The star returns as wealthy neighbourhood thief Coop in this rich dessert of a show. But as he tackles middle-age malaise, there’s a lot of heart – plus a guest appearance by James Marsden
Does Your Friends & Neighbours love its unhappy, very wealthy characters, or despise them? Does it laugh at the 1%, envy them, pity them? It does all of the above at once and, as we return to the fictional enclave of Westport, New York – an obvious stand-in for real financiers’ playground Westchester – this mischievous US dramedy is still a rich dessert of a show, unhealthy but oh so moreish.
Jon Hamm is Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a role that, if it were given to any other actor, would require them to do their best Jon Hamm impersonation. Sturdy, smooth – this is a man made of oak and mahogany, when the rest of us are bags of twigs and jelly – and seemingly always with a tumbler of $500 whisky in his fist, he is blessed with the ability to charm any man/woman into a deal/his bed. Other men have been handed their place in the banking elite and are now drifting through a life of luxury; Coop is better at playing the game than they are because he is sharp enough to see what a sham it all is. He has that trademark deep Hamm gaze, a tension behind the eyes.
Continue reading...Havana makes a Holy Week ‘humanitarian’ gesture as Russian tanker is allowed to reach oil-starved island
Cuban authorities have begun to free prisoners after announcing they would pardon 2,010 inmates, the second release in less than a month as the country faces heightened US pressure.
More than 20 inmates emerged from La Lima penitentiary in east Havana on Friday, holding their release papers, crying and hugging relatives who had been waiting for them all morning.
Continue reading...As Barcelona groans under a surfeit of generic cafes, a grassroots movement is reviving the traditional ‘fork breakfast’. Anyone for pigs’ trotters?
There are many worse ways to start your day than with eggs royale. The contrast in textures between a soft poached egg and a coarse, toasted English muffin is a thing of beauty, and the combination of smoked salmon and a lemony hollandaise sauce ties it together perfectly. The term “brunch” was coined in an essay in Hunter’s Weekly in 1895, and while you’re unlikely to find too many fans in foodie circles, or among those who have to work the shift (“nothing demoralises an aspiring Escoffier faster”, wrote Anthony Bourdain), they aren’t lacking in number. It clearly has its place. The problem is the place it currently occupies: in our gentrifying cities, brunch has acquired a symbolism that goes far beyond the food itself.
After the quieter winter months, Barcelona is one of many European cities gearing up for another holiday season of heightened tensions around tourism. Feeling increasingly embattled amid soaring rents and an overcrowded, blandified city centre, Barcelona residents have made their voices heard through increasingly voluble protests. Beyond the general “Tourist, go home!” slogan, you’ll see specific pain points addressed via placards, chants and graffiti across the Catalan capital: specifically, “Ban Airbnb”, and perhaps more surprisingly, “Stop brunch!”
Continue reading...We are at a critical point in the climate emergency and already struggling to meet emissions reduction targets. The UK government must hold its nerve
While the UK is only marginally involved in the war in the Middle East in military terms, the ramifications for this country are still potentially huge. And nowhere more so than in the energy sector. It isn’t a surprise, then, that commentary has focused on the impact potential policy interventions might have on the cost of energy to UK homes and businesses, and on whether the decisions the government takes will make the nation more – or less – energy-secure.
The usual suspects in Reform and the Tory party have used the war as an excuse to renew demands that the North Sea be sucked dry of its remaining oil and gas, in order – they say – to end reliance on fossil fuel imports and to guarantee energy security. More sensible heads have argued that the North Sea basin is a field that is way past peak production, and that has only limited amounts of oil and gas left, and that energy security can only be reached if we move further and faster on renewables. Extraordinarily, the real reason no further significant exploitation of North Sea oil and gas is planned seems to have been entirely forgotten, or at least set aside.
Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL. His next book – The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis – is published in May
Continue reading...A new book by historian Annette Gordon-Reed explores the former US president’s writings on race throughout his life
Thomas Jefferson’s interactions with enslaved people bookend his life. The third US president and a founder of the United States was born into a slave-owning family in a society upon which slavery was the bedrock. A Black woman was probably his earliest nursemaid – evidence shows that his mother did not breastfeed her children, so it is probable that a Black woman was also Jefferson’s wet nurse. His earliest memory, which he relayed to his grandchildren, was of being carried on a pillow via horseback by a man his family enslaved on a 50-mile journey to Tuckahoe, Virginia.
Given his status as an enslaver – Jefferson owned more than 610 people in his lifetime – those he held in bondage may have been the last people Jefferon saw before he died. An enslaved man, John Hemmings, built his casket. The omnipresence of slavery in his life and its clear contradictions with regards to his views on liberty, create a point of which much of the existing literature on Jefferson must attempt to make sense. Scholars have long tried to analyze and parse the juxtaposition of bondage and freedom for the former president. But in a new book by Annette Gordon-Reed, a Pulitzer prize-winning historian and a pre-eminent Jefferson scholar, Jefferson speaks for himself.
Continue reading...As the daughter of refugees, Iranian American artist Sheida Soleimani’s work reframes caring for bodies – both human and animal - as a political act. Her new exhibition, Forest of Stars, will be on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery from 16 April to 22 May
Continue reading...Everything Korean – from K-pop and skincare to food and clothing – is booming in popularity in Chile, Mexico and Brazil
On the polished flagstones of a Santiago cultural centre’s forecourt, four Chilean girls dance in energetic union, counting their steps aloud in Korean.
In front of them, a YouTube video with 1.3bn views plays atop a speaker throbbing to the beat of How You Like That, by the K-pop megastars Blackpink.
Continue reading...Judge threw out 10 of Lively’s 13 claims against her It Ends With Us director and co-star on Thursday as trial nears
Justin Baldoni’s lawyers have responded after most of Blake Lively’s claims against the director were dismissed by a federal judge on Thursday.
Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of the 13 claims that Lively had made against Baldoni and others, including allegations of sexual harassment, conspiracy and defamation.
Continue reading...Residents in at least 10 states are organizing campaigns to tax wealth in order to fund schools and other social services
Karen Sanchez likes to meet new people at trivia nights or concerts at her local brewery at the edge of Los Angeles county. Her opening line: “How do you feel about taxing the rich?”
Sanchez is volunteering to collect signatures to put a contentious “billionaire tax” on California’s November ballot, sponsored by her union, SEIU – United Healthcare Workers West. The proposal would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s 200-plus billionaires to cover lost federal funding for California hospitals and emergency services and to fund public education and food assistance programs. She says most people have been eager to sign on – and want to see more of it.
Continue reading...Fabric that once defined Northern Ireland’s capital is at heart of its stylish revival, embraced by designers, royalty and heritage farmers alike
On a cobbled street in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, next door to a hipster coffee shop and opposite an ice-cream parlour that has a near-constant queue since going viral on TikTok, the elegant Kindred of Ireland boutique is doing a surprisingly brisk trade in artfully oversized butter yellow linen blouses and exquisite Donegal mulberry tweed jackets finished with a length of rose pink linen tied in a bow at the nape of the neck.
Half a century after the Troubles, Belfast is finding a new identity through an industry that once defined it. Linen – the fibre that built its wealth and earned it the name Linenopolis – is being woven into a story of renewal. Almost a century after the postwar collapse of an industry that, at its peak, employed 40% of the working population of Northern Ireland, linen is returning as a marker of identity.
Continue reading...People leaving Iran for Turkey tell of impact of bombs and internet blackouts, while others are travelling the other way to be closer to relatives in peril
He could not help but splutter out a laugh at the question. Amir, whose name has been changed for his safety, had just crossed the Kapıköy border point in eastern Turkey, a mountain pass between snow-topped peaks that is one of the few gateways to the west from Iran.
Until a few weeks ago, this was a busy place, popular among Iranian daytrippers coming across to Turkey to do some shopping in the lively city of Van, a further two hours drive west, or to spend a couple of nights out in its discreet Iranian-only nightclubs and bars serving alcohol.
Continue reading...The president’s outbursts on allies and Nato were further confirmation that Europe cannot wait to bolster security – and Britain must play its part
“She had no more surprises for him; the unexpected in her behaviour was the only thing to expect,” Henry James wrote in his novel Daisy Miller. Leaders dealing with Donald Trump surely recognise the sentiment. James’s character was a young American out of her depth in Europe, falling victim to prejudices. Mr Trump is a real-world problem, and this time, Europe is battered by the prejudices and vengefulness of the American.
This week alone the US president has publicly mocked the British prime minister and armed forces (as weak), the French president (over his marriage), told allies to get their own oil – having set the Middle East on fire – and said leaving Nato was “beyond reconsideration”. Mr Trump’s wishful thinking has hit reality in Iran, where the war that he and Benjamin Netanyahu began will not be easily ended. His resulting frustration, concern about domestic political repercussions and desire to distract the public are matched by vindictiveness towards allies who rightly refused to join in.
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Continue reading...From Watership Down and Fatal Attraction to Bambi and Python’s Holy Grail, rabbits are an unlikely constant in film – and often with sinister intentions. Here are the 20 best leporine movie moments
The mighty Alan Bleasdale wrote this razor-sharp farce set on New Year’s Eve in Liverpool, where rival Catholic and Protestant militants have accidentally booked the same venue. One of the acts going horribly wrong is Elvis Costello as a stage musician who says: “I’m a bit worried about me rabbit.” With reason, as it turns out.
Continue reading...The author on being inspired by Michael Ondaatje and how Hilary Mantel helped her overcome her aversion to historical figure novels
My earliest reading memory
The headteacher in my village primary school used to recount terrifying Cumbrian ghost tales to the class, which I’m sure was formative. I can also still hear my mum sing-songing rhymes; “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s”. My dad read the Ant and Bee books to me, repeatedly – he’d drive back over a high upland road from work and get home in time for bedtime stories. But my earliest independent reading memory is The Story of Ferdinand by Leaf and Lawson. I loved that bull!
My favourite book growing up
Big books gave me the whirlies so it took a while for them to start landing.
Gently scented with orange and vanilla, lightened by ricotta, and studded with rum-soaked raisins
This is a cake for the long, ambling tail-end of an Easter lunch. It’s gently scented with orange and vanilla, lightened by ricotta, and studded with rum-soaked raisins that bring bursts of sweetness to each slice. Ideally, they’d be soaked overnight to plump them into something luscious, but if time gets away from you, take a shortcut: put the raisins and rum in a microwave-safe bowl, zap for 20–30 seconds, then leave to cool and absorb. The chocolate glaze is optional; on days when you want something simpler (or lighter), a generous sifting of icing sugar is all this cake needs. Serve with a small glass of grappa or something similarly warming for a quietly perfect way to bring a feast to a close.
Continue reading...After a decade in pop’s underground, Larsson’s radiant fifth album turned her into one of the world’s biggest stars. It’s about time, she says, relishing the attention without sacrificing her morals
On a warm spring day, Brooklyn’s century-old Paramount theatre has been transformed into a base camp for all things Zara Larsson. Stage techs scurry past entourage members, managers furiously tap smartphones and various figures patiently await their moment with the Swedish superstar.
Down a plushly carpeted flight of stairs, Zara Larsson is on all fours, saying “puss puss” (Swedish for “kiss kiss”) into a camera. Despite all the craziness around her, she is locked in, wearing electric-blue stockings, tangerine booty shorts and a tiny blazer that makes her look like Malibu Barbie at graduation. A man powers up a leaf-blower, sending Larsson’s blond hair flying. After hitting a few poses, she tippy-taps over in maribou-trimmed stilettos and offers me a can of water. “Cheers!” she says as we clink.
Continue reading...Capsule’s engine fires up for six minutes, putting crew on track to reach farthest distance travelled by humans in space
The four astronauts on the Artemis II mission are approaching 100,000 miles from Earth as they head towards the moon, putting them on track to reach the farthest distance humans have ever travelled into space.
The crew have left Earth’s orbit and fired their engines on Thursday for a “translunar injection”, sending the Orion capsule on its trajectory towards the moon.
Continue reading...As casualties mount, those who share a home state with the deceased in Iowa, Kentucky or Ohio question war’s legality
Upon the headstones at the Dayton National Cemetery in south-west Ohio are the names of the numerous wars fallen soldiers buried here have fought in: Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.
At the center of this sprawling, manicured cemetery for veterans and service members, ground staff and three machines this week have cleared space for a new grave site. It will be the place where one of the first victims of a new US conflict – the 2026 war on Iran – will be laid to rest on Friday.
Continue reading...The late-night host reacted to Trump’s prime-time address on the war and his firing of attorney general Pam Bondi
With most late-night hosts on holiday, Stephen Colbert recapped Donald Trump’s prime-time national address on the war in Iran and his firing of the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Continue reading...Crisis in the Middle East, a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv, a Saharan dust storm in Crete and the launch of Artemis II – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing
Continue reading...Writer-directors Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher talk about the ‘assimilation myth’, why Wim Wenders is wrong and how they’re developing queer western and horror movies
You wait for ever for a visually electrifying Brazilian film featuring scenes in a gay cruising ground, then two come along at once. First, the Oscar-nominated The Secret Agent showed nocturnal trysts in Recife being violently interrupted by a rampaging disembodied leg. Now hedonists in the queer thriller Night Stage flock to a park in the southern city of Porto Alegre where they can openly make the beast with two or more backs. “It’s the year of gay Brazilian cruising!” says Marcio Reolon, mock-triumphantly.
Reolon co-wrote and co-directed Night Stage with his partner, Filipe Matzembacher, who is seated beside him this morning in their Berlin apartment. The couple’s look is best described as exchange-student punk: studded bracelets, silver earrings thick as curtain rings. Reolon, who is 41 with sharp cheekbones and a cockatoo quiff, wears a padlock on a chain around his neck. The 37-year-old Matzembacher, cherubic and curly-haired, sports a barbed-wire tattoo on his left hand.
Continue reading...TV’s most outrageous family is back – and for the Breaking Bad icon, it’s a great excuse to let rip ... and get naked again. The stars talk skivvies, chugging raw meat and being stung in the crotch by 60,000 honey bees
The intro to the new Malcolm in the Middle is quite the thing. Kids punch police officers. Santa Claus gets kicked in the face. A barrel full of faeces detonates inside a family car. This recap of previous episodes is so full of gross-out comedy and family fights that a grandma grabs her teenage grandson and crushes his testicles until he squeals. “And,” intones a voiceover at its end, “someone actually asked for more of this.”
Did they? It’s been 20 years since the Emmy-winning sitcom about an outrageous working-class US family with the titular child genius went off air. It’s a show whose fans remember it fondly for never dipping in quality throughout its seven seasons. But were they really clamouring for more?
Continue reading...Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’
People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.
Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.
Continue reading...Rosenior: ‘It’s disappointing for Enzo to speak that way’
‘You have to protect this club and culture’
Enzo Fernández has been dropped for Chelsea’s next two games, with Liam Rosenior suggesting the club’s vice-captain had “crossed a line” in recent comments over his future.
Following what he described as the worst 10 days of his career, Rosenior insisted he had to punish Fernández, who first questioned whether he would remain at Stamford Bridge beyond this season and then suggested he would like to live in Madrid – a comment widely viewed as courting a move to Real Madrid, a club with which he has frequently been linked.
Continue reading...Viktor Orbán, an icon for the global far right, could face defeat despite an electoral system weighted in his favour
Hungarians go to the polls on 12 April in Europe’s most consequential election of the year, with Viktor Orbán, the country’s illiberal prime minister and global far-right icon, facing possible defeat, after 16 years in power, by a former loyalist, Péter Magyar.
Continue reading...Hackney leaseholders feel council made the problem worse by leaving £850,000 debt uncollected for eight years
Leaseholders in east London have said they are “trapped in unsellable homes” because of an £850,000 debt owed by the building’s developer to Hackney council, who have let it go unpaid for eight years.
The 17 leaseholders, who live in a block of flats in Upper Clapton, have appealed to the council for help but their pleas, including requests for a meeting, have been ignored.
Continue reading...Bondi and Kristi Noem the only two cabinet members to be removed despite string of scandals involving male officials
Donald Trump has been accused of running a “misogynistic administration” after making Pam Bondi the second woman to be fired from a cabinet already dominated by men.
The US president dismissed the attorney general on Thursday amid mounting frustration with her performance, especially over the release of files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Continue reading...Brady Ebert, a former member of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band, allegedly hit the father of Brendan Yates with his car
Brady Ebert, the former guitarist of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band Turnstile, has been charged with attempted second-degree murder after allegedly hitting the father of the band’s frontman, Brendan Yates, with his car.
On 29 March, police found William Yates outside his home with “trauma to his lower extremities”, with a broken bone protruding from his leg, according to the Baltimore Banner.
Continue reading...Tania Warner is fitted with ankle monitor and released along with seven-year-old daughter Ayla Luca after being deemed not a flight risk
A Canadian woman and her seven-year-old daughter, who were held for nearly three weeks in a notorious detention center by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), were released on Thursday evening after posting a bond of $9,500.
Tania Warner and her daughter Ayla Luca, originally from British Columbia, are both Canadian citizens. Warner moved to the US in 2021 when she married Edward Warner, a US citizen. “Very happy to have my family home … it’s been a whirlwind day,” said Edward Warner.
Continue reading...Proposal, a win for RFK Jr’s Maha movement, is a ‘first step’ toward tackling plastic pollution, advocates say
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.
Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency was responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to health secretary Robert FKennedy Jr’s Maha movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.
Continue reading...Min Aung Hlaing seized control five years ago and plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos
Min Aung Hlaing, the military general who plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos when he took power in the 2021 coup has been appointed president, months after widely condemned sham elections.
Min Aung Hlaing, who is wanted by the prosecutor of the international criminal court for crimes against humanity against the Rohingya Muslim minority, was voted president by lawmakers on Friday. Myanmar’s parliament is dominated by the pro-military party, which won a landslide in one-sided elections earlier this year.
Continue reading...Chase Infiniti stars in Margaret Atwood’s gripping sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale, plus Dan Levy’s irresistibly goofy new sitcom will thrill Schitt’s Creek fans
This expansion of the Handmaid’s Tale universe is adapted from Margaret Atwood’s 2019 follow-up to her epoch-defining 1985 novel. It’s set several years later, right in the heart of Gilead’s darkness – a preparatory school for elite future wives. Via tentative rebel student Agnes Mackenzie (played with stillness and depth by Chase Infiniti), we see the horrors and the hierarchies in action: the drama meticulously illustrates the ways disempowered people hoard what little agency they have. Agnes is initially at the top of the heap but when she’s given responsibility for enigmatic new girl Daisy, she starts to see Gilead for what it is. Claustrophobic and gripping.
Disney+, from Wednesday 8 April
Effort to curb grade inflation, by limiting top marks to 20% of students in a course, is opposed by most students
Harvard’s faculty is set to vote next week on a faculty committee proposal to cap the number of A grades per course in an effort to curb grade inflation.
The proposal, which was first reported earlier this year by the Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, would cap A grades to 20% of students in a course, with an allowance for four additional As. It also would introduce a new internal “average percentile rank” system, which would rely on raw scores rather than grade point average (GPA) to determine honors and awards.
Continue reading...Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports
Continue reading...Since the regime quashed China’s version of the K-pop industry in 2021, an underground ‘alt-idol’ culture has emerged, championing freedom and experimentation
Over the past decade, “idol” culture has turned east Asia into a pop music powerhouse as global audiences have flocked to Japanese and especially South Korean groups. Formed and exactingly trained by big entertainment conglomerates, bands such as BTS and EXO have blown up internationally thanks to bombastic songs, sensational dance routines and marketing campaigns designed to build a parasocial relationship between performers – idols – and their fans. Their neighbour China, however, the population of which is roughly eight times that of Japan and South Korea combined, has produced few groups with similar fame.
Until 2021, Chinese versions of Korean idol-training shows – think The X Factor with considerably more challenging choreography – were gaining huge audiences. But the shows, and the fan culture they inspired, drew the ire of the Chinese government. It cracked down on “toxic” fandom, an initiative that included banning idol-development shows. “It was an excuse to regulate the internet,” says Emily Liu, who runs the popular idol newsletter Active Faults. The government has also unofficially prohibited Korean pop idols from performing in mainland China for the last decade due to geopolitical tensions.
Continue reading...We are paying more for a PlayStation so that idiots can use ChatGPT to mislead people on dating apps – something is rotten in the state of gaming
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When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was listed at £449 in the UK. If you were to buy one at the recommended retail price today, it would be £569.99, or £789.99 for the updated Pro model. Sony has just raised the price of its console by another £90, the latest in a series of hikes. This is unprecedented: consoles have always decreased in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – the other day, I saw someone asking £200 for a SNES on Vinted). So, what’s going on?
Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining things for everyone. AI data centres need lots and lots and lots of computing power to be able to present you with lies whenever you Google anything, and this has pushed up demand and pricing for RAM and storage. This isn’t the only reason prices are rising – the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic disruption, and rampant inflation has eaten into many companies’ bottom line. But AI is the cause that’s easiest to get angry about, because it doesn’t need to be this way.
Continue reading...Australian author Olivia De Zilva realised watching basketball was a form of therapy for her complex PTSD, as she learned to exist with people again
I tried everything to find salvation in 2024. The ringing bells of religion didn’t save me, nor did a reformer pilates class.
I had just moved home after two years studying in Brisbane where I had cultivated a failing herb garden and learned a new bus route. It was only when I returned to Adelaide that I realised I had no idea who I was. I thought it was a quarter-life crisis, but the friendly psychiatrist in her powder-blue scrubs said it was complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).
Continue reading...Plan for three nuns who escaped from care home last year to go to Rome thought to be positive sign of Vatican’s decision
Three nuns who escaped from a care home to return to their convent in a castle close to Salzburg where they had spent most of their lives are a step closer to being able to stay there, sources close to them say.
Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita, who are in their early to late eighties, broke into their convent home in Elsbethen last September with the help of former pupils of the Catholic school at which they had taught and other supporters. Their case became a cause célèbre, attracting attention from around the world.
Continue reading...A criticism of Superman stories is the guy’s near invincibility. And while a new trailer sees Kara tearing about like a cosmic gunslinger, there are hints her powers are at risk
If James Gunn’s aim with last year’s Superman was to give us a Man of Steel who stood out from those who came before him on the big screen, he nailed it. Even those who didn’t quite warm to this sunnier, weirder but more human incarnation could at least admire the way the film vaulted clear of almost every previous iteration. Delivering Kara Zor-El ought to be an easier job, for it is possible to argue that there has never been a definitive version of Supergirl on any screen, big or small.
Yet it is starting to look as if the newly formed DC Universe is once again ready to push outwards rather than merely backwards. This week saw the release of a new trailer, in which Milly Alcock’s Kara tears through alien bars, starships and off-world landscapes with the swagger of a cosmic gunslinger. But perhaps more intriguing were comments from director Craig Gillespie in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, which saw the film-maker open up about the story’s nine-world structure and the unusually heavy amount of planet-hopping involved.
Continue reading...PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Deck Nine/Square Enix
Max and Chloe, the two teen protagonists of the 2015 game, reunite as adults – giving players the chance to finally finish their journey
In 2015, Life Is Strange stood out for two reasons: its female protagonists, a depressingly rare feature at the time, and its unique brand of millennial cringe. The thirtysomething Frenchmen who created this series may not have had the best grasp of the 2010s teen lexicon, but they did have a good gauge on what’s important about any coming-of-age story, and that’s the relationships between the characters. Max Caulfield, the shy, time-travelling wannabe photographer, and Chloe Price, the traumatised, punk-rock tearaway, had a memorably intense friendship. It was the heart and soul of that game, and now, 11 years later, they are reunited as adults in this final chapter of their story.
For a lot of players, Max and Chloe felt like more than best friends. The game’s original developers were not brave enough to make this explicit in 2015, but newer custodians Deck Nine retconned a romantic relationship between Max and Chloe into 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. You can still play Reunion as if the two really were just friends, resulting in some awkward ambiguity in some scenes. Whichever way you slice it, though, this is a game about first love, and how it always stays with you, even when its object does not. And damned if it didn’t make me feel something.
Continue reading...It was a slow ascent: I needed to check for wasps, snakes and scorpions
I was born in Tawau, a Malaysian city on the island of Borneo, and grew up around logging camps – my dad worked in the industry. In the early 90s, a lot of the forest here started being cleared for commercial use. At the time, I just thought that was the way things were.
That changed when I began working in conservation as a teenager at the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership in the nearby Danum Valley. My job was to plant seedlings in places where the forest had been cut down. I began to learn about the importance of keeping the forest safe.
Continue reading...With alumni in every F1 team, Oxford Brookes University’s Formula Student team is the most prestigious in the country
At the Oxford Brookes Headington campus, more than 100 students are busy building the fastest, best designed race car possible for this year’s Formula Student competition.
Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) is the UK’s most prestigious Formula Student team. They’ve won more design awards than any UK university, and frequently occupy the international race’s top spots.
Continue reading...Biggest rises were in vegetable oil and sugar prices, which increased by 5% and 7% respectively
Food prices rose sharply in March as war in the Middle East drove up energy prices and freight costs around the world, a UN report says.
An index of food commodity prices by the UN’s food and agriculture organisation increased by 2.4% in March, its second consecutive monthly rise.
Continue reading...From a subtle Princess Peach lip jelly to a Yoshi egg that’s been traumatising children, the cosmetic chain’s latest tie-in is out of this world
When The Super Mario Bros Movie came out in 2023, it came with a rather unlikely tie-in: a range of skincare and bathing products from cosmetics chain Lush. The store, known for its devotion to natural ingredients and support for social justice causes, didn’t seem like the obvious partner for a major video game franchise. Because of this, I thought I should try them out, assuming that my dalliance with beauty journalism would be short-lived.
I was wrong. The collection was so successful, Lush later released a Minecraft range, which I also reviewed, and now there’s a Super Mario Galaxy range to tie in with the new movie. Somehow, I have become the Guardian’s Lush correspondent and it seems I am now trapped in a sweet-smelling cycle of video game-branded toiletries. There are definitely worse fates, so I’m just going with it.
Continue reading...Retail sims aren’t my thing, but the tactile, nostalgic pleasures of hit indie title Retro Rewind have me yearning for the era of physical media, smoking indoors and uncomplicated geopolitics
It’s early doors, but 2026 may be the biggest bin fire of a year in my lifetime. Wars starting, then ending, then starting again in the course of a week. People running their cars on hopes and dreams because a tank of petrol costs more than the vehicle. Manospheric morons making millions. Several depressing celebrity deaths before I’ve so much as eaten my first Creme Egg of the year.
I had no idea that the antidote to my anxiety and rage would be a cheap little title, made by two French blokes, in what I usually regard as the most turgid gaming genre. Retro Rewind is the moment’s indie darling, selling more than 100,000 copies on Steam in a week. In it, you run a video rental shop in the 90s. You need to buy videos. Display them well. Drop flyers. Serve your customers. Buy more stuff. It’s no different from any other retail sim out there, and I normally shun them because I play video games to escape the boring world of work and into an exciting one of dragons, aliens, and being brilliant at sports.
Continue reading...A modern twist on the old fashioned
Our cocktail list features both classics and new ones we’ve created ourselves, including this old fashioned of sorts.
George Lewis, drinks creative, Acre, London W10
Continue reading...International law experts ‘seriously concerned’ about ‘strikes on schools, health centres and homes’ in contravention of Geneva conventions
Donald Trump, other senior US officials and their cheerleaders appear to be embracing attacks – and threats of attacks – on Iranian civilian infrastructure, which legal experts say appears to constitute serious war crimes under international law.
In a rambling national address on Wednesday, the US president warned that if Iran did not reach an unspecified deal with him, US forces would “hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants” and “bring [Iran] back to the stone ages – where they belong”.
Continue reading...This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...Ten years after the Brexit vote, Trump’s disdain and insults are fuelling the belief that the UK should renew ties with Europe
Going anywhere nice this summer?
No, me neither, judging by the warning from the Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, that a global shortage of jet fuel caused by the Iran war may soon lead to cancelled flights. Suddenly a week in Cornwall looks a safer bet, though even that will be a stretch for some families as the cost of long car journeys heads through the roof. When the representatives of more than 40 countries held talks in London earlier this week to discuss unblocking the strait of Hormuz, they convened virtually, not in person. This is no time to be seen boarding a private jet.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...Footage shows US president saying UK ‘should be our best’ ally and accusing PM of prevarication over sending ships
Footage has emerged of Donald Trump mocking Keir Starmer by claiming the prime minister said he would have to consult his team before deciding whether to send UK aircraft carriers to the Middle East.
In a new low for UK-US relations, Trump appeared to impersonate Starmer during an Easter lunch speech at the White House.
Continue reading...Created in Italy and made with elderflower liqueur, the cocktail is sweeter than Aperol spritz and lower in alcohol
Pub gardens and bar terraces have been awash with a sea of orange in recent years as Italy’s love of Aperol spritz spread to the UK. But this year the cocktail’s cousin, a Hugo spritz, will be the drink of the summer, according to supermarkets and bars.
It is already being served across the country, including at Sea Containers on the banks of the Thames and Mayfair’s swanky Claridge’s hotel in London, 20 Stories bar in Manchester and the Bridge Tavern in Newcastle. Wetherspoons has the cocktail on its menu nationwide.
40ml St‑Germain elderflower liqueur.
60ml prosecco.
60ml sparkling water.
8-10 mint leaves.
Lime wedge for garnish.
Mint sprig for garnish.
Fill your glass with ice cubes.
Add in the mint leaves.
Pour sparkling wine and sparkling water over ice.
Add St‑Germain elderflower liqueur.
Gently stir.
Garnish with a mint sprig and lime wedge.
Continue reading...Find out how bad your mental mush is
How bad is your brain rot? Tally up your scores to see your results.
None 3pts
1-3 2pts
4-6 1pts
6+ 0pts
Never 3pts
Sometimes 2pts
Frequently 1pts
Almost always 0pts
Meditate 3pts
Read 3pts
Watch TV 1pts
Doomscroll 0pts
Almost never 0pts
Less than once a week 1pts
At least once a week 2pts
2-3 times a week 3pts
Never 3pts
Occasionally 2pts
Frequently 1pts
Basically always 0pts
7+ hours 3pts
6-7 hours 2pts
Less than 6 hours 1pts
Almost never 0pts
Less than once a week 1pts
At least once a week 2pts
2-3 times a week 3pts
6+ hours 3pts
3-6 hours 2pts
1-3 hours 1pts
Less than an hour 0pts
Next to me, obviously 0pts
Somewhere else 3pts
Never 3pts
Occasionally, if it’s important 2pts
Pretty much every time 0pts
Continue reading...Decision came after hearing in which Subramanyam Vedam, 64, said he didn’t kill Thomas Kinser when he was 19
A judge has cleared the way for the potential release of an Indian citizen who was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody last year after his Pennsylvania murder conviction was overturned following four decades in prison.
The decision came the day after the four-hour hearing in which Subramanyam Vedam insisted he did not fatally shoot Thomas Kinser in 1980 and was questioned by a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lawyer. Vedam participated in the hearing remotely from the Moshannon Valley processing center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania.
Continue reading...From JFK’s modernist concrete to Obama’s ‘Tatooine sandcrawler’, the presidential library is where egos burnish their legacies. But the brash, bookless vibe of Trump’s, complete with giant golden statue, makes for the ugliest yet
With the unveiling of the prospective Trump presidential library, which, in its timing and substance looked for all the world like an April fool, the old adage that you can’t gild a turd but you can roll it in glitter has become bleakly redundant. It turns out that you can most definitely gild a turd.
At the heart of the proposed 47-storey skyscraper on Miami’s waterfront – 47 floors for the 47th President – is a giant golden statue of Trump giving off dictator-for-life vibes, his gilded fist triumphantly raised. Such an aureate monstrosity would not look out of place in Pyongyang or Ashgabat, though Turkmenistan’s former president Saparmurat Niyazov – another despot with a suspiciously luxuriant coiffure – went one better and had his $12m gold statue installed on a rotating pedestal so it would always face the sun.
Continue reading...Starmer should just admit we’re being held to ransom by Trump – but instead he’s making the king go on a state visit
Donald Trump has suggested that the war with Iran will be over in two to three weeks. The rest of the world just shrugs. We’ll believe it when we see it. The US president has said so many contradictory things over the past few weeks, it’s hard to take anything that seriously.
Continue reading...Australia’s incoming coach is out to build on the foundations set by Joe Schmidt after having to earn his shot while coming from a rugby league background
In 1986, about the time the 21-year-old Les Kiss was announcing himself to the rugby league world by debuting for the North Sydney Bears, the Queensland Origin side and Australia in the space of five months, the Breakfast Creek Gang was carving out its own legend as “a disparate, yet harmonious, blend of wharfies, coppers, journos, lawyers, car dealers, bookies, small-time criminals and Labor party identities.”
Four decades on and Kiss, the incoming Wallabies coach, is a proud member of the garrulous rabble now trading as the Breakfast Creek Athletic Club. “A very inspiring, talented, connected, grounded group of people,” he tells the Guardian. “Once a week we meet for a run or a walk, coffee and a chat, maybe dinner and a few beers. We’ve probably all got more problems than we admit to … but for me it’s a wellbeing space after so long away.”
Continue reading...South-east Italy also affected by heavy rain, and snow at higher altitudes, while deadly flooding hits Afghanistan
Parts of the Mediterranean have been lashed by Storm Erminio this week. Heavy rain, thunderstorms and occasional bursts of hail affected much of Greece throughout Wednesday and Thursday, with the most severe conditions across south-eastern parts of the mainland and several islands in the southern Aegean Sea, including Crete, with streets flooded and vehicles stranded.
Some of the heaviest rain fell on Wednesday across Attica, a region encompassing Athens, with one weather station near the city’s international airport recording 132mm (5.2 in) in 24 hours. The most intense downpours were overnight, when the coastal town of Nea Makri was particularly badly affected; an unofficial weather station recorded about 50mm falling within just two hours. One person died in the town; a man found beneath a car was believed to have been swept away as he escaped his flooding basement home.
Continue reading...Which? testers complain M&S sponge is ‘too dry’ as Waitrose’s Cecil tops the tree with ‘best buy’ gong
After a busy 35 years as a British party favourite, not to mention a bruising court battle with an alleged copycat, you might think Colin the Caterpillar had earned his place at the top.
But the “original” chocolate caterpillar cake has now been labelled the worst, bested by lookalikes in a taste test.
Continue reading...Irish Baroque Orchestra and Choir/Whelan
(Linn)
Conductor Peter Whelan leads a finely judged and agile period-instrument performance with only 13 singers.
Every year, the Irish Baroque Orchestra and their conductor Peter Whelan bring Messiah back to Dublin, the city of its 1742 premiere. Their recording of Handel’s oratorio – the first on period instruments by an Irish ensemble – attempts to recreate the version heard at its first performance at the Fishamble Street music hall, a hot-ticket event at which such a crush was anticipated that the ladies in the audience were requested to forgo hoops in their skirts and the gentlemen to leave their swords at home.
One of the attractions was the scandal-hit contralto and actor Susannah Cibber, who sang several arias including some more often sung today by other voice types: on the recording, gratifyingly, we get to hear a substantial share for Helen Charlston, her voice firm, slightly metallic and unflaggingly expressive. Also included is a less familiar duet-and-chorus version of How Beautiful Are the Feet, written for two of the countertenors from the Dublin cathedral choirs. Here and elsewhere Alexander Chance is in buoyant voice – he also gets the two arias Handel adapted later for his star castrato in London. Hilary Cronin’s sweet-sounding soprano stands out among the solo voices.
Continue reading...Goyle, Chert, Mire by Jean Sprackland; The House of Broken Things by Kim Moore; The Tree Is Missing by Shannon Kuta Kelly; Dog Star by Michael Symmons Roberts; Horses by Jake Skeets
Goyle, Chert, Mire by Jean Sprackland (Jonathan Cape, £13)
The 45 unrhymed sonnets in Sprackland’s sixth collection coalesce into three spellbinding interwoven sequences. Set in the Blackdown Hills, a remote stretch between Somerset and Devon, the poems explore the friction between art and articulation, habitat and inhabitation. Here, the landscape is not a backdrop but a linguistic event: “a drop swells on the lip of a leaf and falls / like a word being said”. By removing the first person throughout, Sprackland makes us encounter the landscape intimately: it’s not mediated through a speaker’s interiority but in “mossy silence”, “the rumble of the combine harvester”, “the noise / of meltwater hurtling over stones”, or “the shattered pieces of yourself”. Overshadowed by an unnamed illness, the poems bear wounds but don’t broadcast suffering; this restraint fosters minute attention to “pilgrim gnats attending the water” and the mire’s “long translation from gley to peat”. Sprackland’s ability alternately to narrow and widen our focus – from a closeup on insect life to geological time – reveals how consciousness itself moves between scales. Unlike many nature poems that overanimate or sentimentalise, the book is alive to the limits of human agency: it knows “language itself is prone to collapse”. Yet in that collapse, we can find meaning; recognise the “spiky logic” of natural process, following it as “the sparrow enters / and follows” the “sprawling holly”. The unwavering sonnet form represents an act of courage, a disciplined response to illness and dissolution, creating order where language threatens to collapse. This is a profound, enduring collection.
The House of Broken Things by Kim Moore (Corsair, £14.99)
Moore’s new collection constructs an ambitious architecture for exploring intergenerational trauma and motherhood. At its best, we find her confessional signature, as in The Black Notices, cataloguing unidentified murdered women, or Giving Birth With Anne Sexton, where literary inheritance meets bodily terror. Sometimes, however, this commitment to sincerity and transparency results in poems that feel like pedagogic exercises: Damaged Cento catalogues the “eight stages” of domestic homicide, while The Trimesters documents pregnancy’s upheavals. The motherhood poems, though deeply felt, risk predictability in their exploration of well-trodden territory – breastfeeding, bedtime routines, and the spectre of parental loss (“I imagine someone taking her away, / or a car ploughing into the pram”). It’s technically hard to make this new. Moore clearly presents the “I” as a site of shared, unpolished vulnerability, prioritising emotional legibility over lyric innovation.
The singer’s body-positive anthems once defined her. Now lawsuits, weight loss and flop singles have shaken her image
Lizzo’s ascent to mainstream stardom was the type of fairytale that pop dreams are made of. She was a long-hustling musician, Houston-raised then Minneapolis-made. She had a co-sign from Prince two years before she was even signed to a major label; then, it took another three years after debuting on Atlantic for the world to know her name.
When they finally learned it, it became hard to escape her. In 2019, she had sleeper hit after sleeper hit rise to the top of the charts. First, 2017’s bouncy break-up kiss-off Truth Hurts stormed to No 1, then 2015’s empower-pop anthem Good as Hell joined the song in the Top 10. For a few years following, Lizzo was unstoppable in spite of all the odds being stacked against her: she was a brown-skinned, plus-size pop star who put on athletic performances and dressed just as sexy as her skinny peers. Her image was brash, bold and radical, which made her controversial to many just for existing.
Continue reading...Feel like too much low-quality screen time is making you … dumber? From focusing on your environment to ‘washing’ your brain, experts share tips on how to sharpen up and keep your mind fighting fit
Plus: how rotten is your brain? Take our quiz to find out
Ever had one of those days when you get nothing done but still somehow feel exhausted? Of course you have: brain rot, the Oxford word of the year for 2024, isn’t yet in any medical dictionaries, but it’s probably best understood as the decline in cognitive abilities that comes from endless exposure to easily digestible information. And, thanks to the ubiquity of short‑form video and social media, it’s almost certainly on the rise.
“When we’re engaging with this sort of media, our brains are both underworked – because the information is easy to understand – and overworked because there is so much information to absorb,” says Dr Wendy Ross, a senior lecturer in psychology at London Metropolitan University. “That’s why you end up tired even if you’re just scrolling on your couch.” Want to throw the process into reverse and recover your attention? Here’s how.
Continue reading...Mauricio Pochettino faces several tough decisions to name a squad for the 2026 World Cup hosts
A full 24 matches into the Mauricio Pochettino era, we have arrived at the moment of truth. The US men’s national team’s 2026 World Cup roster will be named on 26 May, and the team’s two recent friendlies (a 5-2 loss to Belgium and a 2-0 loss to Portgual) have given Pochettino plenty to think about as he makes his selection.
We here at the Guardian have made our picks as well – based a little on our own preference, but still within the realm of what Pochettino may do. Separately, the three of us made our 26-man rosters. Any player who we agreed on got the “on the squad” designation. Anyone we differed on is listed as “up for debate”, with other notable exclusions listed as “out of the picture”.
Continue reading...UConn men and women are both in the Final Four
20,000 customers of Jordan’s Furniture could be repaid
College basketball players aren’t the only ones poised to win big in this year’s March Madness.
A New England furniture chain is offering to reimburse customers for products bought earlier this year if both the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams reach the championship games.
Continue reading...St Michael’s Mount and the people who live near it are still healing from the scars left by storm’s 100mph winds
Three months after Storm Goretti battered St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, the signs of the storm’s power are still evident in the scars left by uprooted trees, piles of logs and the shaking of heads from islanders who have lived there for decades and never seen the like.
“It really was something,” said Jack Beesley, a senior gardener. “We were shocked the morning after when we saw what had happened. We had been caring for these trees for years and to see so many of them down was very sad. We’ve worked hard to get the place ready for the Easter visitors but it will still be a month or more until we’re back straight.”
Continue reading...A Radio-Canada reporter noticed his maple syrup tasted odd; testing revealed it was adulterated with cane sugar
An investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster has found that a major Quebec producer has been diluting its maple syrup with cane sugar and selling the fraudulent product to grocery chains.
In a sting operation that involved false identities and covert recordings, journalists from Radio-Canada’s Enquête programme found that a low-cost syrup sold in major grocery store chains was heavily diluted.
Continue reading...(10k/Tan Cressida/Surf Gang)
Earl’s post-Odd Future career swerved the mainstream to follow the path laid out by NYC underground rapper Mike, and their first double album lets both shine
Earl Sweatshirt swerved into public consciousness as part of the edgy but brilliant California rap collective Odd Future in the late 2000s. Practically from day one, he was considered the tastemaker’s choice member, virtuosic even as a teenager. Rather than play for the mainstream, Earl has spent the past decade or so immersing himself in New York’s underground rap scene, resulting in one of the most unique and unpredictable discographies of his generation.
One of his prime inspirations for that new path was Mike, the beloved underground New York rapper whose own body of work is thrilling and vital. Here, the pair link with Surf Gang, the producer-musician clique that credibly lays claim to the title of “the next Odd Future” on Pompeii // Utility, a hyperactive and engrossing double record that finds Mike taking one side and Earl the other.
Continue reading...White House says Donald Trump has been briefed as US forces search for crew after jet shot down by armed forces this morning
Authorities in Abu Dhabi have reported two incidents of debris falling from intercepted aerial threats in the UAE capital, with one sparking a fire at a gas facility,
The official Abu Dhabi Media Office said authorities responded to an incident of falling debris at the Habshan gas facilities. “Operations have been suspended while authorities respond to a fire,” it said in a post on X, adding that no injuries were reported.
Continue reading...Ticket bought in Bexley expires after 180-day claim period, despite extensive search for holder
For many people in south-east London, the thought of winning the lottery and becoming an overnight millionaire would be a wonderful dream. For one person, however, that dream is now a nightmare after missing the deadline to claim a jackpot of more than £10m.
National lottery players have 180 days to claim their winnings, but are entitled to nothing after the deadline has passed. Despite an “extensive search”, the national lottery said no valid claim had been made for a jackpot worth £10.6m for a Lotto ticket bought in Bexley on 4 October last year.
Continue reading...Many Brazilians believe there is a ploy to free the younger Bolsonaro from baggage of his father’s name to return the family to power
He possesses one of the most famous family names in Latin American politics. But when the Brazilian senator took to the stage at a conservative conference in Grapevine, Texas, last weekend it was only his forename that was on people’s lips.
“Flávio! Flávio! Flávio!” the audience shouted as the 44-year-old politician announced he would run for president in order to fight the “radical environmental and woke” agendas he claims have made Brazil awful again.
Continue reading...Leicester earn precious point against Preston
Hull frustrated after draw at lowly Oxford
Wrexham staged a dramatic second-half recovery to draw 2-2 at West Brom and move into the Championship playoff places.
Isaac Price’s free-kick deflected off George Dobson to give the hosts a lead that was built on before half-time by Josh Maja’s penalty – Albion’s first of the season.
Continue reading...Defense secretary signs memo letting members request permission to carry firearms on military installations
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, signed a memo on Thursday that would allow military service members to request permission to carry their personal firearms on military installations such as bases, naval yards and recruitment centers, claiming the new policy would allow soldiers and other military personnel to defend themselves in case of an attack.
While the full text of the memo has yet to be made public, it appears to loosen the current policy that allows for personnel to get permission to have their weapons on base on a case-by-case basis, and requires that they are registered with the base’s authorities and stored in a secure device.
Continue reading...The Chicago band’s frantic, urgent guitar melodies celebrate hope, friendship and family in these uncertain times
From Chicago, Illinois
Recommended if you like Modest Mouse, Wilco, Car Seat Headrest
Up next Second album Something Worth Waiting For out 24 April, touring the US from April and Europe in summer
In Friko’s hands, a swirl of influences and experiments curve the many colours of indie rock into an endlessly inventive, radiant ramble. The Chicago band’s upcoming, cheekily titled second album, Something Worth Waiting For, explores the energy of yearning: for growth, for change, for stability. Across nine tracks, Friko take inspiration from their recent spate of touring to orbit the idea of finding things worth moving for and the value of the journey itself.
Continue reading...A psychologist delves into the genetics of bad behaviour in a book littered with fascinating scientific findings
In 2021, the psychologist and writer Kathryn Paige Harden co-authored a paper outlining her research into the genetic patterns linked to a higher risk of developing substance abuse problems or engaging in risk-taking behaviour, such as having unprotected sex or committing crime. The paper referred to the genetics of “traits related to self-regulation and addiction”, but Harden thought of herself as studying the genetics of sin.
Harden is a professor at the University of Texas and the author of a previous book, The Genetic Lottery, on how our knowledge of genetics should shape our views on meritocracy. She once received a letter from a man who has been in prison since he was 16 for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman. “What would drive a boy to do such a thing?” he asked her. Her new book is a heartfelt, subtly argued response to his question, an attempt to outline how our expanding knowledge of what makes people do bad things – the interplay of our inherited tendencies and our life circumstances – should influence how we assign moral responsibility and blame.
Continue reading...UN says record numbers of people could face acute hunger if conflict continues
The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend.
A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it.
Continue reading...If the idea was to shed some of the liabilities of the Epstein scandal by firing Bondi, the move seems likely to backfire
It was only a matter of time. The writing has been on the wall for months for Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, who was unceremoniously fired on Thursday after 14 months leading the justice department. Trump was rumored to be unhappy with Bondi; frustrated at the slowness and failures of some of her prosecutions of his political enemies, angry that she could not make the Epstein scandal go away, and disappointed by her rather wooden performances on TV.
For a while, it looked like Bondi would be the first cabinet secretary that Trump fired in his second administration – something he has been much more reluctant to do since returning to office in early 2025. But in October, when she was called to testify before a Senate subcommittee, Bondi made sure to issue vicious insults to her Democratic interrogators in front of the news cameras; she made a similar performance in February at a House judiciary committee hearing, where she lobbed ad hominem attacks on Democrats, including calling Representative Jamie Raskin “a washed-up loser lawyer.” These performances evidently endeared Bondi to Donald Trump enough that he decided to keep her around for a while; Kristi Noem, his onetime secretary of homeland security, became the first cabinet member to be fired in his second term. But the Epstein story persisted, and so did Trump’s dissatisfaction with his own mounting unpopularity ahead of the November midterms. He is not capable of blaming himself, and so he looked around for someone else to punish for his own failures. Pam Bondi was there.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...Golfer has pled not guilty to DUI charges in Florida
Footage shows Woods’s shock: ‘I’m being arrested?’
Hydrocodone pills found in pocket following arrest
Bodycam footage of Tiger Woods’s arrest for DUI shows the golfer looking surprised when he was handcuffed by police officers at the scene of a vehicle crash last week and telling a deputy he had spoken to “the president” on the phone after the incident.
“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI,” Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar told Woods after officers conducted a series of field sobriety exercises on the 50-year-old.
Continue reading...Some would like Leo to be more vocal on world conflict, but others say he uses his influence discreetly
As Leo marks his inaugural Easter as pontiff, almost a year after his predecessor’s death, some Catholics are still trying to work out what kind of pontiff he is.
The feast – the most important in the church’s calendar – comes against the backdrop of war in the Middle East, sparked by the US-Israeli strikes in Iran.
Continue reading...Decisions on the White House ballroom, public media and journalists’ access to the Pentagon are heartening. But restoring our institutions is up to us
In another one of those strange and unprecedented moments of the Trump years, the president of the United States showed up at the supreme court the other day. No other presidents have done so, probably because they – to varying degrees – respected the separation of power among the three branches of US government.
But Trump has not shown himself to share in that basic principle.
Continue reading...Italy have missed three consecutive World Cups
Gattuso: ‘It has been an honour to lead national team’
Italy’s chaotic and miserable week on and off the pitch reached a predictable conclusion on Friday with the head coach, Gennaro Gattuso, leaving the role after the Azzurri’s failure to reach the World Cup.
Italy were beaten by Bosnia and Herzegovina in their World Cup playoff on Tuesday, the home side winning on penalties in Zenica, meaning the four-time winners have now missed out on the finals for three successive editions.
Continue reading...From farms in New Zealand to factories in Delhi, the effects of the oil crisis triggered by the Iran war are rippling across Asia
Continue reading...Exclusive: documents chronicle years-long campaign to make it easier to build intensive livestock units
Ministers are rewriting planning rules to make it easier to build intensive livestock farms despite concerns about water pollution, air quality and local opposition.
Documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act show that proposed changes to the national planning policy framework (NPPF) were discussed by ministers and officials in response to concerns of the country’s leading chicken producers, who have been lobbying on the issue for at least two years.
Continue reading...As his pioneering album Endtroducing turns 30 and he reissues his Mo’Wax singles, the producer is in a retrospective mood and ready to take your questions
It’s almost 30 years since DJ Shadow released his era-defining debut album, Endtroducing….., and as is the way of the nostalgia industry, it had a lavish 25th-anniversary reissue five years ago, remastered at Abbey Road studios. It was such a success that Shadow has decided to repeat the process and clean up his “pre-album and non-album” catalogue. In May comes The Mo’Wax Singles 1993-1997, a box set featuring eight 12ins with all the Californian producer’s singles for James Lavelle’s label, plus alternative mixes and brand new art. Dusty DAT tapes were dug out and original master mixes excavated.
“This box wasn’t made for the casual listener, it was made with the hardcore fan in mind,” Shadow said in a statement. “I’ve always felt, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and every step of the process was made with this philosophy firmly in mind.”
Continue reading...Armani revamps a favourite, Clarins adds a tint to its serum and a new base from Carisa Janes will suit anyone who hates powders
Three very big hitters have new foundations: one risky reformulation of a cult classic; one addition to a wildly popular skincare franchise; and one to launch a new brand from a beauty legend.
Let’s start with Armani’s Luminous Silk (£49 for 30ml), loved by many for its buildable, versatile coverage, and perhaps the most worn bridal foundation of all time. While I’m not against a reformulation in principle (technology, regulations and ingredients move on, and that’s all for the better), Armani does seem to have reformulated here for little discernible reason beyond Google Analytics.
Continue reading...Bianca Devins was 17 when she was killed by a man who then shared photos of her mutilated body on sites like Instagram and Snapchat – something her mother Kim describes as ‘psychological terrorism’. Here, she reveals her battle to get them offline
Early on a Sunday in July 2019, police arrived at Kim Devins’ house in upstate New York with a story that made no sense. They were there to do a “welfare check” on Devins’ 17-year-old daughter, Bianca. They said they had received reports from people who feared she may have been “hurt”. Bianca had gone with her friend Brandon Clark to a concert in New York City, a four-hour drive away. “Did they mean that they’d been in an accident?” says Devins. “The police bodycam footage from that time shows how confused I was.”
Amid it all, Devins called her dad, who lived close by, to ask him to come over. Somehow, while making that call, she realised that something dreadful had occurred. “I always pinpoint it to that exact moment, even though we didn’t understand what was happening,” she says. Her body knew before she did that she had lost her daughter. “All of me shook. I could almost see myself from the outside. It was as if my brain shut down to protect me and I left my body. I don’t think I’ve fully returned since.”
Continue reading...Perhaps you are limiting car journeys or reducing the amount of cooking you do. Tell us
The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted global shipping routes and caused a surge in global oil market prices.
The strait of Hormuz, one of the most important waterways in the world, through which about a fifth of international oil supplies usually travel, has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Continue reading...If I can trust my boyfriend with my dog, the most important thing in my life, then I guess I can trust him again with my bruised and idiotic heart
Recently I got down on one knee and presented my boyfriend with some jewellery, and asked if he would commit to caring for a very long, cute, stinky boy.
While this is an apt description of me, I was not asking him to marry me and I was not presenting a ring – I was asking him an even more important question: would he consent to having his phone number engraved next to mine on my long stinky dog’s collar, complete with a cute little heart tag featuring our digits?
Continue reading...We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job
Lollipop people in Suffolk have become the latest neon-clad, road patrollers to don body cams amid a rise in abuse. We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job.
The council has launched a six-week awareness campaign called “Lollipops Aren’t Just For Children” to remind drivers to slow down, be patient, and show respect at patrol points. The cameras have been used by school crossing patrols in Greater Manchester, Clacton and Basildon for similar reasons.
Continue reading...Nesrine Malik delivers your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world
Continue reading...The key to stopping pale colours feeling saccharine? Breaking them up with tougher textures – here are three ideas to whip up this weekend from our styling editor
Continue reading...An easy Sunday supper of a cheesy fish dish and a biscuity iced dessert
Sometimes all you want is a hot, bubbling dish and a spoon, and for me today’s cheesy haddock is that dish – a 15-minute supper to be enjoyed in front of the telly with a salad or a large bowl of hot buttered peas. Add a lemony, biscuity iced dessert, and you have a light, very easy and enjoyable supper that’s almost the perfect close to a long Easter weekend.
The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. Check ratings in your region: UK; Australia; US.
These recipes are edited extracts from The Racine Effect: Classic French Recipes from a Lifetime in the Kitchen, by Henry Harris, published by Quadrille at £40. To order a copy for £36, go to guardianbookshop.com
Continue reading...With public houses increasingly restricting or banning children, we asked for your thoughts on adult-only pubs
A growing number of pubs in the UK are restricting or banning children, citing safety concerns, changing atmospheres and lost trade. We asked people their thoughts on adult-only pubs.
Many who contacted us supported child-free pubs, believing adult-only spaces were important, but a good proportion said they would change their mind if children were “properly supervised by parents”.
Continue reading...One of the fastest-growing fitness trends is also one of the most divisive. To its fans, it promises a stronger, healthier body; to its critics, it’s another way to make women feel insecure. Time to sort fact from fiction
I have noticed something new in my London neighbourhood. Amid the sea of nail salons, vape shops and purveyors of fried chicken, sleek, opaque-fronted premises are popping up everywhere. There are several within 15 minutes of my home.
At weekends, you can spot clusters of devotees heading to these mysterious, vaguely aspirational temples of self-care, AKA reformer pilates studios. Many of these devotees conform to an aesthetic popularised on TikTok via hashtags such as #pilatesprincess. There is definitely a uniform: pink athleisure, Rhode phone cases and oversized pastel-coloured Stanley tumblers, jokingly referenced on Instagram as “emotional support” bottles. It is a trend that prompted New York magazine to run an article under the headline “Why Pilates Keeps Pissing People Off”: the workout has become inseparable from a very strict idea of womanhood.
Continue reading...Abel Ortiz was brought from Mexico to LA when he was just two months old and has been living undocumented ever since. Now 38, he has a full life cutting hair, building a community, loving a city that has never fully loved him back. In a time of escalating ICE raids and the ache of uncertainty, Abel has made a radical decision: he’s leaving – not because he has to, but to escape perpetual limbo and be free to see the world
Continue reading...Content creators love the built-in camera; sceptics call them ‘pervert glasses’. Do we really need any more hi-tech wearables, even with a voice assistant that sounds like Judi Dench?
Lately, I’ve been hearing Judi Dench’s voice in my head. She tells me tomorrow’s forecast, when to turn right, that there’s been another message in my group chat. Day or night, Dame Judi is eager to assist. When I ask the eight-time Academy Award nominee what I’m looking at, she answers: a residential area, a person in a pub, daffodils. “They are a bright yellow colour and are often associated with spring.”
This isn’t a delusion. This is, apparently, progress. I am test-driving Meta’s smartglasses and Dench voices its integrated AI assistant: “Here to chat, answer questions, create images and provide advice and inspiration,” said “Judi” when I selected her over the actors John Cena and Kristen Bell. “Shall we begin?”
Continue reading...Nevermind the trends, want to know how to dress for actual spring weather? Then read on
It all came to a head, as matters of getting dressed so often do, over black tights. I had wanted to wear my silver skirt, you see. It was a rare blue-sky day and the sunshine was making me crave reflective surfaces to maximise the light. Anyway, you know how it is when you just get a yen to wear something. So I pulled out said silver skirt and then realised I didn’t want to wear the black opaque tights I wear with it in winter, but it wasn’t anywhere near warm enough to wear it with bare legs as I do in summer. I was completely stumped. And it made me realise: I need a refresher course in what to wear at this time of year. Spring has sprung, but I have forgotten how to hop to it.
So here we have it: your pocket primer on how to dress for spring. I’m talking about the spring that happens every year, an actual real-world meteorological phenomenon, not about the fashion trends of this particular moment. The lengthening days, daylight commuting, the juicy greens and yellows of the landscape, the maverick unpredictability of rain. Whether zebra stripes are the new leopard does not concern us today. We don’t need fashion to provide the newness when newness is in abundance in the world. So we can flick back through the pages to remind ourselves of spring’s fashion classics.
Continue reading...In Cheetham Hill, Manchester, there are more than 50 shops specialising in vapes and vaping paraphernalia. Why did they open here? And how long can they last?
I meet Ali outside his tiny wholesale business, Fly Vape – the store name combined with the image of a vape bookended by angel wings appears on the shopfront. In place of a halo is a cloud of vapour. The softly spoken 40-year-old says that working in the vape trade is “OK, better than nothing”. He opened Fly Vape just over two years ago, selling vaping products to small retailers such as convenience stores. Candy-coloured boxes bursting with fruity flavours line the shelves, although body sprays, soft drinks and a plentiful selection of bongs are available too. His customers come “from all around the UK”, he says, although he names only “Leeds, Bradford, Hull”. He shrugs at the fact that, compared with his neighbours, his sales are modest. He is not one of the “big men” here, he grins.
Ali’s store is in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where two adjoining litter-strewn back streets near Manchester prison (formerly Strangeways) have emerged as a surprising industry hub in recent years. Ali’s is one of more than 50 outlets specialising in vapes and their accompanying products in an area that has been dubbed Britain’s “vape capital”. Most appear to be wholesalers; there are few passersby and some doors bear signs stating “trade only”, “not open to the public”.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Cocoa shortages, climate shocks and global conflicts have collided to make chocolate pricier than ever before
Good morning. Today is Good Friday – if you are following the western church calendar, at least – which still leaves time to panic-buy Easter eggs. While you are doing that, you will almost certainly leave with the impression that you are paying more for less. Why?
Shrinkflation is the answer. The chocolate economy has been hit by a series of shocks over the past few years, meaning the pound in your pocket now buys a lot less cocoa than it once did.
Middle East | Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s inconsistent pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with something different every day.
UK politics | Yvette Cooper said coordinated action was needed as more than 40 countries gathered to discuss “every possible diplomatic, economic and coordinated measure” to pressurise Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz.
NHS | The NHS is bracing for the longest strike yet by resident doctors after last-ditch talks failed, prompting Wes Streeting to accuse the medics of suffering from “delusion”.
Reform UK | Reform UK’s housing spokesperson has been sacked from his role after he described the Grenfell Tower fire as a “tragedy” but said that “everyone dies in the end”.
Weather | The UK is bracing for Storm Dave over Easter with winds up to 90mph expected.
Continue reading...I had grown up dreading introductions, with the inevitable mangling of my name. Suddenly, in India, we were both getting the respect we deserved
I had five names on the day of my Hindu naming ceremony, but my given name was Priti, a name that came to shape me.
Like most children with “unconventional” names, I dreaded the first day of each school year. I would squirm in my chair as my new teacher worked their way through the class register, and my stomach would drop as they attempted to say my full name: Priti Ubhayakar. I would be sitting there thinking: “If the first name doesn’t get you, the last name will.”
Continue reading...Henry says Maggie is constantly losing them; she thinks her son is making a lot of noise about nothing. It’s up to you to give them a fair hearing
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror
Mum doesn’t look after her headphones because she knows I’ll always be there to buy her new ones
I’m 76, and don’t like online shopping. It only takes Henry 30 seconds to buy a new pair
Continue reading...From a 300-year old building in the heart of ‘cheddar cheese and cider’ country, to a newly renovated smallholding in an area of outstanding natural beauty
Continue reading...Storm Erminio has caused widespread destruction in parts of Greece, including the Attica region where a man died in Nea Makri. On the island of Crete, skies turned an eerie orange as winds of up to force 9 on the Beaufort scale carried dust from North Africa, forcing several flights to be rerouted
Continue reading...Wake up to the top stories and what they mean – free to your inbox every weekday morning at 7am
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Continue reading...Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?
It is time for the Thursday news quiz, where, thanks to our illustration from Anaïs Mims, you must decide whether you are gliding serenely across the waters of knowledge, your elegant neck forming a perfect question mark, or paddling furiously beneath the surface, one wrong answer away from an undignified flap. Fifteen questions on topical headlines, pop culture and general knowledge await. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!
The Thursday news quiz, No 241
Continue reading...In her first print interview since release, the Palestinian immigrant says after year in custody, she sees it as her duty to denounce ICE detention in the US
A Palestinian woman who was released last month after spending a year in a Texas immigration detention center told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that she sees “a lot of similarities” between the treatment of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and that of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
Leqaa Kordia, who was detained by ICE following her arrest at a protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, says that she will continue to speak up about the rights of Palestinians, but that she now also sees it as her duty to denounce the “human tragedy” of immigration detention in the US.
Continue reading...It may be ugly, but this edible bulb gives substantial harvests and can stay in the ground in the colder months
It occurred to me recently that, understandably, I only write about the plants I’m really into. And what that means is there are certain crops that have yet to be honoured on this page simply because they’re not to my taste. So this week’s column is about one of the ugliest vegetables I’ve ever met – in looks and taste! – which some of you may well adore … the celeriac.
Celeriac reminds me of Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (that’s one for the millennials!) and I have a strong suspicion that these two little monsters taste about the same. Celeriac has been the ruiner of many a soup that I have been fed, overshadowing the taste of the other ingredients and dominating the flavour profile. Although I am not a fan myself, these vegetables are relatively straightforward to grow and garner a substantial harvest from. So if it is a taste you like, they are well worth a go.
Continue reading...Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of football
Every weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.
Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.
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Continue reading...Doctors warn viral off-label use lacks evidence, with unknown long-term risks and possible systemic absorption
Vaginal estrogen cream is prescribed to ease genital dryness, irritation and discomfort that results from the loss of estrogen during menopause.
The name tells you exactly where to put it. Yet a new trend has been making the rounds on social media. People are calling vaginal estrogen cream the new “filler” for the face and other body parts, claiming it can smooth wrinkles, reduce dryness and sagginess and plump up the skin.
Continue reading...Fibremaxxing is everywhere, and most of us should eat more roughage, but your gut won’t thank you for overloading
Fibre has replaced protein as TikTok health influencers’ macronutrient du jour, with “fibremaxxers” urging followers to pack as much roughage into their diets as possible. But is the sky really the limit?
“In theory,” says Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London and the author of Fibre Power (out in May): our ancestors may have eaten up to 100g of fibre a day, but that’s far beyond what most modern guts can tolerate.
Continue reading...In the holiday hotspots of the Costa del Sol, the risks are rarely mentioned. But in neighbouring Cádiz, the country’s first tsunami-ready town is leading by example
Even on a wet, wintry day in Málaga, the Mediterranean looks benign. But only 25 miles (40km) south-west of its port, where half a million tourists disembark from cruise ships into the Costa del Sol each year, lies a system of tectonic plates and faults that fracture the seabed between Spain and north Africa.
Earthquakes are routine here. They are mostly too small to notice but sometimes strong enough to rattle glasses in cafes on the seafront. In December, a tremor with a magnitude of 4.9 off the coast of Fuengirola triggered more than 40 calls to Andalucía’s 112 emergency line.
Continue reading...We would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated
Was someone there for you when you were feeling lonely? As part of the Guardian’s Well Actually series, we would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated. You can tell us your story below.
If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.
Continue reading...With shipping routes disrupted and tensions rising across the region we want to hear from maritime workers, sailors and port workers and others working at sea who are affected
The conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping across the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.
Maritime traffic through the strait, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, has effectively been closed since strikes on Iran began. Some vessels have been diverted or delayed and ports and shipping companies are dealing with heightened security concerns and uncertainty.
Continue reading...A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.
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