to confirm that the economy has moved out of the "technical" recession of late last year. "You can normally rely on British consumers to get the party started", but "that has not been the case recently", writes David Smith. Consumers "are not splashing out" and "anything approaching a pre-election boom looks elusive", with "weak consumer confidence pointing to the absence of a feelgood factor". But the government "lacks obvious short-term levers to change things".

Farage's chauffeur has torpedoed the everyman image
Jordan Tyldesley in The i Paper
"Man of the people" Nigel Farage, the "pint-swilling, fag-smoking honorary president of Reform UK and Coutts bank account-owning millionaire", has "seemingly lost his common touch", writes Jordan Tyldesley. Although he had "always styled himself" as someone who knew how Britons felt, most people would "never stick their car into a disabled parking space while they popped to M&S" like he did. When Farage and his chauffeur "take these spaces" they "reveal that they prioritise their own needs over those of others".

Why Beethoven's ninth appeals to democrats and despots alike
The Economist editorial board
Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth and final symphony "has been admired by all kinds of audiences: left and right, democrats and totalitarians, capitalists and communists", says The Economist. The regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong used it and so have "European liberals", including Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer. The music is "revolutionary" and its "boldness – and the language of brotherhood, joy and freedom" – has "appealed both to democrats and to despots". But to many it "remains simply a joy".