The Guardian would like to hear from people in India on their thoughts on the 2024 general election, in particular young people who are voting for the first time
The world’s largest election has begun, with nearly a billion people eligible to vote in India’s marathon poll taking place over the next few weeks.
The elections have been described by analysts as the most predictable polls India has held in decades, with prime minister Narendra Modi and his BJP widely expected to win a third term in power. Amid a crackdown on the opposition, analysts and opponents have warned this could be the most one-sided election in India’s history
We’d like to hear from people who have been purchasing luxury goods and experiences in recent years, and how they feel about their spending habits
We’re interested to hear about people’s spending habits in the area of upmarket or luxury goods, services and experiences, and whether they are generally happy with their spending on non-essentials.
We’d like to know whether you have spent money on expensive non-essential items such as designer clothing, high end housewares, luxury holidays, expensive beauty or wellness treatments, or exclusive dining, for instance, in the past year, and if so, whether you have struggled to afford this.
The far right are on the march in Germany and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany has become the most popular party in several states. Immigration and a sense of being economically left behind have been driving factors in the rise in popularity but the Green party and the federal government’s climate policies have also borne the brunt of public anger. The Guardian travelled to Görlitz, on the German border with Poland, to find out to what extent Germany’s green policies are fuelling the far right
We want to hear from people aged 18 to 35 – what is housing like in your area and do you live in your parental home?
We would like to learn more about the housing situation for young people (aged 18-35) in mainland Europe.
What is your situation and who is in your household? Do you live with your family, your partner, housemates, or alone? How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with this arrangement? How does this affect you in your daily life?
South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases
Best known for his low-budget Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, Corman also produced over 400 films and helped kickstart the careers of Jack Nicholson, Nicholas Roeg, Peter Fonda, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese
The French photographer has been crowned Master of Photography at this year’s Photo London thanks to three decades of work exploring femininity and the body
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Dan Bardell and Will Unwin to review the penultimate weekend in the Premier League, discuss Manchester United’s FA Cup triumph, Celtic’s win over Rangers, and more
On the podcast today: Arsenal get a conservative but vital 1-0 win at Old Trafford, while the Manchester City machine bulldozes through yet another Premier League opponent in Fulham. However they got it done, both sides won … which means the winner will be decided on the final day.
Guardian photographer Sarah Lee gets an exclusive look behind the scenes at the 2024 TV Baftas, with Timothy Spall, Floella Benjamin, Jeff Goldblum and … Queen Elizabeth I
The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey talk about Rishi Sunak’s big speech on security and how he hopes to draw a dividing line between the Conservatives and Labour. And Keir Starmer will meet union bosses on Tuesday but anger is brewing over Natalie Elphicke and rumours about Labour’s plan to water down pledges on workers’ rights
Rory Carroll, the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, looks at what is fuelling anti-immigrant anger in the Republic of Ireland
Immigration has increasingly become a point of tension in Ireland. Recently, the Irish government said the threat of deportation to Rwanda had partly fuelled a surge in arrivals entering Ireland via the land border with Northern Ireland, a route that it says now accounts for more than 80% of asylum seekers in the republic. The Irish Refugee Council and other advocacy groups have questioned the figure. On Monday a judge in Belfast ruled that large parts of the UK government’s illegal migration act should not apply in Northern Ireland because they breach human rights laws; the UK government has said it will appeal the ruling.
Today in Focus host Hannah Moore talks to Rory Carroll, the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, about immigration policy in Ireland. He tells Hannah that a changing population, a housing crisis and social and economic inequalities have led to rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland. In November, riots broke out after a stabbing in Dublin. Social media commentators outed the alleged assailant as a foreigner – in fact, he was a naturalised Irish citizen, reportedly from Algeria – and a violent protest ensued. Hundreds of people rampaged through central Dublin, targeting property and police.
Opposition say ruling party undermining democracy by using police to harass candidates into not contesting in elections
When the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India’s six-week-long election, there was one constituency in the state that stood silent. There were no polling stations or impatient queues of people, and no one with the tell-tale inky finger. In Surat, no voting was necessary – the outcome was already decided.
Mukesh Dalal, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), won the seat by default after every other candidate was either disqualified or dropped out of the race. It was the first time in 73 years that Surat’s candidate was appointed, not elected.
As AI systems have grown in sophistication, so has their capacity for deception, according to a new analysis from researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr Peter Park, an AI existential safety researcher at MIT and author of the research, tells Ian Sample about the different examples of deception he uncovered, and why they will be so difficult to tackle as long as AI remains a black box
Indeterminate sentences are devastating to mental health, but prisoners with mental illness are less likely to be released. The result is a vicious cycle whereby the most vulnerable inmates often have the least chance of getting out – as John’s case shows
At 16, John Wright was the way a lot of teenagers can be: one person at school, another person at home. At school, he was quiet, kept to himself. Behind closed doors, he was playful and chatty. He’d do backflips or cartwheels on the sofa while watching TV, or make silly noises at awkward moments to make his three siblings laugh. He was creative: he loved rapping, making his own beats, he played the guitar, liked drawing. The family would play basketball together, near the sleepy cul-de-sac where they lived. Those basketball games are the part that John’s mum, Lynn, remembers now – that and driving her kids around, windows down, Motown pumping out of the speakers, and all of them singing along.
At school, John was a bit of a target. It probably didn’t help that he stood out – he was tall for his age, skinny. In the years his school friend Jamie knew John, he never once saw him initiate anything. He never picked on anyone, made fun of anyone, started fights. But if anyone took the piss out of John, he wouldn’t back down. He was the one who usually got punished if anything kicked off. His sister, Joanna, worried about him. Anyone who said, “Oh, John, do this”, he would go and do it. That was his way of making friends. So when, as a 14-year-old, he fell in with a group of boys who kept getting into trouble, the family grew concerned.
The director has spent half his life and $120m of his own money to make his sci-fi epic. Just days ahead of its debut in Cannes, some of his crew members are questioning his methods
‘My greatest fear is to make a really shitty, embarrassing, pompous film on an important subject, and I am doing it,” Francis Ford Coppola said in 1978. “I will tell you right straight from the most sincere depths of my heart, the film will not be good.” The film was Apocalypse Now, and it was good, and the rest is history.
Part of that history has been Coppola’s reputation as an intrepid adventurer who was prepared to risk everything, to defy the studio suits, to go to the brink of ruin and madness, all for the sake of art. The making of Apocalypse Now cemented that legend – the epic scale, the jungle insanity, the heart attacks, the unbiddable weather and even less biddable actors – all of which was captured by his wife, Eleanor, in the 1991 documentary Hearts of Darkness. Coppola’s anti-establishment approach has produced some of cinema’s greatest triumphs (The Godfather trilogy, The Conversation, Dracula) but also some of its worst failures (One From the Heart, The Cotton Club).
Sir Paul Marshall, a co-owner of GB News, is building a media empire and accumulating political power
What links Russell Brand’s baptism in the Thames with Sir Paul Marshall, a co-owner of GB News and potential purchaser of the Telegraph? Both have found salvation through the strand of evangelical Christianity promoted by one incredibly influential church in central London.
Marshall, a hedge fund boss, is not yet a household name. Yet he is on his way to building a media empire and accumulating political power to rival Rupert Murdoch’s. First he launched the website UnHerd, aimed at Westminster opinion-formers, then he helped fund the populist rightwing news channel GB News, and in the coming weeks he will launch a bid to buy the Daily Telegraph.
Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland who was twice a UN climate envoy, said she was “outraged” by the activities of fossil fuel companies, including forcing governments into “investment treaties” that reward them with billions in compensation when countries reduce their reliance on oil, gas and coal.
Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen testified in Manhattan court on Tuesday that he submitted phoney invoices for legal services to cover up what were, in fact, reimbursements for a $130,000 hush-money payment to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels on his then boss’s behalf.
He repeatedly identified Trump as the driver of the Daniels payoff scheme – and said that he did it to protect Trump from losing the election. Cohen said he got the money to Daniels “to ensure that the story would not come out, would not affect Mr Trump’s chances of becoming president of the United States”.
As the trauma of apartheid, crime and violence continue to ripple through society, a counselling initiative by Tree of Life creator Ncazelo Ncube-Mlilo is helping ease the pain
Red curtains and ceiling drapes create a pink-tinged glow inside the run-down community centre, an hour south of Johannesburg, where Palesa Hlohlolo tells her neighbours about her experiences of domestic violence.
“I’m not a punching bag and I’ll never be one. For anyone,” she says, grabbing a tissue from a rapidly emptying box.
The star of Silent Witness and The Normal Heart was ‘the popular kid’ until an autoimmune condition turned her life upside down. She talks about her lonely childhood, her flourishing career and the battle she can’t abandon
It’s a tense time for Liz Carr. “You should be in our house at the moment!” she says. Better Off Dead?, her documentary on assisted dying, is soon to air on BBC One. She is making the case against. “You’re probably thinking that, looking like me, I’d be campaigning for the choice to ask a doctor to put me out of my misery,” she deadpans near the start of the film.
Carr has wanted to make this programme for years. In 2011, after the documentary Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die featured the assisted death of a 71-year-old man with motor neurone disease, she wrote to the BBC to say that it was its duty to present the alternative view.
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