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index.feed.received.today — 19 mai 2025The Guardian

Brighton v Liverpool: Premier League – live

19 mai 2025 à 21:05

3 min: “I hope you enjoy the game tonight!” emails Steve G. “I’m one of many – seems well over a thousand from the ticket site – season ticket holders unable to make the game tonight because Sky dictated a move of the fixture to 8pm on a Monday while so many have families, or themselves, with pretty important school exams this week for example. If there any opportunity to point out how unfair it is on fans to move fixtures to times that don’t take them into any consideration please do so, last home game of the season too. A bit like when during lockdown much was made of football not being the same without fans…then a few months after we were allowed back they scheduled Brighton v Brentford for evening on Boxing Day when all public transport had stopped for the day. Empty seats tonight aren’t because we don’t care - I’ll be at Spurs on Sunday - and it’s not because we think we’ve got nothing to play for, it’s because Sky made it impossible to go.”

1 min: Liverpool are nearly ahead after 52 seconds! Gakpo finds some space on the left, drives inside and dodging a clumsy Wieffer tackle on the edge of Brighton’s area, and curls a low shot just wide of Verbruggen’s left-hand post!

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© Photograph: Tony O Brien/Reuters

© Photograph: Tony O Brien/Reuters

Trump officials reportedly reach $5m settlement in January 6 wrongful death suit

19 mai 2025 à 20:50

Family sought $30m in damages after Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by police during 2021 US Capitol breach

The Trump administration has reportedly reached an agreement to pay nearly $5m to the family of the woman who was fatally shot by law enforcement while participating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol carried out by the president’s supporters.

Citing multiple sources, the Washington Post reported on Monday that the Trump administration had agreed to pay the family of Ashli Babbitt to settle the wrongful death lawsuit they filed after the attack.

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© Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

© Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Microsoft employee interrupts CEO’s keynote with pro-Palestinian protest

19 mai 2025 à 20:27

Protester is engineer who worked on Azure software, which enabled Israeli surveillance of Palestinians

A Microsoft employee disrupted a keynote speech by the company’s chief executive with a pro-Palestinian protest at the company’s annual developer conference on Monday.

Joe Lopez, a Microsoft firmware engineer who worked on parts of the company’s cloud-computing platform, Azure, was escorted out the Build conference by security nearly immediately after he confronted Satya Nadella.

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© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Lawyer for Venezuelans deported to El Salvador prison arrested

Ruth López held without access to lawyers at secret location accused of ‘embezzlement’ a decade ago

The head lawyer of a human rights group representing the families of Venezuelan migrants imprisoned in El Salvador after being deported from the United States has been arrested.

Ruth López, an outspoken critic of President Nayib Bukele, was detained late on Sunday under an order from the prosecutor’s office which accused her of “embezzlement” when she worked for an electoral court a decade ago, the human rights group Cristosal said in a statement.

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© Photograph: SECOM/Reuters

© Photograph: SECOM/Reuters

The Guardian view on the EU trade deal: a rational step forward | Editorial

19 mai 2025 à 20:00

Tangible gains from these negotiations will be limited, but the prime minister has at last set a positive tone

So much remains to be worked out in Sir Keir Starmer’s deal with the EU that it must be regarded as a staging post rather than a final destination. In several key areas, the agreement announced in London on Monday is really a commitment to have more meetings at which negotiators will try to make more agreements.

On the issue of visas for young people and the UK’s mooted return to the Erasmus university-exchange scheme, there is little clarity beyond the rebranding of “youth mobility” as “experience”. A decision on the level of fees that European students must pay has also been booted forward. So have some details of how the UK will work with the bloc on policing and security, including the use of controversial facial-recognition technology in tackling drug and people smuggling across borders.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA

© Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA

Jim Morrison’s long-lost graveside bust turns up during French police search

19 mai 2025 à 20:00

Police make chance find of sculpture that adorned Doors singer’s Paris grave until its 1988 disappearance

Carved out of white marble and covered in graffiti, the hefty bust disappeared in 1988. Now, 37 years later, the doe-eyed sculpture that once adorned the grave of the American singer Jim Morrison has been found, in what Paris prosecutors described as a “chance discovery”.

Police in France said they had been carrying out a search related to a fraud case when they happened to stumble upon the bust of the frontman of The Doors. The announcement, made on social media on Monday, was accompanied by a photo showing the graying sculpture still covered in graffiti and missing a chunk of its nose, reportedly sliced off by souvenir hunters before its disappearance.

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© Photograph: DJP-PP/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: DJP-PP/AFP/Getty Images

The Guardian view on Romania’s presidential election upset: a vote for stability and the west | Editorial

19 mai 2025 à 19:59

A stunning comeback victory for the centrist mayor of Bucharest was also good news for Kyiv. But elsewhere in Europe, the far right continues to flourish

As Romanians voted on Sunday in arguably the most consequential election in the country’s post-communist history, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will have been preparing to welcome a fellow disruptor to the European stage. The first round of a controversially re-run presidential contest had been handsomely won by George Simion, a Eurosceptic ultranationalist who views Donald Trump as a “natural ally” and opposes military aid to Ukraine. On the back of a 20-point lead, Mr Simion, a 38-year-old former football ultra with a taste for violent rhetoric, was so confident of winning that he made a confrontational visit to Brussels in the last days of his campaign.

Those expectations were confounded in remarkable fashion at the weekend. In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, benefited from the highest voter turnout in 30 years to triumph comfortably. One of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Mr Dan was a relieved Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, in Hungary and Slovakia, already has to contend with two Putin-friendly governments on Ukraine’s western border.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

© Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

Young British woman held on drug charges in Sri Lanka could be linked to Culley case

19 mai 2025 à 19:46

Charlotte May Lee, 21, from south London, flew from the same Bangkok airport as Bella May Culley, who was arrested a day earlier

Within a day of Bella May Culley being arrested at a Georgian airport for allegedly trying to smuggle 14kg of cannabis, the same fate met another Briton 3,000 miles away.

As Charlotte May Lee stepped off her flight at Bandaranaike International airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka last Monday, the 21-year-old former cabin attendant was arrested for an alleged attempt to bring in £1.2m worth of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush in her two suitcases.

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© Composite: Twitter/X

© Composite: Twitter/X

From Coogler to Cruise: the Hollywood heroes saving cinema

19 mai 2025 à 19:30

With concerns remaining over the theatrical experience, some key figures are working hard at ensuring it survives

Throughout film history, there have been vanishingly few directors whose brand names reach the heights of the movie stars who log time in front of the camera. That’s natural; we see people like Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman, Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise in movie after movie, sometimes experiencing a love-at-first-sight lightning-strike moment, sometimes developing a relationship over many years, and sometimes a combination of the two. Directors, for the most part, remain hidden, with a select few – Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese – popping through to broader public consciousness, a process that seems to take twice as long. (Martin Scorsese became a commercial prospect roughly 30 years into his career.)

It’s a little surprising, then, that the newest crop of directors reaching for (or in some case, already attaining) brand-name status have become the public faces of saving an imperiled theatrical experience. Christopher Nolan was out front to an arguably foolhardy degree, lobbying for theaters to reopen and show his planned 2020 summer blockbuster Tenet before Covid vaccines were in place. He was understandably pilloried at the time, though now he’s celebrated for his big-canvas vision to the point where an Imax re-release of Tenet (at a safer time for public health) was a big ticket-seller for Warner Bros and helped inspire a similar reissue of his once-maligned sci-fi epic Interstellar.

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© Photograph: Dave Benett/WireImage

© Photograph: Dave Benett/WireImage

Singer Dawn Richard tells court Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs hit Cassie Ventura

19 mai 2025 à 19:04

‘He would punch her, choke her, slap her,’ says Richard as second week of music mogul’s sex-trafficking trial resumes

The second week of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking trial began on Monday morning with the singer Dawn Richard returning to the witness stand.

Combs, 55, is facing charges of sex-trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He was arrested in September 2024 and has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.

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© Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

© Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Bedrock in the bedroom and an indoor stream: is this Arizona’s strangest home?

19 mai 2025 à 19:00

Sidewinder Ranch, a 40-acre property built over natural rock formations, comes with desert views and a bulldozer

Want to commune with nature? Bring the outside in? Ditch your white-noise machine for a babbling brook going through your living room?

A home that went on the market last month in Arizona offers all this and more. Sidewinder Ranch is a 40-acre hillside property built over natural rock formations. Every room is of geological interest, with a TV shelf perched on rock and boulders creeping to the foot of the bed. A fountain built inside has the feel of a mountain stream, and the property has stunning desert views. “Buy 40 acres but it might as well be 400,” read the listing.

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© Photograph: Courtesy Desert Rat Realty

© Photograph: Courtesy Desert Rat Realty

Needless controversy over foreign-born Lions players ramps up pressure

19 mai 2025 à 19:00

The ‘Southern Hemisphere Seven’ long ago proved their commitment, making criticism of selection unwarranted

For the class of 2017 it was the Geography Six and for the current crop, it may prove to be the Southern Hemisphere Seven. Andy Farrell’s squad announcement was low on controversy, on glaring omissions or shock inclusions, and even the Owen issue was dealt with diplomatically. In the days since, however, provenance has been raised as a problem.

Farrell selected in his squad three players born in New Zealand, two in Australia and two in South Africa. Willie John McBride – a legend of five Lions tours – is apparently “bothered” by it and is not alone in expressing concerns at the number of foreign-born players in the 38-man squad.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

This new EU deal is great for Britain. Now, Labour, focus on the future, not on Farage | Polly Toynbee

19 mai 2025 à 18:53

Cheaper food, passport e-gates, youth exchanges – we are finally on a path to repair the colossal damage Brexit has done

Circle the wagons: Europe draws together confronting an enemy to its east and a rogue state to its west. “Everything has changed,” said the prime minister and chancellor, and so it has. Once nestled in the arms of Nato, now alarmingly alone, we have no choice but to embrace neighbours we shunned. Thanks to Vladimir Putin, (nearly) all Europeans now see clearly what was always the case. In danger we need each other, never mind fish or dynamic alignment.

But talking about less important things was always the British way. So headlines and the Today programme bang on about the 12-year continuance of the fishing deal struck by Boris Johnson, allowing French boats into our waters. It’s hard on fishing communities, but not worse than before. The Brexiters used and cheated fishers. But a government has to weigh up winners and losers when fishing contributes just 0.03% to UK GDP and 10,000 jobs. Now set that against the 2.5% of GDP we spend on defence with 164,000 jobs. As the pathway opens up for British defence industries to bid for contracts from the giant €150bn EU defence fund, that’s altogether another kettle of fish.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

English football policing head tells fans not to visit Bilbao without final ticket

19 mai 2025 à 18:46
  • Predictions of 80,000 fans in city ‘not unreasonable’
  • Uefa warns fans second-hand tickets will not be accepted

The head of English football policing, chief constable Mark Roberts, has urged Tottenham and Manchester United fans not to travel to Bilbao if they do not have a ticket for the Europa League final on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of ticketless fans are expected in the city and Roberts says Uefa, local organisers and police share a “real desire” to make the event work for supporters after the chaos of recent Champions League finals in Paris and Istanbul.

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© Photograph: Vincent West/Reuters

© Photograph: Vincent West/Reuters

Trump claims without evidence that celebrities were paid to endorse Harris

19 mai 2025 à 18:46

President urges ‘major investigation’ of Beyoncé, Oprah, Bruce Springsteen and others in late-night social media rant

Donald Trump laced into a few celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in late night and early morning screeds on Monday, saying he would investigate them to see if they were paid for the endorsements – repeating a common refrain on the right about the star-studded list of Harris supporters.

“How much did Kamala Harris pay Bruce Springsteen for his poor performance during her campaign for president?” Trump posted in all caps on Truth Social at 1.34am Monday. “Why did he accept that money if he is such a fan of hers? Isn’t that a major and illegal campaign contribution? …And how much went to Oprah, and Bono???”

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© Photograph: Michael Gonzalez/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Michael Gonzalez/REX/Shutterstock

Deal with EU will make food cheaper and add £9bn to UK economy, says No 10

Agreement reached to ‘slash red tape’ on food products, in exchange for extended EU access to fishing waters

A landmark deal clinched between the UK and EU to remove checks on food exports will add £9bn to the UK economy and lower food prices, No 10 has said, as the last-minute agreement was secured early on Monday morning.

Keir Starmer said the deal, billed as a “historic” turning of the page, delivered the “reset” he had promised after winning the general election last July.

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© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Megyn Kelly puts Trump clash behind her to ride the Maga media wave

19 mai 2025 à 13:00

The former Fox News host once branded ‘nasty’ by Trump is now a cheerleader for him and her podcast is surging in the rightwing media-sphere

It was the night before a US presidential election that Donald Trump had called the most important in history. Who could close the deal at his campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? The answer was Megyn Kelly. Trump “will keep the boys out of girls’ sports where they don’t belong”, the rightwinger podcaster said to rapturous applause. “And you know what else? He will look out for our boys, too. Our forgotten boys and our forgotten men.”

Turning around and pointing at Trump supporters wearing hard hats, Kelly eulogised guys “who’ve got the calluses on their hands, who work for a living, the beards and the tats, maybe have a beer after work, and don’t want to be judged by people like Oprah and Beyoncé, who will never have to face the consequences of her [Kamala Harris’s] disastrous economic policies. These guys will. He gets it. President Trump gets it. He will not look at our boys like they are second-class citizens.”

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© Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Hairy Biker Si King’s Honest Playlist: ‘Led Zeppelin is perfect for when you’re speeding along’

18 mai 2025 à 10:00

The chef, author and presenter wants to be John Bonham and might be found busting out Baker Street at karaoke, but which song reminds him of lost love?

The first single I bought
I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats from Sounds Nice on Birtley High Street, when I was in my teens. I know it was about a school shooting, but at the time, I thought: I have a visceral reaction to Mondays as well.

The first song I fell in love with
Still in Love With You from Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous album. I was learning to play drums and Brian Downey, Thin Lizzy’s drummer, used to do this wonderful shuffle beat because it’s a relatively slow track, and his playing is beautiful. I still play the drums. I’ve never stopped being a musician.

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© Photograph: Andrew Hayes-Watkins

© Photograph: Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Kylie Minogue review – house, techno … doom metal? This is a thrilling reinvention of a pop deity

17 mai 2025 à 09:32

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Her Tension world tour reaches the UK, and it’s the work of a relaxed but inherently flamboyant singer with a bold new vision for her back catalogue

The lights go down in Glasgow, and Kylie Minogue ascends from underneath the stage like a pop deity: head-to-toe in electric blue PVC, sitting in the centre of a giant neon diamond. After acclaimed runs in Australia and the US, she’s kicking off the UK leg of her Tension tour, celebrating an era that started two years ago with lead single Padam Padam – a phenomenon everywhere from gay clubs to TikTok – and continued with her equally hook-filled albums Tension and Tension II.

In contrast to some recent over-complicated arena tour concepts from the likes of Katy Perry, the Tension show is admirably straightforward after Kylie’s big entrance, allowing her to remain the focus at all times. She races through hits – some condensed into medleys – at an astonishing pace; from 1991’s What Do I Have To Do, to Good As Gone from Tension II. For Better the Devil You Know, she changes into a red sequin jumpsuit and matching mic, leading a troupe of highlighter-coloured dancers in front of a minimalist, impressionistic backdrop. There’s something of the Pet Shop Boys’ art-pop flair in the show’s considered design choices, and in Kylie’s inherent – rather than costume-driven – flamboyance.

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© Photograph: Martin Grimes/Getty Images

© Photograph: Martin Grimes/Getty Images

Balearics hit back at ‘selfie tourism’ as sites become overwhelmed

19 mai 2025 à 18:23

Tourist authority backtracks on use of influencers after one tiny cove is swamped by 4,000 visitors a day

The authorities in Spain’s Balearic Islands have said they will stop using social media influencers to promote popular destinations, saying “selfie tourism” is damaging some of its most beautiful locations.

In an attempt to quell the effects of overtourism, the Balearics had hoped that influencers, many of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers, might relieve the strain on some better-known sites by directing visitors elsewhere.

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© Photograph: Sina Ettmer/Alamy

© Photograph: Sina Ettmer/Alamy

‘Our hearts ache’: the fight for survival in Gaza amid Israel’s new offensive and no aid

Ceasefire rumours of little interest, say the bereaved who face starvation after one of Beit Lahiya’s ‘hardest nights’

Middle East crisis – live updates

At about 2am on Sunday, Basel al-Barawi was dozing fitfully in his home in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. For hours, he had listened fearfully to the sound of explosions and shooting.

Then there was a massive blast. Barawi ran out to the street and saw that his cousin’s house had been bombed, with 10 people inside. The strikes on Beit Lahiya came days after Israel launched a major new offensive, named Operation Gideon’s Chariots.

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© Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA

© Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA

Pope Leo XIV receives White House invitation in meeting with JD Vance

19 mai 2025 à 18:17

US vice-president delivers letter from Donald and Melania Trump during talks with pontiff at the Vatican

Donald Trump has issued a White House invitation to Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-born pontiff who as Cardinal Robert Prevost previously criticised Trump’s administration.

The invitation came via a letter from the US president and the first lady, Melania Trump, that was delivered to the pope by the US vice-president, JD Vance, during a meeting at the Vatican on Monday morning.

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© Photograph: Vatican Media handout/EPA

© Photograph: Vatican Media handout/EPA

Starmer and his allies spent so long attacking Labour’s left, they forgot how to govern | Owen Jones

19 mai 2025 à 18:10

Rehashing 20-year-old Blairite ideas that were stale then will inspire nobody. Britain is crying out for bold, transformative policy-making

Just why has Keir Starmer’s government proved such a catastrophe? This is a question that must be posed to his cheerleaders, or at least those who were at one time cheerleaders: the road from the last general election is lined with silently discarded pompoms. The idea here is not to rub their faces in a political project that is now both electorally toxic and morally bankrupt, but to determine what happens next.

First off, the failure should be considered absolute. It is projected that a Labour government will drive more than a million Britons into – or more deeply into – poverty through an assault on disability benefits. The same government imposed hardship on many pensioners by stripping away the winter fuel payment, and it refuses to reverse the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, the UK’s biggest single generator of child poverty. Not content with waging war on the poor only at home, the government opened a new front abroad by slashing the international aid budget. It also can’t bring itself to condemn Israel for a single crime – including deliberate starvation – and continues to supply crucial components for F-35 jet fighters to rain more death on Gaza’s traumatised survivors. The government not only demonises immigration and promotes punitive crackdowns, but it also echoes the rhetoric of Enoch Powell. It does all of this while its polling collapses to the low 20s, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party boasting a 10-point lead over it in one poll.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Alarm over US government’s burgeoning debt rattles markets

19 mai 2025 à 18:07

Bond yields rose and the dollar weakened as Trump administration tries to play down significance of setback

News that the US has lost its last triple-A credit rating and fresh concern over the US federal government’s burgeoning debt pile unnerved markets on Monday, with long-term borrowing costs rising and stocks struggling.

Credit ratings agency Moody’s dealt a blow to Washington on Friday when it stripped the US of its top-notch rating, downgrading the world’s largest economy by one notch to AA1 and become becoming the last of the big three agencies to drop its triple-A rating for the US.

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© Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

© Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Why do I get car sick and my boyfriend doesn’t? I asked experts

19 mai 2025 à 18:00

One thing is certain: motion sickness, which happens to one in three people, is not a sign of weak character

The other day, I tried to read an email on my phone while in the backseat of a moving car. Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed with nausea. Next to me, my boyfriend was happily scrolling through news articles. He tried to show me a headline, but I was too busy staring out the window, breathing deeply and trying not to vomit.

This happens basically any time I am in a moving vehicle that I am not personally piloting. It’s a little embarrassing. But I’m in good company: approximately one in three people are considered “highly susceptible to motion sickness”.

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© Photograph: Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images

© Photograph: Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images

Marcelino, miracle man of Villarreal, takes ‘village’ to Champions League | Sid Lowe

19 mai 2025 à 17:44

The Yellow Submarine won at Barcelona to seal fifth place and vindication for a manager they sacked nine years ago

Villarreal had given everything all season when with one game left the roof fell in on them, but not like that. It had been 10 long, hard months of “solidarity and commitment … methodology, work, honesty and dedication”, their manager said, yet this was no late lament, all that for nothing; instead, this was reward and release, “time to enjoy it”, to let go, so they did. Outside at Montjuïc, Barcelona had begun their party, even 2025’s first league defeat and killjoy keeper Wojciech Szczesny saving an outrageous overhead kick from his own son not spoiling the fun; inside the dressing room, the club from the small town 200 miles south had begun theirs too, and nothing could ruin this either. Someone put La Morocha on and the players were bouncing about, drumming the rhythm on the ceiling when, in another triumph for cheap construction, the first beam came down. Captain Juan Foyth, looking like a kid who’d put a football through the neighbour’s window, raised his arm to protect his teammates, quietly laid it to one side, and they carried on.

The track was changed, Handel now, and they lined up. Some tipped their heads back, gazing at the ceiling they had broken. Others put hands on hearts. Most laughed. All of them scatted and sang, at least the word they knew: maybe not die meister, maybe not die besten or les grandes équipes, and definitely not eine grosse sportliche veranstaltung, but certainly the champions. The flag they carried read “the village wants the Champions League” and now they had it. Villarreal, the team from the place whose population could fit into Montjuïc, had come to Catalonia, handed the newly crowned champions a guard of honour and then beaten them 3-2, helped by Barça’s hangovers, to secure fifth and a return to Europe’s biggest competition with a week to spare. The season, Santi Comesaña said, had been “almost perfect”.

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© Photograph: Manaure Quintero/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Manaure Quintero/AFP/Getty Images

Nicușor Dan, the maths prodigy who beat an ultranationalist for Romanian presidency

19 mai 2025 à 17:33

Bucharest’s crusading mayor appeals for ‘specialists, civil society, new people’ to help him deliver change

Romania’s new president, a modest but driven maths prodigy who made a name for himself fighting corrupt property developers in Bucharest before becoming the capital’s crusading mayor, is expected to keep his country firmly on its pro-European track.

Nicușor Dan won Sunday’s rerun against the ultranationalist George Simion by a convincing seven-point margin – despite only entering it after the original vote, won by another far-right firebrand, was cancelled over fears of Russian meddling.

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© Photograph: Daniel Mihăilescu/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Daniel Mihăilescu/AFP/Getty Images

Lyon Women change name and get training base ‘better than most men’s centres’

19 mai 2025 à 17:33
  • Groupama Stadium to be team’s regular home
  • Club won fourth consecutive league title last week

The French champions Olympique Lyonnais Féminin have been renamed OL Lyonnes, as part of a series of announcements made by their owner, Michele Kang.

The American businesswoman has also revealed the team will make the Groupama Stadium – home of the Lyon men’s team – their regular home stadium. Kang said other mid-sized stadium alternatives, including a local rugby stadium, were explored before they reached the conclusion that the stadium that hosted the 2019 Women’s World Cup final is the best venue for them.

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© Photograph: OL Lyonnes

© Photograph: OL Lyonnes

Third man arrested after suspected arson at Keir Starmer-linked properties

Met police say 34-year-old arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life

A third man has been arrested over suspected arson attacks on two properties and a car linked to Keir Starmer.

The 34-year-old man was arrested on Monday morning in Chelsea, west London, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, the Metropolitan police said.

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© Photograph: James Manning/PA

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

Soccer still has the power to leave us in tears. I should know

19 mai 2025 à 17:13

Whether fans were celebrating, saying goodbye to an old home or remembering those no longer with us, the game’s power was on show this weekend

What was striking on Saturday, after Crystal Palace had beaten Manchester City to win the FA Cup, was how many people were in tears. The camera roamed the stands, capturing the images of Palace fans in disbelief after winning their first ever major trophy. Some were hugging those next to them, some waved their arms incoherently and others just stared, overcome. But a significant proportion were sobbing. Soccer can often seem an angry game, with crowds fuelled by rage; this was something very different, very hard to explain.

Palace’s pre-match tifo had shown an image of a father hugging his two sons in the stand at Old Trafford after Darren Ambrose had scored a 35-yard drive there for Palace in a League Cup quarter-final in 2011-12. It turned out the two lads were among the Palace fans at Wembley and that their father had passed away in the intervening 13 years. They were, needless to say, also in tears.

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© Composite: Guardian pictures

© Composite: Guardian pictures

AI can be more persuasive than humans in debates, scientists find

Study author warns of implications for elections and says ‘malicious actors’ are probably using LLM tools already

Artificial intelligence can do just as well as humans, if not better, when it comes to persuading others in a debate, and not just because it cannot shout, a study has found.

Experts say the results are concerning, not least as it has potential implications for election integrity.

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© Photograph: Mike Segar/REUTERS

© Photograph: Mike Segar/REUTERS

‘We are a passionately multiracial team’: Zimbabwe return to England transformed

19 mai 2025 à 16:54

Visitors have endured political chaos and miserable results over 22 years but cricket is finally a national game

Twenty-two years is a long time, even in a sport that measures its games in days and its history in centuries. The last time England played a Test match against Zimbabwe, in 2003, Rob Key was in the middle order instead of the managing director’s job, Jimmy Anderson was a 20-year-old tearaway playing in his very first series, and the England and Wales Cricket Board was just about to launch the world’s very first professional Twenty20 tournament. Zimbabwean cricket has changed, too. Back then the team was in the earliest stages of a transformation that was meant to turn cricket from a minority game, played by the small white population, into a sport that better represented the whole country.

They have been hard years, riven by player strikes, political interference, maladministration and a miserable drop-off in results. The team temporarily withdrew from Test cricket, suspended their domestic competition and were repeatedly censured by the International Cricket Council. They lost so many players through emigration to England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, that even now you could build a hell of a good Zimbabwean squad out of people who are making a living overseas. And yet, at the end of it all, the process was, by one important measure, a success. The squad that came on tour in 2003 was majority white, the team that has come this year is majority black.

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© Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

‘Cinema doesn’t ship that way’: Wes Anderson mocks Donald Trump’s film tariff plans in Cannes

19 mai 2025 à 16:48

While acknowledging he is ‘not an expert in that area of economics’, the director criticised Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on films ‘from foreign lands’

American director Wes Anderson has mocked Donald Trump’s plan to impose severe tariffs on foreign-made films, suggesting it would mostly financially hit film-makers like him and be unworkable in practice.

“Can you hold up the movie in customs?” the world’s chief auteur of cinematic whimsy asked at a press conference at the Cannes film festival. “I feel it doesn’t ship that way. I’m not sure I want to know the details so I’ll hold off on my official answer.”

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© Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

© Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

Phallic symbols, bare buttocks and warrior poses: how physique magazines grew a cult gay following

19 mai 2025 à 16:32

Masquerading as health and fitness publications, these journals contained photographs of finely muscled, nearly naked men that were beautifully lit and classically posed. Now a gorgeous new book is celebrating these ‘museum-worthy’ images

In the late 1950s, when photography critic Vince Aletti was in his mid-teens, he stumbled upon a clutch of magazines at a local newsstand that seemed to speak directly to him. From their covers to the pages inside, the pocket-sized magazines were packed with strikingly composed images of nearly naked, finely muscled men, many of whom appeared to have a secret rapport with each other. “I remember getting really turned on by that,” Aletti recalls, sitting in his apartment in New York’s East Village. “I also remember being really worried that my mother might find those magazines in my room.”

Physique magazines, as such publications were generically known, operated on a coded system, designed to function as smoke signals for gay men during an era of heightened repression and censorship that lasted from the 1930s until the early 70s. The magazines, which were pumped out in cities across the US, made sure to pass as health and fitness publications, but the style and content of their photos were clearly created for the tastes and desires of gay men. In the decades since, physique images have often been written off as campy relics of a sad past, but Aletti wants audiences to consider them anew.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Bob Mizer (Athletic Model Guild), SPBH Editions, and MACK.

© Photograph: Courtesy of Bob Mizer (Athletic Model Guild), SPBH Editions, and MACK.

Biden says thanks for ‘love and support’ after prostate cancer diagnosis

19 mai 2025 à 16:30

Former president says: ‘Cancer touches us all … Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places’

Joe Biden made his first public remarks on Monday morning about his cancer diagnosis, an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.

“Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support,” Biden wrote on social media, his first statement since his office reported the diagnosis on Sunday.

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© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Bankrupt DNA testing firm 23andMe to be purchased for $256m

19 mai 2025 à 17:55

Drugmaker Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ capture of genetic testing firm in bankruptcy auction raises privacy concerns

The drugmaker Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has agreed to buy the genetic testing firm 23andMe Holding for $256m through a bankruptcy auction, the companies announced on Monday.

Regeneron said it will comply with 23andMe’s privacy policies and applicable laws with respect to the use of customer data and that it is ready to detail its intended use of the data to a court-appointed overseer. The companies expect to close the deal in the third quarter.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Alarm over defence agreement giving US ‘unhindered access’ to Danish airbases

Deal would allow US to carry out military activities in and from Denmark, giving them powers over Danish civilians

When Copenhagen signed a new defence agreement giving the US “unhindered access” to Danish airbases in December 2023, the idea of granting sweeping powers to US forces on Danish soil was quite a different proposition to what it is today.

The US, then under the Biden administration, was an unwavering Nato ally that Denmark had followed into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway had similar agreements with the US.

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© Photograph: Thomas Traasdahl/AP

© Photograph: Thomas Traasdahl/AP

‘Ahead of his time’: Guyanese artist gets London show amid reappraisal

Aubrey Williams produced huge, colourful abstract paintings and was influenced by music and climate issues

An artist whose work was part of the first wave of abstract art to hit the UK and presaged the climate breakdown protests as well as debates over the legacies of British colonialism is undergoing an “overdue” reappraisal, according to experts and critics.

Aubrey Williams, a Guyanese artist who moved to Britain in the 1950s, was a respected figure in his lifetime and the subject of several exhibitions in the UK. But after his death from cancer in 1990, the artist’s influence and the legacy of his abstract painting slowly faded from view in Britain.

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© Photograph: © Estate of Aubrey Williams/ Jonathan Greet

© Photograph: © Estate of Aubrey Williams/ Jonathan Greet

Will Labour’s shake-up really fix Great Britain’s ailing railways?

As South Western becomes the latest operator to be renationalised, there are questions about whether the changes will lead to lower fares

At the rarely experienced hour of 6.14am on Sunday, the first train to carry the Great British Railways branding will make its way out of London Waterloo to Shepperton: traversing the Surrey commuter belt emblazoned with a red, white and blue GBR logo, and proudly renationalised to boot.

The next train with the planned state body’s branding may be some years behind it. But the Labour government hopes to grab the moment to demonstrate to an increasingly impatient electorate that the wheels of change – in rail at least – are finally turning.

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© Photograph: Jas Lehal/PA

© Photograph: Jas Lehal/PA

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