Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, has quit her post over Keir Starmer’s decision to slash the international aid budget by almost half to pay for a generational increase in defence spending.
The senior Labour MP, who attended cabinet, warned that the UK pulling back from development would bolster Russia, which has already been aggressively increasing its presence worldwide, as well as encouraging China’s attempts to rewrite global rules.
Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a huge rise in deaths as a result.
Thousands of tourists arrived to see lava in recent weeks, but not all were prepared for treks up the Sicilian volcano
A river of fire from the depths of the Earth carves its way through the black rocks of a mountain blanketed white with snow. Above, the setting sun tints the clouds red. Fountains of lava that explode from a crater soar hundreds of metres into the air and Etna’s roar echoes across the Sicilian sky.
Its recent eruptions were a breathtaking spectacle, drawing thousands of tourists and unwary daytrippers – many there for a selfie. For some, the outcome was catastrophic.
Nothing I have done is more impactful than a day’s work in this battleground in the south, the graveyard of politicians’ abandoned promises
The tentacles of disinformation have already claimed its first young victim. This week, an unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles – an entirely preventable disease. Right now, the state is seeing its largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years. Yet at a White House briefing, secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, falsely noted “it is not usual”, and did not offer any plans for containment.
I am a pediatrician in Texas, and I can assure you the situation is so abnormal that most younger physicians have never seen a case of measles, thanks to successful vaccination campaigns.
Seema Jilani is a pediatric physician based in Texas, a first-generation American, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations
Cats in two states tested positive after eating raw food from Wild Coast Raw, which issued voluntary recall
As the bird flu outbreak continues gaining force in the US, a second company selling raw pet food issued a voluntary recall after cats from two different households in Oregon contracted H5N1 from the tainted meat earlier this month.
Two more cats in different households in Washington state have tested positive for bird flu after eating the same brand of raw pet food nearly two weeks after the recall, officials announced on Wednesday. One cat was euthanized, while the other remains under veterinary care.
Barely known to each other before they were abducted by the brutal al-Shabaab militants, a friendship forged in adversity helped them and their children find safety
Ancha*, who was 20, had been kidnapped and held captive in a house in northern Mozambique for two months when 17-year-old Fatima* was brought there. What their captors did not know – even after the young women’s daring escape together – was that they were cousins.
Both had grown up around Mucojo, a small coastal town 130 miles (210km) south of the Tanzanian border, from where they had been abducted in separate raids in 2020 by Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamaa militants, an Islamic State-affiliated group known locally as al-Shabaab (though it has no links with the Islamist militants of the same name in Somalia).
While last year’s Academy Awards progressed with relative predictability, this year pundits are split and the four big categories are too close to call
The red carpet is being vacuumed, the manicurists are working overtime and, across Hollywood, an unprecedented number of acceptance speeches are getting a polish.
The four big categories at this year’s Oscars – best picture, director, actor and actress – are being deemed too close to call as the remarkable drama of this year’s award season reaches a peak.
USAid cuts to clinics dispensing antiretroviral drugs will be ‘death sentence for mothers and children’, expert warns
Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a huge rise in deaths as a result.
After the US announced a permanent end to funding for HIV projects, services across the board have been affected, say doctors and programme managers, from projects helping orphans and pregnant women to those reaching transgender individuals and sex workers.
Gram’s Pizza owner and chef is boycotting US products after Trump threatened to add 25% tariff on Canadian goods
Tucked away in a former garage space in Toronto’s west end, Gram’s Pizza, is usually packed with diners hankering for anything from a classic pepperoni to vodka and hot hawaiian.
Lately, however, owner and chef Graham Palmateer has made some changes to how he makes his pizzas.
Of the many lessons arising from this week’s report into the presenter’s alleged bullying and misogyny, one is the corporate cynicism that sustained him
More than 30 years have passed since Tim Westwood joined the BBC, 12 since he left and three since Guardian and BBC journalists reported on allegations of abuse by a man considered by the corporation to be the voice of hip hop. Then this week, some of the many concerns raised during his 19 years working there were detailed in the latest edition of one of the BBC’s weightiest and longest-running series, Official Reports into Men We Employ Behaving Very Badly.
Westwood’s career at the Beeb ended in 2013, amid a flurry of accusations and a sense of deja vu best summarised as “oh God, not another one”. But the 174-page report is well worth reading, not just for what it says about the BBC but, as so often with the media, what it says about attitudes in Britain.
Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist
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In late January, Lauren Bedson did what many would likely find unthinkable: she cancelled her Amazon Prime membership. The catalyst was Donald Trump’s inauguration. Many more Americans are planning to make similar decisions this Friday.
Bedson made her move after seeing photos of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, sitting with other tech moguls and billionaires, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, just rows behind Trump at his inauguration.
Together, we must fight for our long-held values and work with people around the world who share them
For 250 years, the United States has held itself up as a symbol of democracy – an example of freedom and self-governance to which the rest of the world could aspire. People have long looked to our declaration of independence and constitution as blueprints for how to guarantee those human rights and freedoms.
Tragically, all of that is changing. As Donald Trump moves this country towards authoritarianism, he is aligning himself with dictators and despots who share his disdain for democracy and the rule of law.
Bernie Sanders is a US senator and a ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress
The new administration are targeting trans people because they think they can be bullied without great political pushback
In the video, she sounds exasperated. Hunter Schafer, a 26-year-old actor best known for her roles on the HBO series Euphoria and in the Hunger Games film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, appeared in an eight-minute video last Friday in which she revealed that due to a Trump administration order, she had been assigned a passport with the gender marker “male”.
Schafer, who is trans, began living as a girl in her early teens; she has lived as a woman for her entire adult life. In her video, she says that her IDs have been marked “female” for just about as long as she has had them. But after her passport was stolen in a car break-in in Barcelona, she has been issued a government identity document that represents a fiction that she is a man. Every time she travels now, she will have to present this document, she will have to account for the discrepancy between what it says about her, and what she clearly is.
Bianca, Garance and Honde churn across Indian Ocean as Alfred, Rae and Seru spin through south-west Pacific
An uncommon meteorological event unfolded on Tuesday when six named tropical cyclones were active simultaneously in the southern hemisphere, several in close proximity to one another.
Three developed in the south-west Pacific. Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred formed on 20 February in the Coral Sea to the north-east of Australia, reaching an intensity equivalent to a category 4 hurricane on Thursday with sustained winds of 105mph (170km/h) and gusts at about 140mph.
Users of Reels report feeds dominated by violent and graphic footage after apparent algorithm malfunction
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has apologised after Instagram users were subjected to a flood of violence, gore, animal abuse and dead bodies on their Reels feeds.
Users reported the footage dominating their feeds after an apparent malfunction in Instagram’s algorithm, which curates what people see on the app.
Threat after Taipei announces bigger military drills appears to mirror a line from children’s film Ne Zha 2
China’s defence ministry spokesperson has warned Taiwan “we will come and get you, sooner or later”, after Taipei announced an expansion of military exercises.
The threat was delivered in a press conference on Thursday, but grabbed attention inside China for its apparent mirroring of a line from the record-breaking children’s movie Ne Zha 2.
Liverpool made a loss of £57m last season after missing out on the Champions League while wages and overhead costs increased, the club’s latest accounts have revealed.
Liverpool’s accounts for the year to 31 May 2024 show revenue rose by £20m to £614m, with commercial revenue breaking £300m for the first time. But with media revenue falling by £38m to £204m, mainly as a result of competing in the Europa League rather than the Champions League, and administration costs rising by £38m to £600m the club recorded a pre-tax loss of £57m. It made a pre-tax loss of £9m in 2023 and a £7.5m profit in 2022. Liverpool’s bank debt decreased by £10m to £116m.
Health secretary hails talks over defence, security and trade as Badenoch says her party will continue to oppose Chagos deal
Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, has quit her post over Keir Starmer’s decision to slash the international aid budget by almost half to pay for a generational increase in defence spending, Pippa Crerar reveals.
Keir Starmer intends to follow his shock decision this week to slash aid spending to fund a higher defence budget with radical moves on welfare reform and immigration restrictions, Patrick Maguire reports in his Times column today. Here’s an extract.
What we do know, however, is that Starmer is seizing this moment of geopolitical crisis as permission to remake the Labour party. And by that, for once, I do mean Starmer himself: not the cabinet he is largely ignoring nor the aides who often do much of this thinking for him. Experience is pushing him towards solutions whose radicalism Labour governments tend only to countenance under extreme duress. This week it was higher defence spending and aid cuts; in the weeks to come, I am told, it will be welfare reform, an overhaul of the machinery of government, and new immigration restrictions. (No 10 has its sights trained on the care sector, which it believes is abusing visas to suppress wages.)
Much of this is born of Starmer’s deep frustrations — with traditional allies in his party, within the civil service and on the world stage. Becoming prime minister has given him less power than he would like. As one senior adviser explains: “If the PM asks officials for a glass of water, they’ll give him a glass of water. But they’ll also say: ‘We’re really good at making tea, actually, so we’ll just keep doing that.’” This restlessness and resentment is all over the 1,500-word letter he sent to cabinet ministers earlier this month, again, mostly his own words, honed over several long conversations with trusted aides rather than scripted for him. “The split between our own preconceived ideas and, frankly, reality has created a schism,” he wrote. “We must mend it — and we must do so through actions not words.”
Andy Hunter: Liverpool made a loss of £57m last season after missing out on the Champions League while wages and overhead costs increased, the club’s latest accounts have revealed …
Newcastle United v Brighton: With their team already in the Carabao Cup final, due to face Brighton in the last 16 of the FA Cup on Sunday and hopeful of securing qualification for the Champions League with a strong league finish, the fitness – or lack therof – of their striker Alexander Isak is uppermost in the thoughts of most Newcastle fans after he missed his side’s midweek defeat at Liverpool with a groin injury. Over to you, Eddie Howe …
Dominic Hoffman narrates this satirical, Booker-nominated reworking of the children’s classic, written from the perspective of the enslaved Jim
This satirical, Booker-shortlisted tale flips the script on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the children’s novel published in 1884 and set in Mississippi that went on to become a toxic cornerstone of the American canon. Where Twain had teenage Huck as his narrator, in James, Percival Everett reimagines the story from the perspective of his friend and fellow runaway Jim, an enslaved Black man who opens the book with the line: “Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.”
The little bastards in question are Huck and his pal Tom Sawyer, who want to play a trick on Jim while he sleeps. He is alert to the boys’ games but plays along because, as he has learned from experience: “It always pays to give white folks what they want.” When our protagonist learns he is to be sold downriver and separated from his family, he hides on nearby Jackson Island while he comes up with a plan. There he is joined by Huck, who is trying to escape his abusive father.
Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Baron also said: “I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.”
When her son was born, it felt like another member of our family had arrived
One day in June 2019, I was getting ready for work when a story on TV caught my attention. A woman was talking about donating her womb to a stranger. She explained why she’d decided to give someone the chance to experience pregnancy. As a mother of two, I was blown away.
At lunch I was glued to my phone, reading everything I could about the procedure: how the first successful uterus transplant had taken place in Sweden in 2013, and how the operation had been carried out in the US since 2016. How it was helping women who had lost their uteri due to cancer, or never developed one because of the congenital condition Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH).
The Ukrainian author on the joys of Jack London, cracking Hermann Hesse, and the soldier’s tale he can no longer reread
My earliest reading memory
My grandmother’s medical encyclopedias. She was a military surgeon during the second world war and then a doctor for children with tuberculosis. I spent five years of my childhood in her house. I really only looked at the pictures of tumours and wounds, but my curiosity forced me to decode the annotations, which were, as you can imagine, not designed for an emergent reader.
My favourite book growing up Martin Eden by Jack London. The main character’s dream of becoming a writer – his tremendously strong will – was probably what captivated me most.
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
China has dramatically increased military activities around Taiwan, with more than 3,000 incursions into Taiwan's airspace in 2024 alone. Amy Hawkins examines how Beijing is deploying 'salami-slicing' tactics, a strategy of gradual pressure that stays below the threshold of war while steadily wearing down Taiwan's defences. From daily air incursions to strategic military exercises, we explore the four phases of China's approach and what it means for Taiwan's future
Tennis has been awash for nearly 60 years with stellar rivalries, especially on the men’s side. But it’s becoming clear the next great one might not be around the corner
The Australian Open exists on its own in the tennis calendar at the start of the year – not really connected to what came before or what ensues immediately after; it’s nearly five months removed from both the US Open that precedes it and the French Open that follows it. For most followers of the sport, the real start of the calendar year tennis season, for both men and women, is the PNB Paribas event at Indian Wells, which starts on Wednesday. Long considered the sport’s “fifth slam”, the tournament starts a torrid nonstop stretch of seven months of intense competition. As this long winter slowly loses its grip on the country, fans will revel in watching the best men and women competing under the hot desert sun.
But, unfortunately, the men’s side of the draw will be somewhat lacking because of the absence of Jannik Sinner, due to his three-month ban from competition for his “inadvertent” doping. Sinner will be able to resume playing on 4 May, in time for the Italian Open and then Roland Garros.
(Krets) Anders Hana, Olva Christer Rossebø and Åshild Vetrhus take inspiration from Norway’s rugged Rogaland in these tracks sourced from early-to-mid 20th century recordings
A new Norwegian folk label, Krets, arrives with an arresting debut release – an “anarchistic” set of songs, dances, ballads and psalms from the rugged south-western county of Rogaland.
Malmin, a duo of experimental musician Anders Hana and folk-rock and cajun-pop instrumentalist Olav Christer Rossebø, write in their album’s liner notes of the Rogaland elders whose performance style inspired them, and how “their hunt to resonate with the depth of the human soul spared no means”. Fittingly, these nine tracks largely sound like deliciously diabolical spells. Some are scraped on eight-string harding fiddles, others plucked or picked on mouth-harps, microtonal mandolins and guitars, where extra frets help the musicians play the tones between semitones. All are sourced from early-to-mid 20th-century recordings, and range from feverish dances such as Hallingkule (where repeated cyclical patterns sound ferocious between the bow’s horsehair and the strings’ steel) and the uncanny shimmer of Vinjavalsen (played on the langeleik, a zither with one string for the melody and eight for drones).
Presidents have always used sports to further their own agendas. The current incumbent has identified exactly where he can boost himself the most
Donald Trump’s appearance at this year’s Daytona 500 was not subtle.
Named the race’s grand marshal, the president buzzed the speedway from aboard Air Force One, dangling the world’s most advanced airliner above 150,000 Nascar fans the way a parent humors an infant with a spoonful of baby food. Later, from the backseat of the presidential limousine, AKA The Beast, he paced the 41-car field around the oval track before the race. The sight of that 20,000lb machine sticking to the track’s banked lanes at 70 mph blew away the crowd all over again. “This is your favorite president,” he told the drivers via their in-car radio system. “I’m a really big fan of you people. You’re talented people and great people and great Americans.” The shock and awe spectacle couldn’t have been more fitting of a man who has been taking the country for a ride since he entered public life more than 50 years ago.
For the first time in English, the sensational memoirs of Josephine Baker – cabaret star, activist and spy
‘Who else could ever have had a story like hers?” writes Ijeoma Oluo in the foreword to Josephine Baker’s memoir. “The dancer, the singer, the ingenue, the scandal maker, the activist, the spy – Josephine Baker lived at least 10 lives in one.” Translated gorgeously into English for the first time by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis, Fearless and Free comprises stories and reflections in Baker’s own voice, drawn from conversations with the French writer Marcel Sauvage that began in 1926 and continued for more than 20 years afterwards. They cover her early life in St Louis, her adventures in Europe and eventual transformation into, as Sauvage puts it, an “actress and French citizen of worldwide renown”.
Memoirs that span a lifetime can lack narrative drive. “Life, when you think about it later,” says Baker, “is a series of images … a film in your heart.” And yet Baker’s matchless character propels the reader. She exudes love and life on the page. And that voice! Her younger one, bright, witty, effervescent, and her older one, wiser, angrier, and still so funny.
The get-together between the UK prime minister and US president barely made a splash across the Atlantic
A quick scan of the UK newspaper front pages and you would be forgiven for thinking it was the diplomatic moment of the century, but a glance at the media on the other side of the Atlantic suggests Keir Starmer and Donald Trump’s get-together barely made a splash.
Instead, much of the scant coverage portrayed the prime minister as a messenger, bringing an invite for something much more glamorous than a former lawyer from Oxted: the royal red carpet.
The mercurial boxing savant returns to Brooklyn on Saturday with another big payday and signature knockout expected. But the real question is what comes next
Gervonta Davis leaned back from the microphone, a slow grin creeping onto his face, brimming with the earned confidence of a man who’s seen this all before. “You know what I come to do, man,” the World Boxing Association’s lightweight champion said. “You know why I’m here. I don’t want to say too much. [His mother] is over there in the corner. Got to keep it polite, but y’all know: fireworks.”
It was the same styling of laconic menace he’s dispensed at nearly every press conference before his fights, and yet it still sent a quiet ripple through the Barclays Center atrium on Thursday afternoon. Because when Davis says it, history has shown he’s standing on business. Thirty bouts, 30 wins, 28 knockouts. World titles at 130lb, 135lb and 140lb while selling out arenas from coast to coast. There’s a reason why the squat Baltimore southpaw nicknamed Tank has become the face of American boxing and one of its vanishingly few dependable box-office attractions. People don’t just pay to see him win. They tune in to see how he finishes the show.
5th over: Afghanistan 23-1 (Ibrahim 3, Sediq 6) Johnson, who is moving the ball both in the air and on the pitch, beats Sediq with three successive deliveries. As Ian Smith says on commentary, Afghanistan just need to get through this spell – it’s fine if they are 40 for 1 after 10 overs.
4th over: Afghanistan 20-1 (Ibrahim 1, Sediq 5) So far Dwarshuis has been able to control the swing pretty well; two from his second over.
NGOs accuse prime minister of following US by accepting ‘false choice’ of cutting aid to fund defence
Sir Keir Starmer is to take UK overseas aid to its lowest level as a percentage of national income since records began, even if he manages to halve the current £4.5bn cost of housing asylum seekers.
The extraordinary finding, a complete reversal of Labour manifesto pledges and its historical commitment to helping the world’s poorest, is made by Ian Mitchell, the co-director of the respected London-based thinktank the Centre for Global Development.
The best ones trap moisture and prevent hair damage – and using them involves minimal effort
A few months ago and on hairdresser’s orders, I went looking for a leave-in conditioner and found they were nearing extinction.
Leave-ins seemed to be everywhere a decade or so ago. I could only assume that, like me, most consumers had forgotten how valuable they are in preventing hair damage in return for the lowest possible effort. As I wonder what to do about my chronically over-bleached ends, I wish I’d come to my senses sooner.
Squad containing 15- and 16-year-olds will have stadium experience in FA Youth Cup tie against Manchester United
‘The players are on the floor in the changing room but youth football is never make or break,” Jack Wilshere reflected. “It’s important that they continue to develop but whether they can make it to the first team will be down to them.”
It has not been two years since Arsenal’s Under-18s were thrashed 5-1 by West Ham at the Emirates in the FA Youth Cup final but the former England midfielder’s prediction has come true. Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly were two of the players who had to be consoled that night by their manager, Wilshere, and both are established as first-team regulars even though they are still eligible to play in the competition that has served as a springboard for so many young stars.
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