They finally met for the first time at the G20 in Hamburg: US president, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Meeting at the two-day summit to discuss issues including economic growth, trade and climate change, Trump dispensed with his usual hand-pulling shake. But it was Angela Merkel who had much more to prove, not only as a host and representative for EU solidarity, but also as a leader on top of domestic affairs – no easy task. Against a backdrop of protesters clashing with police, delegates are navigating very different attitudes to globalisation. And as the US says it is pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, new guidelines presented at G20 will help companies and investors find a new common language about climate change.

The ability to levitate might seem like a fantastic prospect. But it certainly hasn’t been for all. Historically, purported female levitators, from medieval witches to Victorian spiritualists, were often maligned as ridiculous, dangerous characters. For men, the ability was often cast as more wilful, assertive, or even as a sign of closeness to God. Here’s a fascinating insight to this strangest of claims.

Born 100 years ago, author Anthony Burgess is best known for A Clockwork Orange, a dystopian tale of violent crime, delinquency and behaviour-modification treatment. While his fiction was the stuff of nightmares, Burgess’ real-life ordeals over his work and that of his acquaintances led to his becoming a champion for literary license. In a bid to fight censorship, he translated the obscene and blasphemous sonnets of the 19th-century Roman dialect poet Belli. For all this, his lecture Obscenity and the Arts, is worth a new look.

Other great stories we had this week: why children’s toothpaste isn’t always what it seems, the curious case of Sherlock Holmes’s fake violin, and why cats don’t only purr when you’re around.

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