UK economy unexpectedly contracts by 0.1% in January in blow to the chancellor ahead of spring statement
Let’s look at the GDP figures in more detail.
The 0.9% drop in production output in January, which came after 0.5% growth in December, was mainly caused by a 1.1% slump in manufacturing while mining and quarrying also declined. Basic metals and metal products were down along with pharmaceutical products.
Soldier Edan Alexander could be released along with remains of four other Israeli-US nationals, but unclear what Hamas will ask for in return
Hamas has said it is ready to free an Israeli-US soldier held hostage in Gaza and hand over the remains of four other Israeli-US nationals in what may be a breakthrough in ongoing negotiations over the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.
The militant Islamist organisation announced in a statement on Friday that it was ready to release the Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who holds American citizenship, along with the remains of four other dual Israeli-US nationals.
Twelve people taken to hospital with minor injuries after flight forced to divert about 30 minutes after take-off
An American Airlines flight heading from Colorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth was forced to divert about 30 minutes after take-off to make an emergency landing at Denver on Thursday evening, whereupon one of the plane’s engines dramatically caught on fire on the tarmac.
Passengers were swiftly forced to evacuate, including via wing and emergency slide, and could be seen running for safety through thick smoke with flames behind them.
Fearing release of distressing material, lawyers have petitioned a Santa Fe court to seal records to protect the family’s right to privacy
A representative for the estate of actor Gene Hackman is seeking to block the public release of autopsy and investigative reports, especially photographs and police body-camera video, related to the recent deaths of Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, after their partially mummified bodies were discovered at their New Mexico home in February.
Authorities last week announced Hackman died at age 95 of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease as much as a week after Arakawa, 65, died from a rare rodent-borne disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hackman’s pacemaker last showed signs of activity on 18 February, indicating an abnormal heart rhythm on the day he probably died. The couple’s bodies weren’t discovered until 26 February.
She’s the breakout star of the cult banking drama who went on to play Amy Winehouse and has now been handpicked by Steven Soderbergh for his latest thriller. But at 23, a shock diagnosis changed her world
Marisa Abela finds it very difficult to go to the gym. Not for the usual reasons – lack of time or motivation – but because she says the reception she gets there is “insane”. The actor lives near the City of London, and her local gym is nestled between the gigantic, glinting glass offices of the capital’s financial district – which also happens to be the natural habitat of Yasmin Kara-Hanani, the hyper-privileged and extravagantly troubled junior banker Abela plays in the hit BBC drama Industry. And it’s not just while she’s exercising – that swarm of real‑life bankers desperate to tell Abela how much they love the show means meals out can be an issue, too. “If I tried to go to a salad bar at lunchtime in the City …” she trails off, looking slightly dazed.
Abela isn’t just highly recognisable for her part in Industry, a satire of the reckless, hedonistic, egomaniac-littered world of finance that since its 2020 debut has blossomed from niche concern to TV’s spiciest workplace drama. The 28-year-old also gets stopped in the street for being “the girl who played Amy Winehouse”. (Recently, people have finally started to ask her if she is Marisa. “And I’m like, ‘Yes, I am!’” she says, with mock grandeur.) Last year, she starred in Back to Black, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s biopic of the late singer, an oddly paced film rescued by Abela’s performance, which combines Winehouse’s trademark wit and stubborn iconoclasm with an endearing vulnerability. In her hands, Amy was, above all, a doting daughter and an adorably guileless romantic.
The documentary maker has received constant death threats from Jackson fans ever since his devastating Leaving Neverland aired. He reveals why he had to make a follow-up
‘I’ve kept company with very violent people for a very long time,” says documentary-maker Dan Reed, in his office whose location has to be kept secret – I was led here, from a decoy address, by the Channel 4 publicist. “I’ve had murderers try to find me. I’ve had people threaten to shoot me who are armed. I’ve been threatened many, many times. I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy, but the needle doesn’t go into the red until I’ve got something quite specific. The threats delivered face to face I took seriously. People trying to find my home address to post me a parcel I took seriously. People in China sending me emails? I don’t take so seriously. They’re going to have to get on a plane.”
OK, well he does sound like a tough guy, or at least a foreign correspondent of the old school, and that’s fair enough. From the Kosovan war (The Valley, 1999) to the Russian mafia (From Russia With Cash, 2015), Reed’s films have long been threaded together by the reasonable fascinations of the hard-hitting documentary-maker – corruption, crime, natural disaster, war.
You don’t need to hold sympathy for Mahmoud Khalil’s views to see why his targeting is an immense threat to free expression
The dust is starting to settle on the conflicting reports emerging after immigration officers’ arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University protest leader and green card holder, last weekend – and Americans should be alarmed by the similarities to authoritarian regimes’ speech policing.
The White House has confirmed the arrest took place under a law granting the secretary of state unilateral power to act when given “reasonable ground to believe” an immigrant’s “presence or activities in the United States … would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country.
China has criticised the sale of the business that controls ports in Panama to US investors, saying the Hong Kong-based parent company should “think twice” and that the $22.8bn deal is “power politics” that is not in the country’s national interest.
Shares in the Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison fell more than 6% on Friday after a critical commentary appeared in the Beijing-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao in Hong Kong.
Exclusive: It’s imperative we expand our understanding of space and the possibility of life elsewhere, argues Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock
Life must exist beyond Earth, a leading space scientist has said, adding it is yet another example of our own pride to suppose otherwise.
The British space scientist Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who will be delivering the Royal Institution Christmas lecture this year, said that while science has made giant leaps in our understanding of space, including the sheer size of the universe, there is still much to learn – not least whether we are alone.
The Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution supported by CGI will be broadcast on the BBC and iPlayer in late December
Rebecca Ratcliffe and Kate Lamb have written this profile for the Guardian of some of the people instrumental in bringing the case against Rodrigo Duterte to the international criminal court in The Hague. They wrote:
To some Duterte’s arrest this week came as a sudden shock. But for years many brave Filipinos, from priests, politicians, pathologists, to relatives of the victims and journalists, have worked tirelessly, in and out of the spotlight, to expose the horrors of the deadly campaign and collect enough evidence to hold Duterte to account.
Whether the Meta boss and his ex-lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg are truly beyond awful is neither here nor there. I thought he was done with factchecking
I am as shocked as I am confused that Mark Zuckerberg is going all-out to block a memoir by Facebook’s former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams. I thought information wanted to be free? I definitely heard that speech should be. We know Meta’s revolting oligarch doesn’t write his self-serving public pronouncements, but he should at least make time in his busy Magafication schedule to read them.
Anyway, even if you think the stories in Careless People are untrue – and I don’t, for a single nanosecond – I thought the Meta boss said disinformation wasn’t a thing any more? He recently binned off all his factcheckers to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship”. Yet here we are reading stories of how Meta this week launched an emergency action in the US to ban Wynn-Williams from promoting or further distributing copies of her book. It argued – successfully, for now – that it would face “immediate loss … in the absence of immediate relief”.
Context dictates that England have to be on the front foot in Cardiff – let’s have that as their modus operandi
Play the match, not the occasion. Lap up the theatre, the dramatics, the pyrotechnics, the hostility, if that is what gets you going, but when you cross the white line, play what is in front of you. If there is one message that should have been hammered home to England’s players this week, it is exactly that.
Sport rarely plays out the way we fully expect it to, otherwise the Principality Stadium would not be sold out on Saturday, there would not be a growing sense of belief among Wales supporters that this is the day their desperate run of defeats ends, there would not be a nervousness, a tension among England fans heading to Cardiff. It’s why we love our sport but if England can play the match and not the occasion, they have the potential and the players to put Wales away comfortably.
League Cup final against Manchester City is a chance to continue their dominance despite change of manager
What happens when a leader departs a sporting dynasty? How can the transfer of power cause as little disruption to the team as possible? History has all too often illustrated that it is a far from easy adjustment; that it will take a little time to regroup and recalibrate.
For Chelsea, however, the transition from Emma Hayes’s decade-long reign to new beginnings under Sonia Bompastor appears to have caused barely a ripple. The club are unbeaten, registering 25 wins in 27 games. On Saturday they have the chance to claim the campaign’s first trophy – the League Cup final against Manchester City is a real an opportunity to stamp their mark as the business end of the season begins.
Course was run over 1,129 miles of Alaska wilderness
Holmes has appeared on Life Below Zero
Jessie Holmes, a former reality television star, won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Friday negotiating the longest-ever course in the event’s history.
Holmes was first to the finish line in Nome on the Bering Sea coast. The race began on 3 March in Fairbanks after a lack of snow forced changes to the route and starting point. That made the normally 1,000-mile race a 1,129 miles slog across the Alaska wilderness. Holmes finished in 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes, 41 seconds.
More than 200mm of rain fell in 24 hours, destroying 900 homes and leaving 40,000 people without power
Cyclone Jude was the third cyclone to hit Mozambique this season. First spotted as a depression last Friday to the south-west of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, it intensified over the next few days to a moderate tropical storm, affecting northern Madagascar on Saturday and killing at least one person.
Jude strengthened into a tropical cyclone as it tracked westwards over the Mozambique Channel, where sea surface temperatures of close to 30C provided the heat and moisture necessary to fuel the cyclone.
The Elon Musk backlash, boos for JD Vance, Meghan naming protocol, a wombat botherer and – OMG! – buying kittens
To the people who parked their consciences and voted for Donald Trump because they thought he’d slash regulation, cut corporate taxes and eviscerate the federal government to send their stock holdings soaring, I’d like to ask: “How’s that working out for you?” For anyone with a pension, college savings or other assets in the US market this was an unrelaxing week, during which the Dow fell by almost 900 points on Monday and some $4tn (£3tn) was wiped off the S&P 500.
Flamstead residents – tall men, in particular – are under attack from a Harris’s hawk that has gone on a rampage
When Michael Hart went for his morning run in rural Hertfordshire last week, he never imagined that he would be attacked. “I felt something come at me from behind,” said the 31-year-old, who works in IT.
The perpetrator has been quietly stalking the streets of Flamstead for months but in the past fortnight has gone on a rampage, having bumped and slashed more than 20 men, including Hart. A hunt for the serial attacker is under way.
The author on growing up with tales of swooning heroines, the thrill of Dylan Thomas and the genius of George Saunders
My earliest reading memory
One of my older sisters taught me to read using Mills & Boon romance novels. I grew up autistic and queer and feel a nostalgic bewilderment about this genre, which at that time was populated by strong heroines who would – predictably but unfathomably – go weak at the knees for their male love interests. Otherwise, we had few books in the house. There are talented storytellers in my family, particularly my mother. I preferred to hide under the stairs and deliver my stories by writing them down.
The book that changed me as a teenager
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. I had known it in childhood in the vinyl format, my late father had the Richard Burton recording. Even though it is a play for voices, I found reading the text myself thrilling. I loved the opulence of the language and the narrative range of it.
The disproportionate violence against Indigenous people is deeply felt on and around the reservation, where families must become their own investigators. Words and photography by Wayan Barre
On a cold January evening in 2021, Joey Apachee, a Navajo father of two, set out to meet a friend near the water tower in Steamboat, Arizona. Hours later, he was found beaten to death. However, despite a confession from a suspect, no trial has taken place. Joey’s father Jesse Apachee, a retired police officer, says the family feels abandoned by the Navajo Nation’s justice system.
Indigenous people experience violence at alarmingly high rates. According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, in some parts of the US, Indigenous women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than the national average. Additionally, 10,123 Native American people were recorded as missing in 2022, though the real tally is probably higher due to inconsistencies in reporting and data collection. In recent years the crisis has expanded to affect more men and boys, who now account for 46% of missing person cases.
The Bureau by Eoin McNamee; The Mouthless Dead by Anthony Quinn; Killer Potential by Hannah Deitch; The Grapevine by Kate Kemp; Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall
The Bureau by Eoin McNamee (Riverrun, £18.99) Known for his psychologically acute literary reimaginings of real crimes, Irish writer McNamee prefers to explore implications than journey towards a neat ending, and his work is all the better for it. The crime at the heart of The Bureau is fictional, but the narrative has a family connection and the younger McNamee appears as a character. It’s set in 1980s Newry, a Northern Irish city whose proximity to both the border and the Irish sea makes it ideal for criminal enterprises ranging from doctored fuel to bootleg alcohol, the proceeds laundered through the eponymous bureau de change. As the mistress of gangster Paddy Farrell, Lorraine occupies her own morally dubious border space. The murder-suicide, described at the start, looks like a drastic attempt on her part to place the pair of them on an equal footing, but there are enough anomalies to leave room for doubt. This is an astonishingly powerful portrait of a time and place saturated in sentimentality and cruelty, where, despite the ever-present sectarianism, “nobody was on anyone’s side”.
The Mouthless Dead by Anthony Quinn (Abacus, £20)
When Julia Wallace was battered to death in Liverpool in 1931, the guilty party was initially thought to be her husband, William. His alibi involved a telephone message from one RM Qualtrough, summoning him to a fictitious address to discuss business. Qualtrough was never found, but the lack of evidence against Wallace meant his conviction was overturned on appeal. The case, described by Raymond Chandler as “the nonpareil of murder mysteries”, became a cause célèbre. As in John Hutton’s excellent 1979 fictionalisation, 29 Herriott Street, Quinn employs the device of having an interested party looking back at the case. On a voyage to New York, former CID officer Key regales fellow passengers with his part in the story and it gradually becomes clear that he is privy to rather more inside information than came out in court. Well imagined, well researched and well written, The Mouthless Dead provides a highly entertaining – if highly unlikely – solution to a famous unsolved murder.
The Premier League is almost certain to have a fifth team in the Champions League next season, with the distinct possibility of a sixth too, after the completion of last-16 ties in European competition.
Progress for Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Tottenham and Chelsea, combined with the exit of Roma from the Europa League, means England are overwhelming favourites to claim one of two European performance spots (EPS) for Uefa’s elite competition next season.
Debates about the ‘triple lock’ that underpins our neutrality miss the point. In a Trumpian world, Ireland must finally commit to its own security
The arrival of Trump 2.0 in the White House has disrupted the foreign and defence policies of all states and shattered existing paradigms of world order. Political leaders across the globe are having to assess how they respond to this more unpredictable and precarious world. For Ireland, the task is all the more difficult because the country’s core geopolitical anchors – the US and EU – are under stress.
Donald Trump’s Maga policy challenges Ireland’s political economy, which relies on extensive US investment. Although cordial, taoiseach Micheál Martin’s recent meeting with Trump in the Oval Office provided the US president with the opportunity to level the charge that Ireland “took” the US’s pharmaceutical companies, and that the US now wants them back. Moreover, Ireland is not insulated from the tensions surrounding the emerging trade war between the US and the EU. At the same Oval Office meeting, the taoiseach had to sit and listen to a tirade against Europe, in which Trump claimed the EU was “set up in order to take advantage of the United States”.
The Palestinian activist’s arrest has sent shockwaves through US civil society because of its apparent ramifications for immigration and free speech. Here’s what you need to know
The UK is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and a host of developing countries, to offset the impact of Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies and his sharp veer towards climate-hostile countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, arrived in Beijing on Friday for three days of talks with top Chinese officials, including discussions on green technology supply chains, coal and the critical minerals needed for clean energy. The UK’s green economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy, but access to components and materials will be crucial for that to continue.
The kingdom’s capital is a world heritage site – and it has now honoured its once-biggest industry with a ‘pearling path’ wending through two miles of architectural marvels. But did its car parks really have to be so lavish?
Think of contemporary architecture in the Gulf and you might think of gilded towers rising from the desert, eye-popping “iconic” museums, and artificial islands carved into ever more fanciful shapes. But, sandwiched between the petrodollar glitz of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, there is an enclave that has been quietly bucking the trend.
In Bahrain’s old capital of Muharraq, a place of winding low-rise streets studded with markets and minarets, a project has been under way over the last two decades that goes against the usual penchant for brash bling. It takes the form of a two-mile (3.2km) route that meanders through the densely packed city, linking new public squares and cultural venues, combining careful conservation with daring contemporary interventions. the Pearling Path shows how the treatment of a Unesco world heritage site doesn’t have to mean choosing between preserving a place in aspic, or resorting to Disneyfied pastiche.
(Interscope) It’s back to the dancefloor as the US superstar doubles down on what she does best – albeit with one eye on Madonna, Charli xcx, Taylor Swift and more…
Pop stars spend their careers impaled on the horns of a perennial dilemma: whether to reinvent themselves and show range, or stick to core value variations. With Mayhem, her sixth solo album, her 10th overall, Lady Gaga has dumped the former strategy, which was stuttering of late, for an emphatic reiteration of the latter.
Mayhem marks a wholesale return to dancefloor freakiness, complete with self-quotes (Abracadabra) and a hard-edged electronic takedown of fame (Perfect Celebrity) that would not have been misplaced on her debut album, 2008’s The Fame.
Experts say legislation will prevent vulnerable people from accessing justice in latest government-backed crackdown
Human rights groups in Peru have voiced alarm over a controversial anti-NGO law that prevents civil society organisations from taking legal action against the state for human rights abuses – a move that activists say will prevent the vulnerable from accessing justice.
Peru’s deeply unpopular congress added a harsher amendment to an existing bill which was fast-tracked through the chamber with 81 votes in favour, 16 against and four abstentions on Wednesday.
Scott Anthony Gastal, who at age 11 had testified in court in the 1980s that his priest had raped him, was beaten to death
The clergy abuse survivor who effectively ignited the US Catholic church’s reckoning with clerical molestation when – at age 11 – he testified in the 1980s that his priest had raped him was recently beaten to death in south-west Louisiana.
Scott Anthony Gastal, whose later life was marked by legal struggles after enduring child sexual abuse at the hands of notorious clergy predator Gilbert Gauthe, was 50.
While potatoes are cheap to buy, growing unusual varieties is a joy – and delicious too
As a rule, I discourage small-space gardeners from growing potatoes as they need a fair amount of room and are cheap to buy. Nonetheless, they’re a classic grow-your-own crop: satisfying to cultivate, a pleasure to harvest and delicious – especially if you choose a variety you might not see in a supermarket, such as the heirloom variety Sharpe’s Express (pictured above).
Potatoes are divided into different groups based on how long it takes them to produce crops. The most coveted – and expensive – are the “first earlies”, or new potatoes, which can be planted now and into April, to be ready in June and into July. Those that follow are called “second earlies” and go into the ground a couple of weeks later, to be dug up in August. The earlies are delectable when freshly harvested; they can’t be stored for long and have the added bonus of (hopefully!) hitting your plate before blight threatens.
It was a welcome to Florida that Andrew Tate was not expecting, far less the warm embrace he believed he was entitled to.
The controversial influencer, an accused rapist and human trafficker, walked straight into a state criminal investigation after descending the steps of the private aircraft that flew him and his brother Tristan from Romania last month, inducing a fit of apoplexy in Tate that appears to be still raging two weeks on.
The biggest ever fatberg found in Western Australia has been pulled from a sewer, weighing in at 30,000kg.
Fatbergs are made up of material that cannot dissolve in water – such as oil, grease and wet wipes flushed down sinks and toilets – which then pile up and stick together.
Russia says there are reasons to be ‘cautiously optimistic’ and said there is an understanding talks are needed between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump
Germany is close to unlocking the way to a massive increase in state borrowing and reforming the constitutional debt break as three major parties are reportedly about to reach an agreement on the proposed changes.
The controversial proposal is a key part of the presumed next chancellor Friedrich Merz’s plan for Germany.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has warned that Donald Trump’s trade war could expose the electric carmaker to retaliatory tariffs that would also affect other automotive manufacturers in the US.
In an unsigned letter to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, Tesla said it “supports fair trade” but that the US administration should ensure it did not “inadvertently harm US companies”.
The work of making change is difficult. Most of it is boring, unsexy and, at best, modestly incremental from day to day
Donald Trump is attempting to dismantle American constitutional democracy before our eyes. For the past six weeks, many of us have been telling ourselves we have to do something about this before it’s too late. And yet many people who feel this way – no matter how outraged they are or how genuinely worried they are about our country’s future – are doing very little but handwringing and doomscrolling.
Elected leaders in the Democratic party are mostly failing to provide inspiration for people who are alarmed about the president’s actions. The protest paddles they held up at Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress underscored the fact that they’re flailing more than they’re leading. Meanwhile, for most of us, the chance to vote again is almost two years away.
Mayor of city ‘with steel in its veins’ says ‘There’s a lot of tension … a lot of worry’ as 25% export levy kicks in
The sprawling ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario has in recent months become a site of pilgrimage for Canadian political leaders.
Dressed in pristine orange coveralls and hard hats, prime ministers and provincial premiers gaze at coiled sheets of steel with the stern grimaces and keen interest of generals reviewing a military parade.
Four days after she arrived I thought: this is it. I bought an engagement ring
The first time I saw Rachel was on Bumble. We matched, but then both ended up taking a break from dating apps. So when we reconnected on Tinder a few months later, in February 2020, it felt like fate.
She exuded confidence and had bright blue eyes – I was into her straight away. We chatted for a couple of weeks in the early days of Covid, and when it became clear it wasn’t going away, we made a plan for a date, eager to meet in person before any restrictions were implemented.
(Big Crown Records) Fuzzy, hypnotic beats, soulful saz-funk and emotive balladry mark Yıldırım’s powerfully imaginative new music, produced by Leon Michels
Since the 1960s, Turkish groups have honed a distinct blend of Anatolian folk and psychedelia. Early pioneers Moğollar and Erkin Koray electrified the lute-like saz, while newer acts such as Baba Zula and Altın Gün have added synths, dub echo and heavy fuzz to the mix. German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım has meanwhile taken a downtempo approach since her 2019 debut album Kar Yağar, singing soaring vocals over hazy reverb to produce soulful saz-funk.
Yıldırım’s third album with her band Grup Şimşek is their first working with analogue soul producer Leon Michels (who produced pop singer Clairo’s acclaimed latest) and the resulting 11 tracks luxuriate in warm acoustics, tape hiss and earthy basslines. Opener Çiçek Açıyor sets the tone with Yıldırım’s powerful falsetto ascending beautifully over a driving, mid-tempo groove of fuzzing bass and softly piping Mellotron keys, while Cool Hand and Direne Direne pick up the pace, highlighting the tight interplay between drummer Helen Wells and bassist Graham Mushnik, who evoke classic 60s soul rhythm sections such as the Funk Brothers as they anchor Yıldırım’s high-register melodies.
The PM sounds like Elon Musk when promising to fight the ‘blockers’, but his government’s plans will weaken the link between peoples and politics
Every new prime minister has an Elon Musk moment. A sudden attack of frustration leads to a burst of machismo, a chainsaw response. The system stinks. Slash the bureaucrats. Smash the machine.
Connexion
