Exhibition at the V&A Dundee celebrates Maggie’s Centres created by Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and others
Maggie Keswick Jencks received her weekly breast cancer treatment in a windowless neon-lit room in Edinburgh’s Western general hospital. Her husband, the renowned landscape designer Charles, later described it as a kind of “architectural aversion therapy”.
It was then, in the early 1990s, that the Scottish artist and garden designer imagined her own blueprint that would allow cancer patients “a space of their own” within the alienating, clinical confines of the hospital estate, one where they might “not lose the joy of living in the fear of dying”.
Maggie Oliver Foundation taking action over government’s alleged failure to adopt changes recommended by inquiry
Campaigners have accused the UK government of in effect allowing child abuse to continue by having an “inconsistent and arbitrary” approach to implementing recommendations from a seven-year statutory inquiry.
The claim was made at the high court in London, where a judge said a legal action against the Home Office could continue.
No ParalympicsGB athletes will be present in Verona
IPC say Russian presence ‘determined by members’
Seven nations and the British government will boycott the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympics in protest at the inclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes, organisers have confirmed.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said that the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine would not be sending athletes or officials to the ceremony on Friday night.
Is the Islamic Republic a messianic theocracy or a brittle dictatorship? It’s neither – as those attacking it are finding out
When the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran on 28 February, the campaign was structured like a textbook air war: destroy defences, degrade retaliatory capabilities and decapitate leadership. Iranian air defences – already battered in last summer’s war – were further dismantled to secure uncontested skies. Missile factories, drone infrastructure and naval assets were hit to erode Iran’s ability to retaliate. And a steady cadence of precision strikes removed senior commanders in what amounted to a sustained attempt to disorient Tehran’s decision-making.
From a purely operational perspective, the advantages have been stark. Once skies are open, the war becomes cheaper: plentiful, relatively inexpensive munitions can replace the long-range systems that defended airspace typically demands.
Ali Vaez is Iran project director and senior adviser to the president at the International Crisis Group
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US president is ‘truly uninformed’ for spreading claims of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa tells New York Times
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has called Donald Trump’s policy of allowing white Afrikaners to apply for refugee status in the US “racist”, saying the US president was “truly uninformed” in a rare instance of direct criticism.
Ramaphosa told the New York Times that last year’s Oval Office meeting with the US leader, when Trump turned down the lights and played a video that he falsely claimed showed there was a “white genocide” in South Africa, was a “spectacle” and an “ambush”.
More than 30 US senators have signed a letter demanding that the Trump administration open an independent investigation into the February killing of a 19-year-old American in the occupied West Bank, the ninth US citizen killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since 2022.
The letter, led by the senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and addressed to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the US attorney general, Pam Bondi; and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, asks for a US-led investigation and a full accounting of where all nine cases stand, and for the administration to brief Congress on the killing by 5 April. None of the cases have resulted in a criminal conviction.
In Dallas and Williamson counties, voters faced long lines, extended wait times and confusion about voting location
On Tuesday, Texas held its Democratic and Republican primaries ahead of the upcoming November midterms. Democratic voters chose between Jasmine Crockett, the anti-Trump firebrand congresswoman, and James Talarico, the populist state representative, in an election that attracted national attention. Crockett conceded the race and endorsed Talarico on Wednesday, but only after claiming late on election night that she wasn’t ready to concede because of a voting issue in Dallas.
“We don’t have any of the results because there was a lot of confusion today,” Crockett told supporters at her election-night party: “We were able to keep the polls open, but I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.” Crockett received 45.6% of the vote, compared to Talarico’s 53.1%.
Squeeze’s first new album in nearly a decade is based on material written when they were teenagers. It’s endearing but callow
In interviews to promote their 16th album, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have been upfront about the reason for its existence. After the world shrugged at The Knowledge in 2017, someone told Tilbrook: “‘Nobody is interested in a Squeeze record. What matters is Squeeze’s story.’ That stayed with me,” he says.
So not only does Trixies contain a story – it’s a concept-album-cum-musical about a fictional nightclub – but there’s also a great tale around the album. It was written when Difford and Tilbrook were teenagers in 1974 but left unrecorded because they couldn’t properly play the songs they had written. It’s both a new record and something for the fans who always want the old stuff.
The men, who had been released after completing criminal sentences, are from Cuba, Jamaica and Yemen
Three men deported by the US to Eswatini – rather than their home countries – have filed a case against Eswatini’s government with the African Union’s human rights body, claiming their detention was an unlawful violation of their rights.
Two of the claimants, from Cuba and Yemen, have been in prison in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, for eight months. The third, Orville Etoria, was repatriated to his home country, Jamaica, in September.
Thinking only of winning may be having a detrimental effect on Steve Tandy’s side, according to sports psychologist Dr Stephen McIvor
It’s unlikely Steve Tandy got to this point in his coaching career without ever alluding to the joy of playing with no baggage. Between club and country over the years he must have reminded his players that the lads down the corridor would be bearing the load, so that’s one thing less to worry about. And with that realisation comes a certain lightness. We’re not talking about the freedom of skipping around the park, picking out faces in the crowd and drinking in the atmosphere of a Six Nations tie, rather getting some value from being spared the burden of expectation.
For Wales this has come at a price. When you dip into your emotional bank for a run of 14 Championship fixtures, all of which end with getting your face slapped, it’s expensive. That kind of price makes you wonder about the value of it all. In which case the power of togetherness is critical if you hope to tip the scales, even slightly.
Asif Merchant testified that Revolutionary Guard coerced him into scheme by threatening his family in Tehran
A Pakistani businessman accused of plotting to kill Donald Trump told a federal jury on Wednesday that he was coerced into the scheme by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which he said had threatened his family to secure his participation.
Asif Merchant, 47, took the unusual step of testifying in his own defense at Brooklyn federal court, where he faces terrorism and murder-for-hire charges. Speaking through an Urdu translator, he told jurors he went along with the plot only out of fear for his wife and adopted daughter in Tehran.
Slow-burn office crushes that left you weeping, sitcoms that made you fall in love and vampire shows that changed you for ever: Guardian readers pick their ultimate television romances
A mark of a true romance is that the couple are closer than anyone else in the world. As Emily Brontë said, “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” This is true for Miss Piggy and Kermit. They’ve had a longer relationship than most TV couples (since 1976), although it has been tumultuous. No matter what universe, from Dickensian London to Treasure Island to their various TV shows and movies over the years, they find each other – even after their official separation in 2015. Did Ross ever say to Rachel: “You don’t need the whole world to love you, you just need one person”? I don’t think so. Michelle, 19, Manchester
(Decca) Davidsen/Baillieu Recorded in New York in 2023, the soprano sings Strauss, Wagner, Grieg and more to thrilling effect, her sincerity and passion matched perfectly on piano
Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu made this live recording on stage at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in September 2023. While there’s a sense of occasion – being asked to give a solo recital at the Met is a reasonably big deal – what it really represents is simply nearly an hour of outstanding singing.
Davidsen’s soprano sounds fresh, gleaming and direct, her top-most notes silvery. She knows how to ensure nothing gets overblown – and how to get so close to the edge that the effect is thrilling, especially in her four Strauss songs. In Schubert, she fills out long lines into phrases full of sincere expression; four Sibelius songs unleash a passionate way with the text.
The 10th season of Netflix’s reality TV show has given us old-fashioned gender roles, bad behavior and a dark look at what dating looks like in 2026
In this rotted year that is 2026, there are not shortage of things to depress us: domestic terrorism by federal agents, war, the predominance of AI and sports-betting ads at the Super Bowl. The Epstein files. The Fifa peace prize. Six more weeks of winter. The need for escapism, or catharsis, or both, is as pressing as ever. And yet the thing that has depressed me most, in the low-stakes, “I can actually wrap my brain around this” way, is the pinnacle of smooth-brained, escapist entertainment: the new season of Netflix’s Love Is Blind, set in Ohio.
To be clear, Love Is Blind has never been a good show, even by reality TV standards. The first season of the series, in which young, generally attractive singles form emotional connections in “pods” and then get engaged sight unseen, had the good(ish) fortune of premiering just before a pandemic that gave “pod” a terribly relatable new valence; even still, it was described as “toxic”, “revolting” and, of course, “totally addictive”. At its best, the show can voyeuristically poke at our judgments and vocalize uncomfortable feelings, bringing up issues of race, politics, weight, attractiveness and age on top of the usual alcohol-aided drama, idealized romance and classic reality TV victim and villainy. At worst, it’s boring. Generally, it’s pleasantly baffling – modern dating sucks, for sure, but getting married after six weeks? That’s unrelatable content, perfect second-screen fare. But the Ohio version, and I say this with much love and ardent loyalty for my home state, has reached new lows, both on the level of production and in the spectacle itself.
Primary School Bangers caused a sensation on TikTok, then at Glastonbury, and now it’s gone nationwide. Is it harmless nostalgia – or a symptom of an increasingly conservative culture?
He’s got the whole Warwick Arts Centre in his hands. It’s Friday night and the 550-capacity venue is sold out. The theatre is full of adults singing the school assembly hymns you may remember from childhood. They are rising and shining, conducting gleeful hand actions of wiggly worms and fish in the sea. Just what is going on?
James B Partridge’s Primary School Bangers is the hit show that is storming UK arts centres, originally a viral video that has become a defiantly IRL phenomenon. “It just brings back memories of primary school, sitting in the hall,” enthuses Hayley, 40. She is one of many teachers attending tonight. “We don’t sing in primary schools much any more,” mourns Katie, 33. She is right: in the 2010s, funding cuts, Conservative policy and a crisis in teacher retention caused an ongoing fall in music at primary level. At her school, children sing just once every three weeks. Some of tonight’s pull is communal. “You go to a show and you have to sit and watch,” says Frank, 61, “but you’re actually participating in this, that’s the big difference.”
As hundreds of civilians and some US service members have been killed in the aftermath of the 28 February strike against Iran by the United States and Israel, the Guardian asked readers in the US what their thoughts are on the latest military action in Iran.
Their responses were largely disapproving, with some acknowledging that the Iranian regime needed to be toppled, even with a high cost.
Blue Tigresses have overcome off-field chaos and crises to make this tournament and can look to their women’s cricketers for hope
The Indian women’s football team’s quest for history got off to a bittersweet start in Perth on Wednesday. The players had put aside the off-field turbulence they faced in the lead-up to put up a strong fight on the field, only to concede an injury time goal and go down 1-2 to Vietnam.
Despite the result, the game was significant as a marker of how far the Blue Tigresses had come and where they could go, but also for the atmosphere they were greeted with at the Perth Rectangular Stadium.
Into the Woods and Paddington: The Musical are this year’s most-nominated shows with 11 nods each. See who else is in the running at this year’s awards
It’s not simply that kids’ culture has improved since I was young. Across stage, screen and cinema, grownup offerings pale in comparison to those aimed at my son
World Book Day dawns once more, with its morning chorus of swearing and sticky tape. This year, it falls shortly before we’re throwing a Harry Potter birthday party, so the living room has already surrendered to chocolate frogs and wand clay and preparations for the Dobby Sock Toss. Good timing, then. If you’ve already made a Nagini piñata, what’s one more hippogriff for the list?
Is competitive cosplay the best way to foster a love of literature in young people? That’s for finer minds than mine to debate, but with books like these, I’m surprised it’s required. What a time to have recently mastered phonics. What reluctant reader could fail to laugh at Mr Gum, or indeed anything by Andy Stanton? Who wouldn’t be thrilled by Louis Sachar or Lottie Brooks or Malorie Blackman?
PM also confirms that the first repatriation flight for Britons in the region has taken off
She says “we will always offer protection to genuine refugees” and outlines how the UK has taken in Ukrainian and Hong Kong refugees.
She says “restoring control at our borders is not a betrayal of Labour values”. She says we must attract high-skilled workers. And that “the privilege of living in this country forever must be earned”.
In his new book, the celebrated author explains why we need ‘consciousness hygiene’ to defend ourselves from AI and dopamine-driven algorithms
Each day when you wake up, you come back to yourself. You see the room around you, feel your body brush against your clothes and think about your plans, worries and hopes for the day. This daily internal experience is miraculous and mysterious, and the subject of Michael Pollan’s new book, A World Appears.
It also may be under siege, Pollan said. He recently suggested that people need a “consciousness hygiene” to defend our internal world against invaders that are trying to move in. Our ability to sit with our thoughts and perceive the world, he argues, is increasingly disrupted by algorithms engineered to tickle our dopamine receptors and capture our attention. Meanwhile, people are forming attachments to non-human chatbots, projecting consciousness on to entities that do not possess it.
Actor Katie Leung narrates this genre-bending debut in which an Victorian Arctic explorer is catapulted into our brave new world
The Ministry of Time opens in the middle of a job interview. The applicant, a nameless British Cambodian civil servant, is in line for a role that involves working with expats of “high-interest status and particular needs”. When she asks where these expats come from, she is told: “History.” The interviewer adds, casually, “We have time travel.”
Listeners concerned about the practicalities of this time-hopping tale will be reassured by our protagonist’s observation that contemplating the physics leads to a “crock of shit”, so it is best not dwelled upon. “All you need to know is that in your near future, the British government developed the means to travel through time but had not yet experimented with doing it.” Her job, then, is to act as minder or “bridge” to individuals removed from their eras and bounced into the present.
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