Russian airstrikes in Sumy, a paediatric hospital in Gaza, Holy Week processions in Spain and Rory McIlroy winning the Masters: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Order comes a day after the ‘efficiency’ team sent out orders to lay off 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 employees

A federal court has blocked the sweeping termination of staff at the top US consumer protection agency, a day after the Trump administration moved to axe around 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 workforce, while officials investigate whether the action violated existing judicial orders.

The ruling from judge Amy Berman Jackson put a legal hurdle in front of mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Thursday, which came after a federal appeals court modified – but did not eliminate – an injunction limiting the agency’s ability to terminate employees.

Pop star posts on Instagram about his fright and ‘discomfort’ when asked for photos and autographs

Robbie Williams has spoken of the “discomfort” and “panic” he feels when he is approached for photos and autographs by fans.

In a post on Instagram, the pop star said he was able to “mask” the reality that social interactions frighten him.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of the man wrongly deported to El Salvador, gives interview after learning he’s alive

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man the Trump administration has admitted it mistakenly deported to El Salvador, on Friday expressed relief to learn he is alive after a Democratic US senator managed to meet with him.

“It was very overwhelming – the most important thing for me, my children, his mom, brothers was to see him alive, and we saw him alive” Vasquez Sura told ABC in an interview.

The ambitions of two generals and the interests of other states have led to the massacre of adults and children already forced to flee their homes

Sudan has begun its third year of civil war in the bleakest manner imaginable: mourning the massacre of hundreds of civilians and relief workers in displacement camps in Darfur. What began as a power struggle between generals has led to the killing of tens of thousands of people and widespread sexual and ethnic violence. The International Rescue Committee says the result is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: 640,000 people face catastrophic hunger. Basic services and infrastructure, already woefully inadequate, have been destroyed.

“One thing that has been consistent since day one,” the Sudanese activist and commentator Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem observed this week, “[is that] it’s a war on civilians. Now, I think we’ve become so desensitised to it, that doesn’t make much of a difference any more. There’s no impact.”

For vast swathes of this match – the first half, in particular – any spectator would have been hard-pressed to identify the Premier League-destined team on the cusp of an all-time Football League clean-sheet record.

Not only did Watford find a route past James Trafford – a rare occurrence in just 14 of Burnley’s 43 Championship matches – but the England goalkeeper endured a torrid afternoon preventing the hosts from becoming the first team to score two goals against him in the Championship this season.

Doyenne of children’s literature has regularly utilised social media in support of women-only spaces

Cocktail in hand and puffing on a celebratory cigar onboard her superyacht, reportedly somewhere in the Bahamas, JK Rowling celebrated on social media after this week’s UK supreme court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” she posted on X, borrowing the catchphrase from the popular 80s TV series The A-Team.

US adults in the age group are using cannabis to treat pain and poor sleep – and they’re a fast-growing market

Polls suggest Americans aged 65 and older are trying cannabis for the first time more than any other group in the country. This trend is propelled by decreased stigma and increased legalization, with 24 states and the District of Columbia allowing recreational use (in the UK, recreational use is still illegal).

But there’s something else too. Getting older comes with its challenges, physically and emotionally. Some people are betting on cannabis as a way to navigate these hurdles. Research indicates older adults primarily use cannabis for health-related issues, like poor sleep, pain and mental health concerns such as anxiety.

Emergency strike duo reeling in Lyon was electrifying while also showing deep flaws in Ruben Amorim’s squad

Bedlam, pandemonium, ecstasy and simply wow: Manchester United’s three-goal, six-minute (and 34 seconds) blockbuster extra-time comeback from 4-2 down is one for the ages, and a thrilling advertisement for the heart-stopping drama football can generate.

Yet if the Harry Maguire header that KO’d Lyon was a last, heroic act of a pell-mell, childhood-like jumpers-for-goalposts victory, it should also clang alarm bells for the fragile unit Ruben Amorim oversees, and cause a serious reality check.

Joe Montemurro and Renée Slegers are reunited but can they find a way to stop each other’s array of attacking talent?

The former Arsenal manager Joe Montemurro, who left the club at the end of the 2020-21 season, returns to the Emirates Stadium when Arsenal host the eight-time European champions Lyon on Saturday in their Champions League semi-final first leg. Montemurro, who led Arsenal to a first Women’s Super League title in seven years in 2019, was previously back in N5 in 2023, where his Juventus team lost 1-0 in the Champions League. Arsenal look very different, on and off the pitch, to the club he left. They upped their investment in and commitment to the women’s side after a review towards the end of Montemurro’s tenure, but a face familiar to him sits in the home dugout. While with Arsenal Montemurro was paired with Renée Slegers on the Uefa coach mentor programme in the early stages of the former Netherlands international’s coaching journey. Montemurro describes her as “a perfect fit for Arsenal”: “She really has brought back a level of belief in the squad and who they are. It’s a reflection of her. She’s very confident in what she does. She’s very strategic in how she goes about things. I’m so happy for her, happy she was given the opportunity and took it because it’s a very big job but she seems to be handling it well.” He said with a laugh: “I must have taught her well.”

Wind power developer eyes legal remedies to order that blocks renewable energy projects and eliminates green job opportunities

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The buildout of renewable energy projects in downstate New York – the region that includes the Hudson valley and below – is often complicated. The space for these projects is limited, particularly in New York City, and they’re often expensive.

Enthusiasts gathering on Good Friday – renamed Carfreitag – face curbs on unauthorised tuning, illegal races and pollution

Police in Germany have announced a crackdown on illegal racing and the unauthorised modification of cars as members of the so-called tuning scene meet across the country for the start of their annual season.

The Good Friday holiday marking Christ’s death on the cross, called Karfreitag in German – from the Old High German word kara, meaning sorrow – is otherwise known by the extreme car enthusiasts as Carfreitag (car Friday) for its unofficial gathering of the “tuners” and “car posers”.

He might not hop to it

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

It’s one of Victoria’s favourite national parks for good reason. Hiking the park’s south reveals stunning coastlines and complex history, topped off by a night in a lighthouse

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We left the Wilsons Promontory Lightstation with one last look out to sea, admiring the chain of islands leading like stepping stones across the Strait. They’re the remnants of a landbridge between the Prom and Tasmania’s Freycinet, a link easily seen in the areas’ shared beauty: fine white sand, rough granite and bright orange lichen contrasting with a startlingly blue sea. It’s the nature, the beauty and the walking that brought us here, as well as a sense of unfinished business.

My husband and I had been coming to Wilsons Prom for decades, for day walks and multi-day hikes. But we’d never made it to the lighthouse, or stayed in the cottages converted to walkers’ accommodation. To tackle the trip, we booked two bunkrooms and roped in the Schultz family. It would be the first time either of our families – four adults and five kids aged nine to 15 – had attempted a four-day walk, but there was a reward waiting at the end. After 30km of trekking around the Prom, on the last night we’d have luxuries: the cottages’ hot showers and comfy beds.

Stars and their high-quality content enable streamers and others to pull in younger audiences

From MrBeast creating the world’s most expensive reality TV show and Jake Paul’s record-breaking clash with Mike Tyson to the British supergroup Sidemen’s Netflix deal, YouTube’s superstar creators are taking over mainstream television.

Last month Netflix launched the second series of Inside, the Sidemen’s reality show that was a hit when the first run of episodes premiered on YouTube.

The star’s new single, Azizam, is a rare pop-cultural moment in which Iran is celebrated for the beauty of its culture

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As a second-generation Persian immigrant, my connection with my roots has always been relatively surface-level. Admiring the intricate artworks adorning the walls of our homes, hand-loomed rugs crafted by my own grandmother, barberry-laden rice and saffron-infused stews, the music of Googoosh, Bijan Mortazavi and Susan Roshan blasting from dawn to dusk.

My parents spoke Farsi to one another and to me when I was a child and as such it was my mother tongue. But I was born in Australia, so it was only going to be a matter of time before I became more proficient in English. Now I stumble my way through conversations in broken Farsi, longing for the day when Iran will be safe enough to finally visit and I can hopefully scrub up my language skills.

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Tequila blitzed with its traditional pineapple juice-based chaser will leave your tastebuds tingling

In Mexico, it’s traditional to serve a refreshing, alcohol-free chaser with or after tequila – that is, a red, pomegranate juice-based sangrita or a green, herby pineapple verdita. So we thought, why not combine the two in the same glass?

Lukas Etas for Bloodsports, London WC2

Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family

As a young photojournalist living in Gaza, Fatima Hassouna knew that death was always at her doorstep. As she spent the past 18 months of war documenting airstrikes, the demolition of her home, the endless displacement and the killing of 11 family members, all she demanded was that she not be allowed to go quietly.

“If I die, I want a loud death,” Hassouna wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”

With the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, investors may find comfort in a trusted pair of hands

Two weeks after Donald Trump announced his “liberation day” tariffs, the fashion industry finds itself in turmoil as it tries to navigate the chaos unleashed.

Some are calling it the “tariffpocalypse”, with the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, snarling up supplies and hiking costs, alongside plummeting consumer confidence.

The authors of a new book explain why understanding the science of stress can help us manage it better

True (up to a point)
The way stress manifests is very much bodily, centred around hormones such as cortisol and their effect on us. But this process is triggered by the brain (notably the amygdala and the hypothalamus) and the way our brains react to stress is often set in early childhood, even in the womb. Pregnant women who experience extreme stress can give birth to infants who react more strongly to stress hormones – with increasing evidence suggesting that this causes modifications to the baby’s DNA. Self-actualising your way out of stress is difficult – not least because the causes might be serious and inescapable – but not always impossible. Some studies have shown that if you tell people they are the sort of person who doesn’t feel stress, they experience fewer symptoms. One US study found that teenagers growing up with worries about violent crime in a deprived part of Chicago tended to fare better if they simply tried to not think about it.

A bigger, shareable, scoopable panna cotta with biscuity almond shards and a simple lemon syrup

Panna cotta is one of those desserts that looks more technical than it really is. But, in fact, it’s probably one of the easiest desserts you can make, and there are so many ways to infuse it with different flavours. Recently, I’ve been ditching individual moulds and serving it in large, sharing-style dishes, which means you can make it with a softer, silkier consistency, because it doesn’t need to hold its shape. Instead, you can just scoop and serve.

The first priority must be the safety of the most vulnerable – your mother and your sister’s children

• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader

I’m a 40-year-old man and worried about my family. Since my sister (in her late 30s) became pregnant with her first child four years ago, there hasn’t been a period longer than a week without her and my mother getting into toxic fights.

A couple of days ago, after my sister had resorted (yet again) to calling our mother names, she also ended up grabbing her by the throat.

A record 10 Chinese players are in the main draw at the Crucible, where picking a winner is tougher than ever

It has been fairly common in recent years to discuss the winds of change blowing through the World Snooker Championship. But this year, with talk of the Crucible’s future being quieter than usual, it is on the baize where a significant shift might be poised to take place.

The usual suspects – for the most part – are still assembling in Sheffield for snooker’s most prestigious event. Some of them in quite imperious form, too. But whereas a case can often be made for no more than three or four players to take home the £500,000 top prize and world champion crown, this year there is a much more open field.

Even amid political chaos and rising prices, what matters most to his supporters is a macabre form of payback and vengeance

The stock market is plunging, prices are rising, federal workers are getting laid off, students are being snatched off the street by immigration agents. The US is many things at the moment, but stable is not one of them. So, amid all this turmoil, how are all the Donald Trump voters feeling? Has buyer’s remorse set in? Are they starting to wonder whether voting in a convicted felon as president – a man who has declared bankruptcy six times – might not have been the wisest move?

Not according to the polls. Rather, the US appears to be a nation of Édith Piafs: they regret rien. I’m not saying that disillusioned Republicans don’t exist; do enough digging and you can certainly find a few. And journalists have been doing a lot of digging. During Trump’s first term, there was a steady stream of media pieces profiling the regretful Trump voter. The genre has remained popular through the first few months of Trump 2.0. But, according to a much-discussed segment by CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten this week, polling proves that the idea of “regretful” Trump voters is “more of a media creation than anything else”.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Move reportedly came after drones over king’s residence sparked worries on weekend of Ukraine president’s arrival

A no-fly zone order has been put in place over the Sandringham estate after drones were spotted flying in the area last month while Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the royal residence.

Security services requested the restrictions, which were put in place to protect “members of the royal family and other dignitaries”, days after King Charles hosted the Ukrainian president on 2 March at the Norfolk estate. They came into force just over a week later on 10 March.

US president tells reporters he needs to see ‘enthusiasm’ from both sides to end the war in Ukraine

The US is optimistic that it can end “the very brutal war” between Russia and Ukraine, Vice-President JD Vance said before a bilateral meeting with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday.

The meeting comes less than 24 hours after the pair met in Washington. Vance said:

I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine … even in the past 24 hours, we think we have some interesting things to report on.

Since there are the negotiations I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close.

Suspect arrested and charged with attack on Florida State University in Tallahassee that also left six injured

Students at Florida State University (FSU) returned to a campus that was still in shock on Friday to retrieve the belongings they abandoned in their scramble to escape a gunman, including laptops, handbags and even shoes, and a vigil was planned for the evening, after a student killed two people and left six others injured.

Many had gathered on Thursday night, hugging and in tears, around a makeshift memorial on a sidewalk on campus, bringing candles, flowers, teddy bears and notes for the survivors. The impromptu memorials, dotted around the campus in the state capital of Tallahassee, came just hours after authorities arrested and charged a fellow student, Phoenix Ikner, 20, with the shooting.

It’s the key to affordable white burgundy

I find myself using the phrase “relative value” more and more these days. You know, when you buy something you think is a good deal, because you’re comparing it with something that’s infinitely more expensive, so it just feels as if you’re saving money. Buying Baylis & Harding hand soap because Aesop is £33. Renting a small room in London for more than £1,000 a month because at least you’re not paying £2,000 for a place to yourself. A few months ago, people tried to coin this school of thought as “girl math”’, but we are all equally guilty of this specific kind of economic reasoning.

Relative value is how you get what you want for less (but still spend the money anyway), and what I want is affordable white burgundy. I’m not going to get it, of course, but I can certainly spend what little money I have on something that’s close enough.

The White House is targeting people seen as opponents of its agenda – here are some of the most high-profile cases

Donald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. The administration has set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting asylum seekers and refugees while conducting raids in undocumented communities and spreading fear.

Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multi-pronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution.

Since its 2010 release, Robyn’s downbeat hit has influenced Charli xcx and Taylor Swift, soundtracked films and TV shows, and been yelled in unison at club nights. What’s the secret of its longevity?

As the flirtation first begins to build between CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) and her twentysomething intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) in the recent erotic thriller Babygirl, the two find themselves at opposite ends of a dancefloor. Romy pulls away from her husband and stares – pouting – at Samuel, who embraces another woman, a familiar staccato beat pulsing out around them. “I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her,” the lyrics narrate. “I’m right over here, why can’t you see me?” It’s the perfect needle drop, conveying Romy’s desire but also her sense of alienation. Gladly for her, their torrid affair begins nonetheless, and soon the pair are throwing shapes at a sweaty techno rave.

The song that plays is, of course, Dancing on My Own by Robyn, from her Body Talk Pt 1 album, a tune so familiar by now that I felt a Pavlovian urge to start caterwauling along in the cinema. Fifteen years on from its original release in April 2010, the track has established itself as pop’s great modern “sad banger”, in the vein of classics such as Donna Summer’s Last Dance and I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Like those tracks it is a song that gets you up and moving, while breaking your heart into several tiny pieces.

Inspired by ‘Hot Girls for Bernie’, a grassroots campaign is rallying behind the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani

“Hot girls” may not be a pollster-approved voting bloc in the way that young men or the college-educated are, but since the 2020 election the demographic has held a particular status – at least for the very online.

It started in 2020, when the model Emily Ratajkowski officially endorsed Bernie Sanders’s pre-pandemic presidential campaign. Inspired by Ratajkowski, self-professed hot girls piled on their endorsements, posting selfies with the hashtag #HotGirlsForBernie. Some saw it as a way to counter the persistent “Bernie bro” narrative, a rebuke of the idea that Sanders’s fandom consisted solely of obnoxious, socialist-in-name-only men who lived their lives on Twitter.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

• Semi-final against Athletic Bilbao now the priority
• Amass, Obi and Heaven in line to get more game time

Ruben Amorim will use younger players in Manchester United’s next three Premier League fixtures as he prioritises the Europa League semi-final against Athletic Bilbao.

United play at Athletic on 1 May and host the return a week later. Matches against Wolves and Bournemouth precede the first leg and United go to Brentford in between the European fixtures.

First known such ‘pamflyt’ in English has contemporary resonance, with advice on food intolerances and eating cheese after a meal

They are 450-year-old words of wisdom but they will ring true with anyone rooting around the fridge for late night comfort: “A surfyte of cheese doth bringe payne.”

The warning for people to curb their enthusiasm is contained in the earliest-known book on cheese in English, a publication that academics say is both fascinating and nauseating.

Retailers and food producers offer to help efforts to reduce ‘unnecessary red tape’ costing industry billions of pounds

More than a dozen of Britain’s biggest retailers and food producers, including Marks & Spencer, J Sainsbury and Asda, have called on the EU to reduce checks on food and drink crossing the Channel and Irish Sea, which they say are costing billions of pounds.

Ahead of a summit on 19 May that is hoped to “reset” trade ties five years on from Brexit, they are urging politicians to hammer out a deal on sanitary and phytosanitary checks. They hope this would include a veterinary agreement and would harmonise food safety rules or recognise them as equivalent.

Big broadcasters are launching hit series on the video-sharing platform, while its stars are winning Emmys. Insiders discuss how YouTube became the TV of tomorrow

What’s the difference between YouTube and TV? Two decades ago, that would have been a very easy question to answer. TV was the stuff that was on – you guessed it – television, with its budgets, scripts, multiple camera angles and lights. The first video ever uploaded to YouTube, meanwhile, could never have been mistaken for it. “All right, so here we are in front of the, uh, elephants,” a pixelated young man told the camera. “The cool thing about these guys is that … is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks.” The video was uploaded on 23 April 2005 and marked the true launch of the video-sharing site.

This February, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan declared: “YouTube is the new television.” He was referring to the fact that more and more people watch YouTube videos on the big screen: apparently, users play 1bn hours of YouTube on their smart TVs a day. But at the same time, more and more people are watching TV on YouTube: Disney uploaded the first three episodes of its Star Wars spin-off Andor to the site in March, while ITV has been sharing its shows on YouTube since December.

Centre-left parties slam ‘racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic’ faked images posted on social media by League party

Opposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, calling them “racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic”, the Guardian has learned.

The centre-left Democratic party (PD), with the Greens and Left Alliance, filed a complaint on Thursday with Agcom, the Italian communications regulatory authority, alleging the fake images used by the League contained “almost all categories of hate speech”.

Analysis aims to solidify agreement on cannabis’s potential as a cancer treatment, lead author of research says

The largest ever study investigating medical cannabis as a treatment for cancer, published this week in Frontiers in Oncology, found overwhelming scientific support for cannabis’s potential to treat cancer symptoms and potentially fight the course of the disease itself.

The intention of the analysis was to solidify agreement on cannabis’s potential as a cancer treatment, said Ryan Castle, research director at the Whole Health Oncology Institute and lead author of the study. Castle noted that it has been historically difficult to do so because marijuana is still federally considered an illegal Schedule I narcotic.

PC, PS5, XBox; Don’t Nod
The concluding half of this two-parter may be lacking in interactive challenges, but is profound, sensitively structured and emotionally resonant

One thing you realise as you get older is that memories are plastic and that the stories you tell about your life change with every recollection, depending on who you are at the time. This is one of the themes – and indeed the mechanics – of Lost Records, a narrative adventure about four teenage girls who develop an intense friendship in rural Michigan during the summer of 1995. In the first instalment, they form a band, discover an old shack in the woods to use as a clubhouse, and encounter a supernatural force emanating from a deep hole they discover nearby. But as autumn draws in and the girls plan a climactic rock gig, tragic secrets are uncovered.

Cleverly, the story is told mostly in flashback, as the characters meet again, decades later, in their long-abandoned home town – they’re older, wiser and with new perspectives on what happened to them as teenagers. Lead character Swann, a keen photographer whose video camera provides a key game interface in the first episode, is living a solitary life, while Autumn is still filled with anxiety and Nora is now an influencer. Missing is Kat whose terminal cancer diagnosis obliterates their world at the close of part one.