Developed countries pressed to submit national plans well before Cop30 as time runs out to avoid 1.5C temperature rise
Rich countries are dragging their feet on producing new plans to combat the climate crisis, thereby putting the poor into greater danger, some of the world’s most vulnerable nations have warned.
All governments are supposed to publish new plans this year on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but so far only a small majority have done so, and some of the plans submitted have been inadequate to the scale of action needed.
Italian PM and pontiff could not have been further apart on issues such as migration, climate crisis and economy
It is an awkward weekend for Giorgia Meloni. The Italian leader will host a gathering of world leaders to say goodbye to a much-revered pope whose public views – from the treatment of people fleeing war to the climate crisis – were diametrically opposed to hers.
While Pope Francis was a staunch advocate for asylum seekers, and blessed the vessels that saved refugees at sea, Meloni once said Italy should “repatriate migrants back to their countries and then sink the boats that rescued them”.
Shedeur Sanders is still waiting – after three rounds of the NFL draft, 102 picks and five quarterbacks selected ahead of Deion Sanders’s highly touted son.
The Colorado quarterback was widely considered a first-round talent. But his stunning slide continued on Friday night when his name wasn’t called in the second or third round.
The late pontiff embraced those traditionally on the margins of the church and society. Here, some of those he met describe his impact
Pope Francis announced his pastoral intentions from the very beginning of his papacy, saying he preferred a church that was “bruised, hurting and dirty” from being on the streets to one that was cautious and complacent. Although he never strayed from doctrine – to the annoyance of many optimistic liberals – his 12 years as pope were marked by a deliberate embrace of those historically on the margins of the church and society. He wanted a church, he said, for “todos, todos, todos” – which translates into: “Everyone, everyone, everyone.”
Here, some of those who met him recall what his pontificate meant to them.
Buildings that once catered to 1950s road trippers are being transformed into boutique stays attracting a younger demographic
Motel Molly is giving vacay vibes. It’s giving idyllic. It’s giving “hot girl summer” lives on in Mollymook, a town on the New South Wales south coast.
I’m in an oceanside room in one of four colour-themed buildings called Capri, Olive, Limoncello and Rosé. My room in the latter comes in pinks from powder to peach, coral and mauve with – squee! – a Smeg fridge and kettle in a high-gloss fairy-floss colourway. Elsewhere are rattan chairs, Scandi-style ceramics, glasses etched with frosted cursive font and a throw tufted with designs that vaguely evoke the US south-west.
At least 130 foreign delegations and an estimated 200,000 pilgrims to descend on St Peter’s Square on Saturday
An extraordinary array of invitees, spanning heads of state and royals from around the world, as well as refugees, prisoners, transgender people and those who are homeless will descend on St Peter’s Square on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis, the groundbreaking liberal pontiff who led the Catholic church for 12 years.
Francis died at the age of 88 on Monday at his home in Casa Santa Marta after a stroke and subsequent heart failure. He had been recovering from double pneumonia that had kept him in hospital for five weeks.
The Anohni and the Johnsons singer is collaborating with marine scientists for two special shows at Sydney’s Vivid festival that will show the reef’s plight
Anohni Hegarty is about to go to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously. “On the one hand, I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful, and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous. And yet, I’m also scared.”
In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island, a paradise of powdery sands on the reef, 1,600km north-west of Brisbane. Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef.
Tiffany Saine was on life support at time of selection
Harmon said mother helped motivate him in career
Tiffany Saine, the mother of Derrick Harmon, died shortly after learning the Pittsburgh Steelers had selected her son with the 21st pick of the NFL draft.
Harmon was visibly emotional as he was picked, and the ESPN broadcast showed a video in which the defensive tackle spoke about his mother’s health issues and paid tribute to the positive effect she had on his life. Saine was on life support when Harmon was selected and the 21-year-old told reporters he was going to see her in hospital after Thursday night’s ceremony.
Move that opens door for companies to test self-driving technology on trucks over 10,001lb likely to face pushback
California regulators have released a new proposal to allow the testing of self-driving heavy-duty trucks on public roads.
The state’s department of motor vehicles announced proposed regulations on Friday to allow the testing of driverless trucks over 10,001lbs, opening the door for companies to test self-driving technology on vehicles roughly the size of a Ram or Ford super duty pickup truck.
Cheering crowd at 800-year-old cathedral enjoy Plague of Angels gig, which had been branded an ‘outright insult’
Protests at one of the most controversial concerts of the year failed to materialise on Friday evening, as a metal act performed to a cheering crowd of 1,400 people at York Minster.
The 800-year-old cathedral hosted a gig by Plague of Angels, which some of its congregation called an “outright insult” to their faith and said they would be protesting if the concert went ahead.
Paris Saint-Germain’s hopes of becoming the first side to complete a Ligue 1 season unbeaten came crashing down at the Parc des Princes on Friday when Nice handed them their first defeat of the league campaign, winning 3-1 to boost their own Champions League ambitions.
Having already secured the title earlier this month, PSG still top the Ligue 1 standings on 78 points, while Nice move up to fourth on 54.
Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, who died on 4 April 2024, was the son of top-ranking US spy Juliane Gallina
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.
In 2021 I was at the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne. That’s where I first laid eyes on Asha. She was part of a group of new students joining my cohort. She instantly struck me as someone I wanted to be friends with. At ballet class that afternoon we shared a barre and became fast friends. Over the next couple of years things remained platonic and it wasn’t until our final year that chemistry began to build.
Towards the end of that dark Melbourne winter, Asha asked if I’d work with her on some acrobatics. Every day after school we’d spend an hour or so training as a pair. There was lots of stretching and chatting, trying and failing various tricks and lots of laughs. It wasn’t long before I realised I was seriously enjoying these sessions, and not just in a professional or friendly way. I was falling in love.
Redolent of old great power thinking, Trump’s Crimea giveaway could usher a return to international lawlessness
“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Donald Trump told Time magazine in a largely sympathetic profile on Friday. And with that statement, the US president made clear that he wanted to carve up another country, Ukraine, and so legitimise the forcible seizure of land made by Moscow 11 years ago.
From reading the transcript of the interview, Trump’s thinking is hardly coherent. Crimea, he says, wouldn’t have been seized if he had been president in 2014, but “it was handed to them by Barack Hussein Obama” and now Crimea has “been with them [Russia] for a long time” – so it is time to accept the seizure.
The London-based company, the second largest food deliver app in the UK, said no ‘firm offer’ had been made yet
DoorDash is offering to buy its UK-based rival Deliveroo for $3.6bn (£2.7bn), Deliveroo said on Friday.
Deliveroo said that its board was in talks with DoorDash over the offer and that a firm offer had not been made, according to statement sent to the Guardian. Should a firm offer of £1.80 ($2.40) a share be made, Deliveroo said, “it would be minded to recommend such an offer to Deliveroo shareholders.
Grand slam clash is vital stepping stone in Red Roses’ quest to reclaim the World Cup crown they last held in 2014
There are two games to think about at Twickenham on Saturday, the one the Red Roses will play in, and the one they want to play in. The first is their grand slam decider against France, which kicks off at 4.45pm. The second – at the same venue, five months and one day later – is the World Cup final which, if everything goes as the team hopes at the Stadium of Light, Franklin’s Gardens, Ashton Gate and the other grounds they will visit between now and then, will be the next game they play at the home of English rugby.
The Red Roses head coach, John Mitchell, has been around long enough to know the smart thing to do is separate the two. “We’ve got to be careful focusing on the World Cup final because we’ve got to earn the right to contest it,” Mitchell said this week. “It’s good to have the chance to be back at our home stadium, but it’s an isolated situation, that’s the way we see it.”
Manager’s changeable lineups have pushed striker to usurp Ollie Watkins and likely lead the attack at Wembley
Unai Emery keeps his Aston Villa players on their toes. Sometimes he tells his squad the lineup the day before a game, on other occasions half an hour before they depart the team hotel for the stadium on a match day. Training tends to offer some clues but of late there have been surprises. Emery, a hugely emotional character, has been known to make impulsive, snap calls. Morgan Rogers, a rare mainstay and one of Villa’s trio of undroppables, recently described how his manager’s decision‑making can feel like flip‑of-the-coin stuff.
When the teamsheets are released an hour before kick-off at Wembley on Saturday, the eyeballs will jump towards the most intriguing selection dilemma: will Emery favour Marcus Rashford or Ollie Watkins?
Age, weight and whispers have raised doubts over who might triumph on Saturday but once the sound and fury fade we will be left with nothing to show for it
Ben Shalom and Eddie Hearn usually do not like each other but on Thursday evening, at the final press conference for the troubling bout between Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn, the promoters were almost breathless in their audacity and unity as they hailed a gift from the boxing heavens.
Shalom, Eubank Jr’s promoter, lauded “the biggest British boxing story ever”, “a monumental event” and “an unbelievable show” which has been “35 years in the making” as he suggested that Saturday night’s showdown completes the trilogy between two families – after the fighters’ fathers, Chris Eubank Sr and Nigel Benn, shared a couple of seismic bouts in the early 1990s. Hearn, who promotes Benn, spoke of “a fight for the generations … an iconic main event … an incredible time for boxing” and urged us to “remember this night … this is what it’s all about.”
Republican former representative who had lied about his credentials sobbed in court saying he was ‘humbled’
George Santos, the disgraced former representative, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday, bringing an end to an extraordinary controversy that began with a fraudulent congressional campaign.
He lied extensively about his life story both before and after entering the US Congress, where he was the first openly LGBTQ+ Republican elected to the body. He was ultimately convicted of defrauding donors.
Narendra Modi must weigh a response that balances domestic fury with strategic restraint
India’s furious response to the terrorist massacre of 26 men in a popular travel destination is being shaped by public rage at the deadliest civilian attack in Kashmir in a quarter-century.
The brutality of the assault in one of Muslim-majority Kashmir’s marquee tourist spots – and its national resonance – leaves Prime Minister Narendra Modi needing to signal strength, but without triggering uncontrolled escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, analysts say.
As state is first to order in-person voting at jails, official says ‘one step closer to realizing our democracy’s full potential’
It was a Sunday in late October 2024 when Jesus Rodriguez, then 29, voted for the first time.
He voted in person for the presidential and state races, but his polling place wasn’t at a church, school or community center – it was inside the Jefferson county jail in Colorado.
Harvard is leading the pushback because it can afford to fight. Others are realising that they can’t afford not to
Enfeebling universities or seizing control is an early chapter in the authoritarian playbook, studied eagerly by the likes of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. “Would-be authoritarians and one-party states centrally target universities with the aim of restricting dissent,” Jason Stanley, a scholar of fascism at Yale, wrote in the Guardian in September. Last month, he announced that he was leaving the US for Canada because of the political climate and particularly the battle over higher education.
It is not merely that universities are often bastions of liberal attitudes and hotbeds for protest. They also constitute one of the critical institutions of civil society; they are a bulwark of democracy. The Trump administration is taking on judges, lawyers, NGOs and the media: it would be astonishing if universities were not on the list. They embody the importance of knowledge, rationality and independent thought.
Would the legendary American writer have welcomed the publication of her therapy notes? It seems unlikely
Joan Didion entered the fray on the publication of Ernest Hemingway’s unfinished final manuscript in an essay titled Last Words in 1998: “You think something is in shape to be published or you don’t, and Hemingway didn’t,” she wrote. You believe a writer’s unpublished work is fair game after their death or you don’t, and Didion – it would seem – didn’t.
Debate about the ethics of posthumous publication has been ignited once more, this time with Didion at its centre. After the writer’s death in 2021, about 150 pages were found in a file next to her desk. These were meticulous accounts of sessions with her psychiatrist, from 1999 to 2003, focused mainly on her adopted daughter Quintana, who was spiralling into alcoholism. Addressed to her husband, screenwriter John Gregory Dunne, this journal has been published under the title Notes to John. “No restrictions were put on access,” we are told in a brief, anonymous introduction, presumably the ghostly hand of her literary estate.
President’s international engagements have set stage for explosive confrontations and Pope Francis’s funeral comes at an especially fraught moment
A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Donald Trump flying to the Vatican this weekend and publicly feuding with international leaders in front of St Peter’s Basilica in the midst of the sombre rituals and rites that will mark the funeral of Pope Francis.
The US leader’s first international trip of his second term comes at one of the most politically fractious and fraught moments in recent memory, as his “America first” project sets fire to US alliances and trade relationships around the world. Between international tariffs, the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, the Trump team’s open antipathy toward Europe and its hard line on immigration from Central and South America, the papal funeral could prove to be a minefield of international diplomacy.
The death of Pope Francis, women mourn the dead in Gaza, Russian airstrikes in Kyiv and emperor penguins in Antarctica: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
Shabtai, a Jewish society based at Yale, hosted the extremist far-right politician convicted of supporting terrorism. Why did Yale allow this?
Let me start with a statement that should be obvious: deliberately starving 2 million people – half of whom are children – is indefensible. It is not complicated, it is not a nuanced situation that requires a PhD to parse. It is not an unfortunate and unavoidable part of war. It is quite simply indefensible. I would say that it is also very much prohibited by international human rights law, but that doesn’t seem to exist any more, does it?
As I write this, no food, water or medicine has been allowed into Gaza for almost two months. It is impossible to know just how bad the situation really is because Israel has imposed a media blackout on the region. However, aid organizations have said: “The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months” since the war began. Thousands of children are malnourished. Childhood malnutrition, I can’t stress enough, has long-term consequences. An entire generation’s future has been violently stolen from them.
Hannah Dugan apprehended in courthouse where she works after agency says she helped man evade authorities
The FBI on Friday arrested a judge whom the agency accused of obstruction after it said she helped a man evade US immigration authorities as they were seeking to arrest him at her courthouse.
The county circuit judge, Hannah Dugan, was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at 8.30am local time on Friday on charges of obstruction, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service confirmed to the Guardian.
This presidency places authoritarian ambition above all – and now the people of Ukraine are paying the price
To see the true face of Donald Trump, look no further than Ukraine. Laid bare in his handling of that issue are not only his myriad weaknesses, but also the danger he poses to his own country and the wider world – to say nothing of the battered people of Ukraine itself.
Don’t be fooled by the mild, vaguely theatrical rebuke Trump issued to Vladimir Putin on Thursday after Moscow unleashed a deadly wave of drone strikes on Kyiv, killing 12 and injuring dozens: “Vladimir, STOP!” Payattention instead to the fact that, in the nearly 100 days since Trump took office, the US has essentially switched sides in the battle between Putin’s Russia and democratic Ukraine, backing the invaders against the invaded.
100 days of Trump’s presidency, with Jonathan Freedland and guests. On 30 April, join Jonathan Freedland, Kim Darroch, Devika Bhat and Leslie Vinjamuri as they discuss Trump’s presidency on his 100th day in office, live at Conway Hall London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
Hugh Brasher, the London Marathon race director, certainly thinks so but the Ugandan faces stiff competition from Eliud Kipchoge and Tamirat Tola
Earlier this year Jacob Kiplimo produced a performance so staggering that it sent the jaws of even seasoned track and field watchers crashing to the floor. It came on the streets of Barcelona, where the 24-year-old Ugandan covered 13.1 miles in 56min 42sec – a half marathon time 48 seconds quicker than anyone else in history.
Little more than two months later, Kiplimo is in London for his full marathon debut and the noise has only grown louder. Could he break the world record on Sunday? Could he even become the first man to break two hours in an official race? It is speculation that the event director, Hugh Brasher, is more than happy to stoke.
Alda Curtis, a 63-year-old counselling student from Sydney, set up a Redbubble store as a hobby, including selling a T-shirt featuring an unhappy cat cartoon.
After years of running the store, a single sale of that T-shirt resulted in a US$100,000 default judgment against her for infringing on the trademark of Grumpy Cat late last year. Then Curtis noticed nearly US$600 had been taken from her PayPal account.
They date back to the 16th century when mercenaries first served Pope Julius II and form the world’s smallest army
With their feathered helmets, ruffled collars and coloured, puffed-sleeve uniforms, the Vatican Swiss Guards are often likened by curious visitors to medieval court jesters.
But appearances can be deceiving. The world’s smallest army, whose primary role is to protect the pope, has been rigorously trained and with no living pontiff to protect right now will join the huge security operation involving specialist Italian police units and the military given the task of keeping watch over Vatican City and Rome during the funeral of Pope Francis and the subsequent conclave.
US Marshal Service confirms arrest of judge Hannah Dugan shortly after FBI director’s since-deleted X post accusing her of helping an immigrant ‘evade arrest’
Apple is reportedly planning to switch assembly of all iPhones for the US market to India as the company seeks to reduce its reliance on a Chinese manufacturing base amid Donald Trump’s trade war.
The $3tn (£2.3tn) technology company aims to make the shift as soon as next year, the Financial Times reported.
In a statement, the 86-year-old director of the critical and box-office flop said the book confirms his feeling that ‘art can never be constrained’
Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s $120m passion project, was neither a box office nor a critical success on release last year. Largely funded by the sale of Coppola’s own vineyards, the sci-fi epic starring Adam Driver took around $14m at the global box office amid unconvinced reviews and rumours of abnormal on-set behaviour by its director.
A marketing campaign attempted to leverage bad critical notices by flagging that previous works by Coppola now acclaimed as masterpieces – including Apocalypse Now and The Godfather – had been dismissed by critics at the time. But this backfired after it emerged all of the sniffy historical reviews had been fabricated.
Sadness at pope’s passing is tinged with giddiness at holding world’s gaze with a pageant for the ages
Beneath the basilica’s soaring Renaissance dome, the body in the coffin looked unexpectedly small, even shrunken, and for those who had come to say goodbye that somehow felt apt. Francis was pope but he was still, amid all the pomp and circumstance, just a man.
His predecessors occupied plinths and alcoves around St Peter’s, figures of stone and marble with names etched in history books, while Jorge Mario Bergoglio lay in his wooden box, by common consent among mourners, a good man who did his best.
Few policymakers mention US president by name, but his tariffs dominate IMF-World Bank meeting
Kristalina Georgieva’s favourite film, the International Monetary Fund boss told the audience at a packed panel event in Washington on Thursday, is Tom Hanks’s cold war romp Bridge of Spies.
In one of the stranger digressions in a frequently strange week, Georgieva recalled the moment when Hanks’s character, a US lawyer, tells the Soviet spy he has been appointed to defend that he will probably be executed. “You don’t seem alarmed,” Hanks says to him; to which the spy – played by Mark Rylance – replies, “Would it help?”
Officer suspended after shooting 21-year-old man from behind in Oldenburg in north-west Germany
Civil rights activists in Germany have demanded an independent inquiry into alleged police racism after an officer shot a 21-year-old black man from behind, killing him after an altercation outside a nightclub.
The 27-year-old officer was suspended from duty over the shooting early on Sunday morning in the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany pending a murder investigation, said state prosecutors. Fatal police shootings are relatively rare in Germany and prosecutors were quoted in local media as saying the suspension and investigation were “routine”.
Some phrases are commonised so quickly that it’s easy to forget how new they are. The concept of the second-screen experience wasn’t regularly discussed on these pages until 2012; a decade later it is much a part of our lives as privately WISHING TO HELL YOU’D PUT THAT BLOODY TABLET DOWN AND LISTEN TO THE DIALOGUE PROPERLY – IT’S CASSAVETES! But never mind the second-screen experience. We’re now moving towards the age of the second first-screen experience, in which a dopamine fiend watches two football matches/episodes of Dawson’s Creek simultaneously. We know this because, for the last few years, Football Daily has been that dopamine fiend. This weekend, two screens might not be enough.
It took me a while to get used to it and unfortunately I couldn’t continue. It was really a matter of the altitude. It’s surreal here” – Palmeiras forward Estêvão – who will join Chelsea for £29m later this year – had an 18th birthday to remember, netting his side’s second in a 3-2 Copa Libertadores win over Bolivar before dropping to the turf, throwing up and leaving the field on a stretcher as the high altitude of La Paz took its toll. Reminds us of Football Daily’s 18th … minus the goal, of course.
Are we to assume that the reason Manchester United Women are taking part in the new World Sevens tournament (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition) is because that’s the size of their squad now thanks to The (Big Sir) Jim Reaper?” – Derek McGee.
Following the preview of Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final (yesterday’s Football Daily), can I be the first of 1,057 pedants to point out that Wembley Way does not exist. The pedestrianised street leading from Wembley Park station to Wembley Stadium is (and has always been) called Olympic Way. Blackburn fans born before the 1995 Charity Shield (for example) could be forgiven the mistake, but everyone else (especially otherwise well-informed tea-timely football emails) should know better” – Chris Carter (and no others).
Nice shout for the Human League, a terrific league (Wednesday’s Football Daily). According to the band’s Wikipedia page, the name came from a science-fiction board game. So, if a great league can get its name from a related activity, this suggests that an excellent name for a football league would be the Football League. Yes, that has a familiar and comforting ring to it” – Mike Wilner.
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