Iranian drones hit the US embassy in Riyadh as Tehran continued to launch waves of retaliatory strikes at the Gulf and Israel, while Israeli soldiers began operating in southern Lebanon on the fourth day of an increasingly regional war in the Middle East.
The drone attack on the US embassy in Riyadh caused a minor fire, prompting the diplomatic mission to tell Americans to distance themselves from the compound. The attack followed an earlier Iranian drone strike on the US embassy in Kuwait, as Iran continued to target US bases, facilities and personnel in Arab Gulf states.
At the start of Lent, men dressed as rampaging creatures pursue women through medieval villages. The families who maintain these traditions are sceptical of change, but increasingly female revellers want to play more active parts
In the early afternoon of Ash Wednesday, dread creatures dressed in white walk the streets of the medieval southern French village of Cournonterral. They wear long masks of black badger hair, top hats crowned by feathers and sprays of boxwood, and body armour comprising sacks stuffed with straw. Despite the early hours, some of them stagger from drink, whips of hessian sacking dangling from their hands.
These menacing charactersare exclusively male – the only women taking part in the traditional festivities today are their prey. Among les blancs – also dressed in white but with no armour except red ribbons in their hair and around their waists – are a few teenage girls in heavy makeup.
Minimalist but never austere, this mother-daughter portrait from the Danish author finds its power in everyday detail
The Danish author Helle Helle’s They, published in the UK in a pin-sharp translation by Martin Aitken, charts the subtle and shifting bond between a teenage daughter and an ailing mother in prose that is minimalist but never austere. It’s one of those novels where little is spoken but everything, by the end, gets said.
The unnamed mother and 16-year-old daughter live above a hairdresser’s in a Danish backwater on the island of Lolland, where nothing much goes on. They walk across the spring-awoken fields, they shop for groceries, they join an evening class. Details of their past are scanty, fugitive: a few house moves, but nothing about the daughter’s father, who exerts a vague apophatic presence. Mostly, they enjoy a frictionless, symbiotic closeness: “They sit by the window a lot, and on the settee, and with the free local weekly … They lift their mugs, sip synchronous mouthfuls.”
Those not up to speed on the Miss Kobayashi manga may struggle with the full nuance of this dimension hopping anime, but the visuals are stunningly to look at
You know fantasy has a different constituency these days when, at a pivotal point in this candy-coloured, realm-hopping anime, the protagonist casts a spell that temporarily boosts local mobile-phone signal. During the climactic battle, it’s salarywoman Miss Kobayashi (voiced by Mutsumi Tamura) who is dialling up extra help from Kanna (Maria Naganawa), the moony, bobby-soxed poppet who’s one of the dragons in human guise that have invaded her life (and demanded a smartphone).
Kanna is very much sought after: with a big smackdown brewing between the forces of chaos and harmony in the dragon dimension, her father Kimun Kamui (Fumihiko Tachiki) turns up at Kobayashi’s flat to demand either his daughter return to fight, or give him the dragon orb into which she has loaded her manna. Offended by his saurian sangfroid, Kobayashi refuses to give Kanna up; when her posse start digging around in the other realm, it appears that human mage Azad (Nobunaga Shimazaki) has been stoking tensions between the two factions.
Donald Trump has criticised Keir Starmer again over the UK’s refusal to aid the offensive strikes on Iran, saying the “relationship is obviously not what it was”.
Starmer had issued his strongest rebuke yet of Trump’s action in Iran, saying the UK did not believe in “regime change from the skies” and defended his decision not to allow the use of British bases to conduct the strikes.
Guillermo del Toro has overcome the Academy’s aversion to fantasy before and with this heartfelt telling of the monster classic he should do it again
Guillermo del Toro has spent his career humanising monsters, once calling them the “patron saints of our blissful imperfection”, so his adaptation of Frankenstein was always going to be a match made in heaven. The Mexican film-maker’s passion project turns Mary Shelley’s famous novel about the dangers of hubris and playing God into a touching tale about generational trauma, parental abandonment and the healing power of forgiveness. It’s a meticulously crafted, visually sumptuous and powerfully told story that deserves to take home that best picture Oscar.
But it’s not going to be easy. The gothic fantasy seamlessly blends horror, sci-fi and melodrama in its opulent retelling; here Oscar Isaac plays the eccentric scientist, Victor, who brings a hulking creature (Jacob Elordi) made up of dead body parts to life. Fantasy, horror and sci-fi, however, are genres that notoriously don’t do well at the Academy Awards, apart from in the technical categories. Yes, Del Toro is one of the few film-makers to get a best picture Oscar for a fantasy/sci-fi film in 2018 for his amphibian love story, The Shape of Water, but that win was an exception, not the rule.
By speaking to women across the continent, I discovered how reclaiming pre-colonial rites and rituals can help us find joy in our bodies
In the kitchen of my Airbnb in Dar es Salaam I stripped down to my underwear and wrapped a colourful kanga cloth around my hips. It was day three of my dance lessons with Zaishanga, but I was showing no improvement. Zaishanga, or Auntie Zai as I called her, is a traditional sex educator, known locally as a somo or kungwi. She told me that learning to dance seductively would ensure that, “no man would ever want to leave you, unless you want him gone”. I never did master the dance, and I really don’t care much if a man chooses to leave me, but my time with Auntie Zai was enlightening.
Dance is just one of a range of seduction tips and tricks that Zaishanga teaches at her “kitchen parties”. She also counsels women on how to maintain a healthy marriage, and gives advice on the importance of self-care, and the need to maintain a standard of beauty and style. These gatherings, where experienced older women – aunties, big sisters, grandmothers – share advice with brides-to-be are rooted in traditional rites of passage into womanhood that date back centuries.
Intolerance is in vogue and leaders are failing to meet the moment. When King Charles seems the best and bravest hope, the problem is clear
How should the UK deal with the increasing fracturing of multiculturalism right now, and how we are all being pitted against each other? This idea was on the mind of a man named Steve, who featured on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions on Friday in the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton byelection. Steve asked if the Green victory was an indication that Labour needed to “get back to its roots”, adding, to great applause, that “we’re a relatively wealthy country, we should not be demonising minority groups to square the balance”.
Listening, I was struck by the response of one of the panellists, New Labour minister David Blunkett, who criticised Labour’s current technocratism, but did not reflect on what Steve said about demonisation. It was especially striking considering Blunkett’s earlier comments, that when listening to the victorious Green MP Hannah Spencer’s speech, he thought: “I could have delivered that speech back in 1987 … What is it that has driven this young woman … to join the Greens rather than the Labour party?”
Exclusive: Jury was never told about inquiry into key prosecution witness Peter Hindmarsh, which looked into allegations including of harm to patients
A doctor who gave crucial expert evidence about insulin poisoning for the prosecution of the nurse Lucy Letby was under investigation by the medical regulator at the time due to serious concerns about his fitness to practise.
The General Medical Council (GMC) opened an investigation into concerns about Prof Peter Hindmarsh, including that he had harmed patients, on the first day he gave evidence at Letby’s trial in late 2022.
Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn among port cities more choked by sulphur oxides from ferries, analysis shows
Fume-belching ferries spew more sulphur pollution than cars in several EU capitals, analysis has found.
Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn are among 13 of Europe’s 15 biggest port cities choked more by sulphur oxides (SOx) from ferries than road vehicles, data shared exclusively with the Guardian shows.
When my friend Bea took up pole dancing, she enthusiastically tried to convert everyone she knew to it – a common trope, I’d later find out. As a childhood gymnast and dancefloor enthusiast, I was scouted as a potential recruit, so along with my sister in 2023 we joined her for a class.
The class was packed and the studio felt overly commercialised. The friction of the metal pole against my skin was straight-up painful and spinning around made me so dizzy I had to sit down to reorientate myself several times.
Hitting the piste in Verbier doesn’t come cheap, but in laid-back La Tzoumaz you can access the same pistes without such a steep price tag
I’m standing at 3,330 metres on a tall metal platform with a heavy harness strapped to my back, gazing in awe at the snow-covered Matterhorn, Mont Blanc and the Dents du Midi ridge. It’s a gorgeous distraction while I wait to be clipped in and launched down the valley at 120 kilometres an hour. This is the Mont Fort zip line, the highest in the world. I sit with my legs dangling over the precipice, then with a stomach-churning clunk the mechanism releases and I speed through the air over tiny figures skiing below. It’s exhilarating and over too soon. I’m grinning ear to ear, my lungs full of high mountain air.
I’m in Verbier, one of Switzerland’s most famous ski resorts. With access to 410km of pristine piste, excellent alpine food and a legendary après-ski culture, what’s not to like? Well, for many, the price. Verbier has long been favoured by A-listers and royalty, with eye-watering prices to match. Happily, there is a way to enjoy the same slopes, with much less of a financial hit. Stay in the village of La Tzoumaz (pronounced La Tsoo-mah), where accommodation can be half the price of Verbier, and you’re one chairlift away from the entire Four Valleys ski area. And as I discover, this “back door” resort has plenty of its own charms too.
Keep your boss happy, develop your ‘personal boardroom’, ask for honest feedback, don’t take the notes in every meeting and remember: no one gets promoted for inbox zero
There is nothing worse than feeling stuck in a job. What are the best ways to progress without having to resort to shameless self-promotion? Here, career coaches explain how to make sure you are first in line for a promotion – and a pay rise.
Journalists and activists who fled Taliban rule are living in fear as Pakistani police hunt and deport refugees after escalating cross-border clashes
At midnight on Saturday, Alma* stood at the check-in counter at Karachi airport in Pakistan with her husband and three-year-old son, holding tickets she believed would finally take the refugee family to safety.
The Afghan journalist, who fled the Taliban in October 2024, had already been stopped from boarding two days earlier, on 26 February. Since they were flying with a tourist visa to a country in Africa, they had booked a flight from Karachi with a return leg that they did not plan to use. But the Pakistani officials at the airport refused to let them board.
An epic account of how three demigod directors, in pursuit of indie freedom, redefined American film-making
Here we are once more: back to the glory days of the New Hollywood that emerged from the ashes of the old studio system in the 1960s and 70s. Our cast is filled with brilliant hotshots and creative risk-takers, energised by the French New Wave, the American counterculture and the industry’s own amazing entrepreneurial past.
Peter Biskind’s breezy, bleary, cynical book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls ranged freely across the 1970s, with controversial anecdotes about egos and drugs (though maybe the definitive book about the role of cocaine in film production has yet to be written). Mark Harris’s Scenes from a Revolution had the witty idea of looking at the five films Oscar-nominated for best picture in the transitional year of 1968, from the supercool Bonnie and Clyde to the squaresville Dr Doolittle, to see what they told us about America’s cinematic mind at the time.
Director and star Albert Birney goes through the looking glass to tackle a Zelda-esque dog rescue quest inside his 80s gaming machine in endearingly imaginative fantasy
If David Lynch had been born 20 years later and fetishised 1980s home-computing tech, this is the kind of film he might have made: black-and-white analogue surrealism, with smudges of dot-matrix horror. Director Albert Birney stars as “Computer Conor”, a shut-in who makes a living from virtuosically tapping out ASCII reproductions of people’s favourite photos and, on his downtime, watching several VHSs simultaneously on his three-television-high stack.
Outside is Mary (Callie Hernandez), an unseen grocery-delivery girl, and the unsettling writhings of the biological world in the shape of an emerging cicada brood. But Conor is invaded from within when he subscribes to Obex, a mail-order sword-and-sorcery video game that allows you to personalise your own avatar. Initially disappointed, he becomes more enveloped when his printer of its own accord spits out a command: “Remove your skin.” And then the game’s radiant demon Ixaroth arrives in his apartment and spirits away Conor’s pooch, Sandy.
Dockside site will transform club’s finances, but fans are frustrated with kick-off times and results at venue so far
David Moyes has numerous theories on why Everton do not yet feel completely at home at Hill Dickinson Stadium, beyond the fact that change is inevitably strange after 133 years at Goodison Park. Wins would be instrumental, but his team have managed only five in 16 matches. Supporters connecting to the magnificent venue through a new matchday routine would help too, but for many that is proving nigh on impossible.
One season-ticket holder, who lives in the south of England, said on social media recently that they expect to miss seven or eight home games this season owing to the curse of the modern fixture schedule. The club are aware that this is not an isolated case. The problem is not new nor confined to Everton, who of course reap the benefits of every game that is switched for live television purposes and, let’s be frank, have not held as much appeal for broadcasters in recent years as they do this season. But in their inaugural campaign at a new home, Everton’s schedule has proved to be peculiar and, in turn, detrimental to fans adapting to new surroundings.
From bold anti-Nazi posters to an acid-drenched take on Jean Cocteau, a new exhibition, curated by writer Philip Hoare, shows how influential the DIY designs of the 70s and 80s became
With 46% of Nepal’s population under the age of 24, the election will be a test of whether their hopes and frustrations are being taken seriously
In the unassuming, dusty lanes of the Nepali city of Damak, an unprecedented political showdown is unfolding. Pitting an old political heavyweight against a rapper-turned-politician with a penchant for dark sunglasses and sharp suits, the battle is one that could completely reshape the country’s politics.
As Nepal heads into its most gripping election in years, at the forefront stands Balendra Shah, the 35-year-old known simply as Balen. He rose to fame as a popular rapper whose songs criticised the ruling elite, before pivoting to politics and winning a resounding victory to become the mayor of Kathmandu in May 2022.
Regulator rules Universal Church of the Kingdom of God did not protect vulnerable donors, including woman who says she gave life savings
“Sometimes you’re seeing God as a genie, where if I give him all this money, He will bring me what I want,” Sarah says.
The 27-year-old spent years in the grip of “prosperity gospel”, whose followers believe cash donations to evangelical churches unlock divine blessings of health and wealth. So did Jennifer*, 29, who says she handed over her life savings.
Speed and scale of US military’s AI war planning raises fears human decision-making may be sidelined
The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran heralds a new era of bombing quicker than “the speed of thought”, experts have said, amid fears human decision-makers could be sidelined.
Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used by the US military in the barrage of strikes as the technology “shortens the kill chain” – meaning the process of target identification through to legal approval and strike launch.
In the past three months, Donald Trump’s White House has reportedly used AI twice to effect regime change – once in its capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and more recently to help plan the strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The most recent strikes coincided with the end of the Pentagon’s relationship with the AI company Anthropic over concerns its AI tool Claude was being used for purposes the company had explicitly prohibited. The government swiftly signed a new contract with Open AI.
To find out what this means for the use of AI in forthcoming conflicts, Madeleine Finlay speaks to technology journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. He explains why he thinks this moment represents a dangerous turning point.
The trippy film of Enid Blyton’s much loved novels has been 20 years in the making. We catch up with its adult and child stars – inside a giant cake as disco-dancing elves rollerskate past
Anyone who read Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree novels as a child has imagined themselves roving through their magical landscapes. Most of us had a favourite, be it the Land of Wizards, or Nursery Rhymes, or Do-As-You-Please. Thirteen-year-old Billie Gadsdon, about to star in the highly anticipated film adaptation, The Magic Faraway Tree, particularly loves the Land of Goodies – but that’s because when she was last there, everything around her was made of sweets.
Director Ben Gregor wanted his cast to interact with the fantastical surroundings as much as possible. And so, on their sound stage in Reading, Gadsdon found herself filming in a grove of marshmallow trees, surrounded by giant flying-saucer plants and Haribo strawberry beds. “I did eat a few,” she confides. The Land of Birthdays was just as fun – she was filmed in those scenes in the middle of a giant cake, as rollerskating elves disco-danced by.
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