Arsenal: Mikel Arteta has praised Declan Rice for his initiative after the midfielder ignored the instructions of Arsenal’s set-piece coach before scoring the first of his two free-kicks against Real Madrid. Ed Aarons reports …
Some Good Scoring dept. Some former champions are out there proving a low number is possible. Jon Rahm, of LIV Golf and Buyer’s Remorse fame, whose victory here somehow feels a lot longer than just a couple of years ago, flew out of the blocks this morning with three consecutive birdies. He’s currently level par for the Tournament. The 2015 champ Jordan Spieth has birdied 8, 9 and 13 in a currently flawless round; he’s -1 overall. And 2007 winner Zach Johnson is currently the hottest property out on the, er, property, having made birdies at 9, 10 and 12 plus eagle at 2. One bogey blemish at 6, and he’s -2 overall.
It’s a sunny day at Augusta National, if not a particularly warm one. The wind is expected to pick up a little as the day goes on, but not to any great extent, and not as blustery as yesterday afternoon. An outside chance of a rain shower later as well, though even if it arrives, nothing too dramatic is forecast. Throw in some attractive pin placements, and conditions are ripe for some good scoring.
The author of bestseller The Ministry of Time on how lockdown telly, Terry Pratchett and her Cambodian heritage shaped her Arctic time travel tale
Kaliane Bradley, 36, lives in east London and works as an editor at Penguin Classics. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time(Sceptre), was published last year to critical acclaim and a place in the bestseller charts and is out in paperback now. It’s a vivid time travel tale following Lieutenant Graham Gore, a crew member of Franklin’s lost 1845 Arctic expedition, who is brought back to life in the 21st century as part of a government experiment. He develops an unlikely relationship with his “bridge”, a contemporary character helping him assimilate to the modern world. It was longlisted for the 2025 women’s prize for fiction and the BBC has commissioned a TV adaptation.
What has the past year been like for you? Lovely and discombobulating. I veer wildly between immense gratitude and intense impostor syndrome. But I’m still working 4.5 days a week, so I’m grounded by my job.
Proposals to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces have been granted royal assent after an extraordinary parliament sitting on Saturday.
Emergency legislation giving the government the power to instruct British Steel to keep the plant open passed the Commons and Lords in a single day unopposed.
Researchers behind test using biomarkers say it could ‘revolutionise’ early diagnosis of disease
Researchers have developed a simple and “cost-effective” blood test capable of detecting Parkinson’s disease long before symptoms emerge, according to a study.
About 153,000 people live with Parkinson’s in the UK, and scientists who undertook the research said the test could “revolutionise” an early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, “paving the way for timely interventions and improved patient outcomes”.
It’s not as sensational as recreating long-dead species, but conserving modern-day fauna is far more pressing
The parable of the Mars mission: we’d rather spend trillions sending ourselves to a yet unlivable planet than look after the one we have. And swiftly on its heels, the parable of the dire wolf. We’d rather resurrect a 12,500-year-old species from the dead than save our existing wild animals. Of course we would. Recycling is boring; doing the very thing 90s science fiction movies warned us not to do is fun.
We are not quite on the verge of bringing back ancient species. But last week the PR campaign for doing so began in earnest. Colossal Biosciences – a company known for trying to revive the dodo, the mammoth and the thylacine – has unveiled three large adorable white puppies, claiming it has created “the world’s first successfully de-extincted animal”: the dire wolf, made famous by Game of Thrones. It invited author George RR Martin to look; he duly burst into tears.
47-year-old had been feeling unwell ‘for a number of days’
Howe admitted on Friday and is receiving expert care
Eddie Howe, the Newcastle head coach, was admitted to hospital on Friday and will miss Sunday’s game with Manchester United as a result. The Carabao Cup winners said the 47-year-old had been feeling unwell “for a number of days” and would not be at St James’ Park on Sunday.
A statement added that Howe was “conscious, talking with family and continuing to receive expert medical care”.
It should be the best of times for Nottingham Forest but the great expectations of securing an historic Champions League spot risk making it the worst if they miss out. A Murillo mistake gifted Everton victory in stoppage time as the pressure started to show at the City Ground.
The Brazilian centre-back lost the ball just inside the Everton half, allowing Dwight McNeil to breakaway and slip in Abdoulaye Doucouré to finish the job in the 94th minute. The visitors deserved the win against Forest, who did not live up to their lofty position of third place amid a disappointing performance.
The chance of the marine animal’s survival after domoic acid poisoning is 50-50, and this year, the outbreak has sickened hundreds
It was just after 8am on Tuesday, a thick morning fog still clinging to the California coastline, and SeaWorld’s animal rescue team had already made their first save of the day: a hefty, sick-looking sea lion that had been waddling dangerously close to a four-lane highway in downtown San Diego.
Now, in a private area of SeaWorld that few of the theme park’s thousands of daily visitors ever get to see, the rescue team was in full “triage” mode. Half a dozen staff members maneuvered the caged sea lion off the bed of a truck, and grabbed IV bags full of fluids and vitamins.
The word cholita has in the past been used as a pejorative term for the Indigenous Aymara women of Bolivia. But the women in these photographs are reclaiming the word: they are “Cholitas Escaladoras”, or climbing cholitas. In 2019, they summited the 6,961 metre (22,841ft) peak of Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain outside Asia, while wearing traditional dresses and shawls. After reading about them in an article, photographer Todd Antony flew out to feature them in a series. “I wanted to capture their strength and pride,” he says. “In the very recent past, Aymara women were socially ostracised and systematically marginalised. Their act of climbing breaks the stereotypes associated with them and mirrors their rise out of oppression.”
Senior Kyiv economist describes latest postion of Trump administration in talks as ‘colonial-type’ bullying
The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown.
US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as “payback” in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration.
Order allows armed forces to take ‘direct roll’ in securing southern border, which Trump memo says ‘is under attack’
Donald Trump has authorized the military to take control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration.
The authorization came late on Friday in a memorandum from Trump to interior secretary Doug Burgum, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins which outlined new policies concerning military involvement at the US’s southern border.
England receive to start the first half, and we are under way.
The crowd is in great voice at Virgin Media/Musgrove Park. It’s a tasty atmosphere. A decade since Ireland beat England in a W6N. The locals are baying for a huge upset. We’re about ready to go.
Government introduces measure to prevent spread of foot-and-mouth disease after rise in cases across Europe
Tourists from Great Britain who travel to the continent to satisfy their epicurean desires for cured meats and fragrant cheeses will be frustrated in their attempts to bring home some of their favourite foods after a ban on meat and dairy imports from EU countries came into force this weekend.
From Saturday, holidaymakers will no longer be able to bring meat from cattle, sheep, goats or pigs, or dairy products, from EU countries into Great Britain for personal use, in a move aimed at preventing the spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) after a rise in cases across Europe.
Petition calls for official recognition of the ‘historic and traditional serving method’ that is ‘unique to the UK’
It is one of Britain’s most historic drinks, still sold in thousands of pubs across the nation, but cask beer has long been in decline.
Besides suffering from a reputation as an “old man’s drink” and the divisive debate over the “cellar temperature” at which it is served, the number of establishments selling it, and the volume and value of sales, have all dropped dramatically in recent years.
The president’s gambit to bring the production of goods such as iPhones back to the US ignores huge supply chain complexities
Donald Trump’s tariff strategy has at least one biblical connection: like the peace of God, it “passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Rival attempts to extract a rationale from the chaos include the idea that he is trying to devalue the dollar, or that he is seeking to “reshore” the manufacturing capacity that the US lost through decades of globalisation. My own hunch is that he just wants to show who’s the big boss around here – or as British science fiction author Charles Stross puts it, that he “expects individual nations to come to him, hat in hand, like terrified shopkeepers pleading for mercy from a mafia don”.
Cue the UK’s very own Trump whisperer, Keir Starmer, who, according to Politico, plans “to put a review of online safety rules on the table in trade talks” with the US. Which, translated, means that things such as the Online Safety Act and copyright rules that hinder US AI companies from looting the intellectual property of the British creative sector may soon become history. The only remaining question is whether Starmer possesses a suitably distressed hat for his penitent journey to Washington.
Fifty-five years since Osaka last hosted, rocks from Mars, domestic androids and artificial hearts are part of showcase on ‘unloved’ island
As clunky as it sounds, “designing a future society for our lives” isn’t a bad ambition for the world in these troubled times. From this Sunday, organisers of the 2025 Exposition in Osaka will be hoping that appeal will put the event’s unsettled preparations in the shade for a six-month celebration of our common humanity.
The western Japan city is preparing to host its second World Expo, 55 years after the first was held in a country eager to capitalise on fading memories of the second world war as it embarked on its postwar journey to become an industrial and technological powerhouse.
The pop superstar makes an electrifying return to the desert for a career-spanning two-hour show, one of the best the desert has ever seen
In 2017, Lady Gaga took on an unenviable task: filling in for Beyoncé, who dropped out of a Coachella headliner slot due to pregnancy. Gaga’s replacement performance, in her country-tinged Joanne era – as usual, she was years ahead of the pop curve – more than sufficed; perhaps only Beyoncé can hold a candle to her in terms of true-blue live performance ability, and she delivered the set of a consummate entertainer and generational talent. But Gaga felt that she had unfinished business. “I’ve had a vision I’ve never been able to fully realize at Coachella for reasons beyond our control,” she wrote in an Instagram post announcing her return to the desert for another headliner slot this spring. “I have been wanting to go back and do it right, and I am.”
Did she ever. Gaga, more than any other contemporary pop star, has approached pop as transmogrification, live performance like a hunter – the piercing gaze, transparent hunger and annihilating focus of an apex predator. And with Gagachella, as her fans have already termed a thesis statement of a set, she goes in for the kill. You knew from the minute she appeared in full deranged queen regalia, the head of a multi-story hoop skirt that opened to reveal a birdcage prison of backup dancers, that the vision was nigh. The nearly two-hour performance, covering 22 songs from her dance pop catalogue, joins Beyoncé’s postponed Homecoming in the pantheon of seminal Coachella headliner sets – a fully realized vision of a pop master, a testament to years of hard-earned experience at the highest level, and a banger dance party with production and delivery in a league above her peers.
Juventus and USA midfielder named in probe, per reports
Investigation focuses on poker and non-soccer betting
United States midfielder Weston McKennie is among 13 soccer players being investigated for illegal online betting in Italy, according to widespread media reports.
A new investigation by Milan prosecutors stems from evidence given by Sandro Tonali and Nicolò Fagioli in 2023. Both then served lengthy bans, ruling them out for most of last season, after agreeing plea bargains that also included therapy for a gambling addiction.
Video captured one person robbing corpse on idling train before another person robbed and sexually assaulted it
A man sexually violated a corpse on a New York City subway train after stealing from the body, becoming the second of two people to rob that particular dead person, authorities said recently.
One of the more grotesque US crime stories of late unfolded on a southbound R train near the Whitehall Street station in Manhattan at about 12.20am on Wednesday, when “an unidentified individual had sexual contact with an unconscious and unresponsive adult male” in plain view of surveillance cameras, according to a police statement.
A neuroscientist decided to study the addiction-like obsession of limerence, while overcoming it himself
I never really gave much thought to the nature of love until it became a problem.
Throughout adolescence I suffered through a series of intense, mostly unrequited crushes, but just assumed this was the exquisite agony of desire that poets and lyricists work so hard to capture in words.
The race car driver is drawing attention to the gender imbalance in motorsports – and auction houses – by teaming up with female artists on an ‘art car’ project
When the race car driver Aurora Straus first began competing professionally aged 16, she was the only female racer on the tracks in North America. Unsurprisingly, her entry into the male-dominated world of motorsports was not without its sexist challenges. In one incident, while she was being filmed for a documentary, she returned to her car with a camera crew in tow, to find a surprise.
“I was doing an interview for this movie,” Straus recalls, “and I went to show them my car. When I opened the door, there was a dildo in there.”
A largely nonprofessional cast shine in Louise Courvoisier’s gritty rural tale that feels satisfyingly real
Here’s something to tempt the appetites of fans of French cinema and artisan cheeses alike: Holy Cow, the first feature fim from French director Louise Courvoisier, has been a breakout success domestically (it won a prize at Cannes and a couple of Césars, and went on to win over French audiences in their droves). On paper, this tale of a rural teenage delinquent who dreams of glory in the annual comté cheesemaking competition sounds like any number of generic feelgood underdog tales. But there’s a knack to making great rural cinema, which boils down to capturing the grit and spit and personality of the place rather than some sun-dappled romantic projection of a simpler life.
It helps immeasurably that Courvoisier grew up in the same remote Jura farming community in eastern France where the film is set. It shows in every rough-edged, beer-drenched frame – this is earthy, sweaty, unvarnished film-making with dirt under its nails – and in particular it benefits the casting and direction of the phenomenal, largely nonprofessional actors.
A goal and an assist and a captain’s display that wrenched the contest from Crystal Palace: here was an opportunity to revel in the sublime talent of Kevin De Bruyne.
On a sun-dappled east Manchester afternoon, De Bruyne illustrated, again, his peerlessness. The truism that the best have a crucial extra moment to work with runs through his decade in a Manchester City shirt and was displayed in the strike crafted for Mateo Kovacic.
Sorry seems to be the hardest word – and there is a public appetite for watching high-profile feuds
Madonna and Elton John have kissed and made up. After decades of high-octane feuding (more of which anon), Madonna recently turned up impromptu backstage when John was appearing on late-night television sketch show, Saturday Night Live in New York to “confront” him. Her ensuing Instagram post, liked 420,605 times and counting, said: “Over the decades it hurt me to know that someone I admired so much shared his dislike of me publicly as an artist”.
Madonna continued: “When I met him, the first thing out of his mouth was ‘Forgive me’, and the walls between us fell down.”
A bill in the US state would allow public schools to deny undocumented children the chance to enroll
You’ve probably seen this quote from an Alabama pastor called Dave Barnhart. It goes viral all the time. But I’m resurfacing the quote because it is another day that ends with “y” in America, which means it is relevant once again.
(Inkle; Nintendo Switch, iPhone/iPad, Mac, PC) Prove that Verity Amersham is innocent of trying to bump off the head girl in this ingenious whodunnit from the makers of Overboard!
There’s been a murder – or an attempted one, at least. At sunrise someone shoved Louisa Hardcastle, soon to be crowned head girl of Miss Mulligatawney’s School for Promising Girls, through the school’s stained-glass window. Your character, Verity Amersham, stands accused, and must present an account of her day that proves her innocence. This is achieved via a Groundhog Day structure: you repeatedly play through the hours leading up to Verity’s expulsion as an interactive flashback, from the moment she woke, through to attending chapel and classes, and the accusation on which the story pivots. There’s no magic involved: you’re simply recounting the day’s events to your concerned father as you construct your alibi, establish whether Verity committed the crime – or if not, by whom she has been framed.
Developed by British studio Inkle, Expelled! has many of the hallmarks of the developer’s magnificent previous title, Overboard! There’s a witty script, memorable Agatha Christie-esque characters (Verity’s roommate, the conflict-scarred Russian expat Nattie, provides a standout turn) and a lightness of touch that offsets the grisly act upon which the story rests. There are hefty themes behind the cartoonish presentation too. Set in 1922 after the first world war and a global pandemic, the setting trembles with interwar trauma and the sense that the world might again collapse at any moment into chaos.
The chef and restaurateur, 76, shares his boyhood inspiration, losing everything in a fire, and saying no to Robert De Niro
My father died in a car accident when I was seven. Whenever I missed him, I would look in the family photo album at this picture of when he had gone to Palau. He was an architect and had gone to source lumber for his work. It made me dream of going abroad someday and making him proud.
My older brother took me to sushi restaurants as a kid. They were very expensive; not the kinds of places kids would go. I was so impressed by the energy of the sushi chefs, the smells, the choice of fish. From then on, I knew that’s what I wanted to be. After graduating from high school at 18, I trained to be a sushi chef in Tokyo.
Palladium, London The singer and actor hints at an outre new synth-heavy sound, drawn largely from latest album Polari. He stops short, though, of scaring his daytime TV fans
“I’m all about playful subversion,” declares Olly Alexander with a grin on the final night of his UK tour. Clad in a series of outfits whose shiny buttons nod towards London’s pearly kings and queens and the dressing-up box – there’s one handily located on the left side of the stage – he is outlining the essence of Polari, the slang once used by the LGBTQ+ community, showfolk and the denizens of London’s Soho, as was.
Evolving out of the vocabularies of Italian immigrants and Travellers to evade the understanding of law enforcement and mainstream society in the 19th and early-mid 20th centuries, Polari also doubles as the title of Alexander’s latest, queer-club pop-themed album. Released two months ago, it was the first under his own name; previously, he had traded as Years & Years, first as a band, then as a solo project.
From unauthorised species releases to small groups buying up land, ‘guerrilla rewilding’ is going mainstream. But experts worry that these rogue efforts could do more harm than good
Visions of habitats teeming with nature are powerful, particularly so in an age of extinction. Rewilding, which offers the promise of such transformations, was once something most would have imagined happening far away, carried out by people unlike them, but times are changing. The wilderness is getting closer to home and more personal.
It is a simple and powerful way to help them feel calmer and happier, say the experts. So how do you teach kindness to kids?
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In a hostile world, many parents might be anxious about how to raise a kinder generation – and if so, science backs you. Children who are more empathetic “tend to have more positive interactions and more satisfying relationships with friends and family,” says Jessica Rolph, co-founder of early childhood development company Lovevery. Studies show that kids who can form strong relationships do better in school, she adds.
Lewis holds off teenager Leah O’Brien in photo-finish
Browning pips Lachie Kennedy in men’s national final
Rohan Browning and Torrie Lewis upstaged the flashy upstarts of Australian sprinting, claiming their respective 100m national titles in two split-second victories in Perth on Saturday.
The women’s final was decided by a three-way photo finish between Lewis, Bree Rizzo and Leah O’Brien. The national record-holder stopped the clock at 11.24s, edging 17-year-old O’Brien by just four thousandths of a second, with Rizzo one hundredth of a second back.
Abbas Araghchi says ‘initial understanding’ could be reached in Oman and lead to ‘path of negotiations’
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has arrived in Oman for mediated talks with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff, saying there is a chance the two sides can reach an initial understanding that leads to a timetable for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The aim is to agree a format and parameters for talks that in months could lead to some US economic sanctions on Tehran being lifted and a recasting of Iran’s civil nuclear programme.
The US could breach the debt ceiling even sooner than predicted without action from Republicans
“Trump backs down on tariffs, again. And it doesn’t look strategic,” a headline blared on Wednesday afternoon.
At the end of trading, equities had recovered a portion of their losses. But plenty of damage had been done. Markets were thrown into turmoil, interest rates jumped and business activity took a hit. Beyond that, the possibility of a recession grew – and the possibility of a default by the US inched up to 6%, according to prediction markets.
Researchers have catalogued the British words and phrases most used in US conversation, sparking delight and frustration
The Americani(s)zation of British English is often described as a linguistic disaster– frustrations over imported words or usages, from “awesome” to “ATM”, are well documented.
But in recent years, there’s been growing interest in the opposite phenomenon: Britishisms that have made their way into American English. These days, it’s not uncommon to hear Americans describing a single event as a “one-off” or noting that a perfect assessment is “spot-on”.
Amongst (rather than “among”), whose use has nearly quadrupled in the US over the past four decades
Queue, whose frequent use on tech platforms such as Netflix has given its British meaning – what Americans would generally call a “line” – new life in the US
Wonky, meaning a bit off
Cheeky, meaning a bit naughty or indulgent, as frequently used by Mike Myers (a Canadian with English parents) on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s
Snarky, often used to describe early internet discourse and sites such as Gawker
Cheers, which has long been used while clinking glasses in the US but has started to mean “thanks” in some contexts
Keen, meaning enthusiastic
Maths, rather than just math, which has become more familiar in the US due to international academic work and social media
Nil, meaning zero, which is turning up in online gaming
Amir Makled says immigration officials questioned him about his phone’s contents. Experts warn fourth amendment rights have been weakened at the border
Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport on Sunday. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.
“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning. And that’s when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab.”
Contact from the Observer prompts withdrawal as dealers urged to do more to stop illicit trade in antiquities
A London antiquities dealer has withdrawn an ancient Greek amphora from sale after evidence arose that links it to a notorious smuggler.
The Kallos Gallery in Mayfair, London, has removed a black-figure amphora – a jar with two handles and a narrow neck made around 550BC – from sale after the Observer contacted it about concerns raised by an expert in the illegal trade of antiquities.
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