How Aston Villa were made to sweat for a seventh successive victory. At least the manner in which Nottingham Forest swarmed their goal as they pushed for a second-half equaliser may prove a decent dress rehearsal for Wednesday’s quarter-final at Paris Saint-Germain.
Forest pulled a goal back through half-time substitute Jota Silva and then dialled up the pressure but the visitors, determined to emulate Villa by gatecrashing the Champions League, were beaten by early goals from Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malen.
The 83-year-old played his first date of an intimate 20-city tour after quitting live performances back in 2018
Paul Simon largely avoided mention of the health problems that had kept him off the road for the previous seven years when the storied singer-songwriter kicked off his return – and evident farewell – tour in New Orleans on Friday.
Yet, having strummed and crooned his way through some of his catalogue’s more discreet entries, and having reached a part where he treated the audience to a closing salvo of three of his mega hits, Simon made apparent reference to those issues by letting some lyrics from The Boxer hang in the air.
The world’s biggest youth Christian missionary organisation is facing allegations of spiritual abuse and controlling behaviour from young people who say they were left “traumatised”.
An Observer investigation has revealed evidence of safeguarding failings within Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a global movement that trains young Christians to spread the gospel. A spokesperson for YWAM said the organisation was “heartbroken” by the claims and was “deeply committed to the safety and wellbeing” of everyone in its care.
Team’s fall from grace has been similar to Manchester City’s and rivals are circling around the world champion
Turbulence and turmoil, infighting and instability, the past 12 months have been trying for Red Bull to the extent it was a wonder that Max Verstappen stood in the eye of the storm and calmly dragged a recalcitrant car to his fourth Formula One title. A fifth this year already looks to be a tall order as the team swing from a period of undisputed dominance to being left impotent by a car they cannot tame and in no little disarray, so much so that Verstappen may be considering his options.
In Japan, all eyes have been on the home hero Yuki Tsunoda, promoted to Red Bull from the sister team, Racing Bulls, with indecent haste, after Liam Lawson was sent packing the other way after two races. Even by F1 standards it was a brutal decision but indicative of the disorder that embroils Red Bull.
The viral response to US influencer Ashton Hall’s morning routine shows that the manosphere is now mainstream
How does the perfect morning begin? With gentle stretching, a coffee in bed? It could be a walk in the sun, a hot breakfast or simply managing to spend the first 20 minutes off your phone before spending the next 20 on Instagram. Lately, it may feel like the answer is being more productive.
The optimised morning routine has become a near-mythical ideal for young people, sold by fitness influencers posting obsessively about their 5.30am starts, claiming to finish their weight training, macronutrient-rich meals and emails before our first alarm – promising that everything in your life would be better if you, too, had the discipline to just get up early.
Constitutional expert says Tory leader’s break from political consensus over target for greenhouse gasses will require monarch to choose his words carefully
King Charles will have to temper his public support for net zero after Kemi Badenoch broke the political consensus over the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Senior royal sources have conceded that the 76-year-old monarch, who has spent more than half a century highlighting environmental challenges, will have to choose his words more carefully now that the Conservatives under Badenoch have said it will be impossible for the UK to hit net zero by 2050.
French prime minister calls for rival gatherings to be held in a spirit of ‘calm, mutual respect and responsibility’
France’s far right is hoping for a massive public show of support tomorrow in a “people’s protest” against Marine Le Pen being barred from standing for president in 2027.
The Rassemblement National (National Rally – RN) party called for a nationwide demonstration under the banner “Save Democracy” after Le Pen was found guilty in a €4m (£3.4m) embezzlement trial.
Patrick Mullins rides his father’s horse to victory
There have been many remarkable races and afternoons in Willie Mullins’s training career during his rise to unprecedented dominance in National Hunt racing, but never anything to match the nine minutes of Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree, as Nick Rockett, a 33-1 chance ridden by his son, Patrick, led home a 1-2-3 for the family’s yard, with two more of their six-strong team finishing in the first seven.
Mullins has had 1-2-3s in big races before. He even had a 1-2-3-4-5 in a race at Cheltenham’s festival meeting last year and the concentration of jumping talent in his yard, as a result of the huge demand for his services, means he often has a fair percentage of the field in some of the sport’s major events.
Uefa’s president could yet do a volte-face and run for office in 2026 as he enjoys success of new-look Champions League
As Uefa’s delegates filed into a long, low-ceilinged room it was tempting to wonder what difference a year makes. Sava Centar in Belgrade places function ahead of form and there was little of the Parisian grandeur that adorned the governing body’s annual congress in 2024. Nor were there as many fireworks on display, although plenty of the issues that will define European football over the second half of this decade flickered persistently around the edges.
Last year’s event turned into the Aleksander Ceferin show, the Uefa president drawing a scandalised reaction by pushing through an extension to the term limits for his role before pulling the rug away by announcing he would step down in 2027 anyway. Uefa had already been rocked by the acrimonious departure of its head of football, Zvonimir Boban, and the sense was that internal posturing risked diverting focus from the real structural and existential concerns the sport continues to face.
‘Baseline’ 10% import levy takes effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday, with some higher tariffs to begin next week
Donald Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including the UK, has come into force after 48 hours of turmoil.
US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses at 12.01am ET (04:01 GMT), with higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners due to start next week – including from the EU, which will be hit with a 20% rate.
One clip has been watched 25m times but a Netflix documentary shows him in his childhood bedroom with Wimbledon trophy
There’s a Carlos Alcaraz clip on YouTube that has to date been viewed 25m times. The whole thing is a seven-second loop of him catching a ball on his racket at Wimbledon. Currently it also has well over a thousand comments, engaged in a constantly shifting battle for most-liked, most-approved, most gushingly enthused-over.
You probably shouldn’t click on it because it is also addictive, a perfect moment of perfect Alcaraz, another endlessly replicating needle-prod of pleasure into your overstimulated brain.
Russian star scores two goals in win over Blackhawks
39-year-old has chance to beat record on Sunday
Alex Ovechkin tied Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record by scoring the 893rd and 894th goals of his career, the second the game winner, as the Washington Capitals rallied to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3 on Friday night.
Ovechkin scored No 894 on the power play with 13:47 left in regulation to put Washington ahead after Dylan Strome tied it earlier in the third period. The 39-year-old Russian superstar also opened the scoring with his 893rd less than four minutes into game.
2 min: Forest – who deliberately kept their hosts waiting before kick-off, forming a huddle that went on a bit longer than was absolutely necessary – are kicking towards the Holte End in this first half.
Forest get the ball rolling. But only after a knee is taken: there’s no room for racism.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss recently announced tariffs with US president Donald Trump, three Israeli officials said on Saturday, according to Reuters.
The impromptu visit was first reported by Axios, which said that if the visit takes place, the Israeli leader would be the first foreign leader to meet Trump in person to try to negotiate a deal to remove tariffs.
More than a thousand events expected in a show of defiance against US president’s ‘authoritarian overreach’
Hundreds of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday as part of global demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration.
Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”. The rally is one of hundreds of so-called “Hands Off” demonstrations around the world – including in cities across the US, Paris and Berlin.
We see the foundations of our society, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for, for generations, to ensure that our country lives up to its promise, are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations.
This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives, our healthcare, to our schools, to our thoughts, to our very free speech under the false banner of patriotism and freedom …
New York-based photographer Eric Kogan uses shadows, reflections and fortuitous timing in order to create optical illusions in his work. “It’s more of a life’s journey than a project,” he says, “but if I had to describe it, it’s all about spotting unusual moments in everyday places.” In his daily walks around the city, he keeps an eye out for interesting juxtapositions or humorous framings: a pigeon balancing on a ghostly tree; a cloud caught in a net; statues miraculously coming to life. “At the root it’s about seeing, but maintaining the right state of mind is also everything. I’m hoping the photos will connect with others, and, with each individual, take on personal narratives.”
Fuelled by social media, a global boom is outstripping production of the powdered green tea
The appearance of the vivid-green powder elicits smiles and appreciative sounds, and anticipation among dozens of tea lovers. Their hand-milled batches now ready for whisking with hot water, they will soon be rewarded for their patience.
The foreign tourists attending a matcha-making experience in Uji, near Kyoto in western Japan, are united in their love of the powdered, bitter form of green tea the Japanese have been drinking for centuries, and which is now at the centre of a global boom.
Old pals Ewan McGregor and Michael Grandage prepare for their new play, My Master Builder, by chuckling about everything that could go wrong and has
For today’s Observer New Review I had the not-exactly-onerous assignment of spending an hour with the actor Ewan McGregor and director Michael Grandage, as they prepared to put on a new play, My Master Builder, in London’s West End. The two men go way back, and mostly they were cracking each other up with knockabout old stories – much of which there wasn’t room for in my article. McGregor recalled one of his first roles on stage, as Orlando in As You Like It, and how when Simon Callow – multiple Olivier and Bafta award winner – played the part in 1979, he walked out on stage at the National Theatre only to promptly forget the first line of the play.
“If you’re a woman and you’re about to have a baby, everybody tells you nightmare stories about childbirth,” said McGregor. “And when you’re an actor about to do a play, everybody tells you terrible things that have happened on the stage.”
(Blue Note) There are hits and misses as 15 performers including Dodie, Mxmtoon and Ezra Collective’s Ife Ogunjobi give their personal take on Baker’s unique sound
Possessing a whisper-soft voice and sweetly melodic trumpet tone, Chet Baker (1929-1988) had a sound that is often imitated yet almost impossible to master. For the latest edition of Blue Note’s Re:imagined series, in which the jazz label invites artists to produce cover versions of its back catalogue, 15 R&B, pop, soul and jazz artists have been given the unenviable task of interpreting Baker’s repertoire – with often surprising results.
The trumpeter-vocalist’s supple take on jazz standards is well reflected in singer Dodie’s delicate version of Old Devil Moon as she emphasises the original’s swaying Latin percussion. British singer-songwriter Matt Maltese’s My Funny Valentine adds a beautifully elegiac guitar line to the well-worn melody. Other approaches work less well, with US singer Mxmtoon’s clean vocal tone overpowering I Fall In Love Too Easily’s sense of wistful romance.
An interior decorator and furniture designer uses colour and fleamarket finds to create an inviting sanctuary
Nestled in a classic Haussmannian building in Paris’s 17th Arrondissement, Tiphaine Verdier’s apartment is a feast for the senses. This large duplex, perched on the top two floors, is not just a home but a canvas where colour and creativity collide. With a fearless approach to bold hues, Tiphaine has transformed what was once a blank slate of plain white walls into a theatrical and inviting sanctuary.
When Tiphaine first stepped into the apartment, it was a minimalist’s dream – or, as she might put it, a colour enthusiast’s nightmare. “All the walls were just plain white,” she recalls. But Tiphaine, an interior decorator and furniture designer, saw the potential in the apartment’s unique layout. “I was drawn to the fact that it felt like a house in the sky, with a clear separation between the day and night spaces.”
The bankruptcy of genealogy company 23andMe has resulted in a fire sale of millions of people’s genetic information – and there’s no shortage of eager buyers with questionable motives
Ever thought of having your genome sequenced? Me neither. But it seems that at least 15 million souls have gone in for it and are delighted to know that they have Viking ancestry, or discombobulated to find that they have siblings of whom they were hitherto unaware. The corporate vehicle that enabled these revelations is called 23andMe, which describes itself as a “genetics-led consumer healthcare and biotechnology company empowering a healthier future”.
Back in the day, 23andMe was one of those vaunted “unicorns” (privately held startups valued at more than $1bn), but is now facing harder times. Its share price had fallen precipitately following a data breach in October 2023 that harvested the profile and ethnicity data of 6.9 million users – including name, profile photo, birth year, location, family surnames, grandparents’ birthplaces, ethnicity estimates and mitochondrial DNA – and there have been internal disagreements between its board and the CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki. So on 24 March it filed for so-called Chapter 11 proceedings in a US bankruptcy court in Missouri.
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With the city’s refuse collectors still on the picket line after four weeks, residents are pointing the finger of blame at the council
Suhail Sadiq’s car repair business is thriving and he’s furious about it.
The rats are responsible. “The amount of cars we’ve got coming in now with wiring chewed up by rats is unbelievable,” he says. Staff at Heartlands Auto Centre in Birmingham have repaired about 15 cars with chewed battery cables in the past week. The rats are drawn to the warmer cars at night, he says – rats gnaw to keep their teeth a manageable length.
Palace clung on with nine men to win the A23 derby while Ipswich’s fading survival hopes took another blow
Meanwhile, the top of League Two is madness. Port Vale are on the brink of a 3-2 win at Walsall that would take them to the summit, leapfrogging the hosts, while Doncaster conjured up two goals in the final few minutes at Cheltenham to win 2-0 and boost their hopes of automatic promotion.
Full time: Luton 1-1 Leeds, Coventry 1-2 Burnley. Sunderland still lead with a couple of minutes to go at The Hawthorns.
Which moisturiser is worth buying? What’s the deal with retinol vs retinal? And do I need an eye cream? (Answer: no.) Our beauty columnist shares her secrets to glowy, firm skin
Anti-ageing – I know, I know. It’s a gross and futile term. I considered using another. Perhaps one of the more modern marketing slogans such as “skin longevity” or “positive age management”. But my commitment to honesty in beauty extends to not fooling myself or my reader: we all know what these terms mean, and I know which one consumers Google in their millions.
I turned 50 recently. I was and am delighted about it. To still be alive, healthy, loved and in love feels like a lottery win. I’ve no desire to return to my 20s or 30s, when I cared more, knew less and had greater insecurities around my appearance than now. I don’t believe many of us at any age wish to be mistaken for someone much younger. And yet we know that people of all ages would like to keep skin glowier, smoother, juicier, firmer and flexible for longer. It’s a fine thing to want, and I find any accusations that this signals shame and desperation around growing old to be hugely patronising and selective. If you don’t care about skin ageing, great. Carry on. If you do, the products here will help in a realistic way.
The Germany-based American novelist on being cheered up by a gulag memoir, the best Wagner around and how to encourage a nightingale into your garden
Nell Zink was born in California in 1964 and grew up in rural Virginia. Before becoming a published novelist in her 50s, she worked a variety of odd jobs including bricklayer, technical writer and secretary, also running a postpunk zine. In 2014, with the help of Jonathan Franzen, she published her debut novel The Wallcreeper, followed closely by Mislaid, which was longlisted for a National Book Award. Her seventh novel, Sister Europe, out 24 April, charts the unravelling of a Berlin high-society party – Vogue called it “a worldly hangout novel of 21st-century manners”. Zink, a committed birder, lives outside Berlin.
Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess’s adventure based on the world’s favourite video game feels like one big cash-in
It’s a curious choice of title. A Minecraft Movie implies that this cynical intellectual property-rinsing exercise is one of numerous film adaptations of the enduringly popular sandbox video game. Perhaps there’s an alternative out there, a sharper, smarter, funnier version of a Minecraft movie. One with actual jokes. Or, God forbid, there may even be a worse iteration, although that’s hard to imagine. What becomes clear is that one of the key elements in the game’s popularity – the latitude it affords gamers to create their own experience – is a big stumbling block for any film adaptation of Minecraft.
In the absence of a single fixed storyline the screenplay can follow, A Minecraft Movie has a cobbled-together feel, borrowing a device from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – and, in Jack Black, a star – and superimposing an all-purpose quest-for-an-artefact structure on to a colour-saturated backdrop of cube-shaped vegetation, pink sheep and lax building regulations.
Temporary protected status lets people stay when it’s not safe for them to go home, but Ice is arresting them anyway
Venezuelans with legal permission to live and work in the United States are being unlawfully arrested by federal authorities at their homes, in their cars, at regular immigration check-ins and on the streets, attorneys say.
They are then stuck in immigration detention around the country, sometimes for weeks, despite the law explicitly banning the government from keeping them behind bars.
US political scientists’ book argues aggressive Covid policies such as mask mandates were in some cases misguided
Were conservatives right to question Covid lockdowns? Were the liberals who defended them less grounded in science than they believed? And did liberal dismissiveness of the other side come at a cost that Americans will continue to pay for many years?
A new book by two political scientists argues yes to all three questions, making the casethat the aggressive policies that the US and other countries adopted to fight Covid – including school shutdowns, business closures, mask mandates and social distancing – were in some cases misguided and in many cases deserved more rigorous public debate.
Liverpool need no favours to win the Premier League, but the neighbours did them one anyway. Everton denied Arsenal victory courtesy of a controversial penalty, effectively ending their forlorn pursuit of the leaders in the process. Mikel Arteta did not rage against the dying of the light on his return to Goodison Park. The game is up and he knows it.
Arsenal took the lead through Leandro Trossard’s fine first-half finish, dominated possession and edged the chances, but never performed with the conviction or quality of serious title contenders. They paid the price when Myles Lewis-Skelly was adjudged to have fouled Jack Harrison inside the area, presenting Iliman Ndiaye with the penalty that earned Everton a fifth draw in six games.
Revolutionary scanner to be fired into Earth orbit this month to measure effects of deforestation
Scientists are about to take part in a revolutionary mission aimed at creating detailed 3D maps of the world’s remotest, densest and darkest tropical forests – from outer space. The feat will be achieved using a special radar scanner that has been fitted to a probe, named Biomass, that will be fired into the Earth’s orbit later this month.
For the next five years, the 1.25-tonne spacecraft will sweep over the tropical rainforests of Africa, Asia and South America and peer through their dense 40m-high canopies to study the vegetation that lies beneath. The data collected by Biomass will then be used to create unique 3D maps of forests normally hidden from human sight.
New podcast series will show what coal-trimmers had to endure as they powered the ill-fated ship in 1912
Clinging to an overturned raft in the perilous, frozen waters of the north Atlantic, Jimmy McGann witnessed the horror of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. He was one of its soot-covered coal-trimmers, toiling in blazing heat, shovelling coal into furnaces that powered the mighty vessel.
Jimmy stayed aboard with the captain until the ship’s last moments and, although he survived history’s most famous maritime disaster, he died a few years later from pneumonia.
The first lady spoke about (wait for it) diversity as she presented awards to courageous women from around the world
Let’s take a quick break from the increasingly dreadful news for a little check-in, shall we? So … how are you holding up right now? How are those stress levels?
Many of the suburbs and cities hit hardest in recent years were caught off-guard, and key stakeholders are racing to understand the dynamics that drive these fires
Communities across the US that were once considered beyond the reach of wildfires are now vulnerable to disaster. As fires increasingly spread deep into neighborhoods, researchers estimate roughly 115 million people – more than a third of the US population – live in areas that could host the next fire catastrophe.
The understanding that many more Americans are at risk of losing their homes to wildfires comes as the climate crisis turns up the dial on extreme weather, drought and heat. But it’s also the result of new research that has exposed deep and dangerous gaps in our understanding of the threat.
Israel says soldiers fired on ‘terrorists’ in ‘suspicious vehicles’ but footage shows clearly marked ambulances
Mobile phone footage of the last moments of some of the 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces in an incident in Gaza last month appears to contradict the version of events put forward by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The almost seven-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle. It shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.
And they’re off … Jipcot, always held up in the past, is up there in the very early stages … Building Bridges has taken over the lead … Dartan and Timmy Tuesday are also prominent … Act Of Authority and Double Powerful are at the back … no fallers with a circuit to go … and not much change in the running order for now … but Bill Joyce has gone at the first hurdle in the back straight … he’s up and going on riderless … Building Bridges has kicked clear with Dartan who is under pressure … Timmy Tuesday comes with a challenge … Deep Cave comes late and gets there close home.
I love that ITV still open up their National day coverage (as the Beeb used to) with the theme music from the 1984 film Champions based on the victory of Bob Champion and Aldaniti in 1981. I still haven’t seen the movie but I found it for a quid last year on DVD.
Pharma firms are developing drugs that avoid the brain’s opioid receptors to minimise the risks of dependence and overdoses, but not all experts are convinced
In January, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first new type of painkiller in more than two decades. The decision roused excitement across the healthcare sector for a key reason: the drug, which is called suzetrigine and sold under the brand name Journavx, is not an opioid.
Opioid painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine are still used to treat severe pain in the UK and US. But they come with an obvious downside: the risk of addiction.
EPA bids to change chemical risk evaluations, which could expose public to higher levels of PFAS and other pollutants
The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.
Suit seeking $5m based on study finding controversial herbicide and lead in most cookies across 25 US states
Girl Scout cookies contain lead, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum and mercury at levels that often exceed regulators’ recommended limits, as well as concerning amounts of a toxic herbicide, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
The suit bases its allegations on a December 2024 study commissioned by the GMO Science and Moms Across America nonprofits that tested 25 cookies gathered from across several states, and found all contained at least four out of five of the heavy metals.
The Base, terrorist group founded in 2018, free to export violence abroad as Trump pulls FBI from pursuing far right
A US neo-Nazi terrorist group with a Russia-based leader is calling for targeted assassinations and attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine in an effort to destabilize the country as it carries out ceasefire negotiations with the Kremlin.
The Base, which has a web of cells all over the world, was founded in 2018 and became the subject of a relentless FBI counter-terrorism investigation that led to several arrests and world governments officially designating it as a terrorist organization.
Missile attack on Kryvyi Rih left 61 injured including three-month-old baby and elderly residents
Eighteen people, including nine children, have been killed in a Russian missile strike on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city, a Ukrainian official has said.
A further 61 people were injured in the attack on Kryvyi Rih on Friday, including a three-month-old baby and elderly residents, the regional governor, Serhii Lysak, said. Forty remain in hospital, including two children in critical condition and 17 in a serious condition.
Graphic artist Rebecca Burke was on the trip of a lifetime. But as she tried to leave the US she was stopped, interrogated and branded an illegal alien by ICE. Now back home, she tells others thinking of going to Trump’s America: don’t do it
Just before the graphic artist Rebecca Burke left Seattle to travel to Vancouver, Canada, on 26 February, she posted an image of a rough comic to Instagram. “One part of travelling that I love is seeing glimpses of other lives,” read the bubble in the first panel, above sketches of cosy homes: crossword puzzle books, house plants, a lit candle, a steaming kettle on a gas stove. Burke had seen plenty of glimpses of other lives over the six weeks she had been backpacking in the US. She had been travelling on her own, staying on homestays free of charge in exchange for doing household chores, drawing as she went. For Burke, 28, it was absolute freedom.
Within hours of posting that drawing, Burke got to see a much darker side of life in America, and far more than a glimpse. When she tried to cross into Canada, Canadian border officials told her that her living arrangements meant she should be travelling on a work visa, not a tourist one. They sent her back to the US, where American officials classed her as an illegal alien. She was shackled and transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre, where she was locked up for 19 days – even though she had money to pay for a flight home, and was desperate to leave the US.
Rather than an explosive split that many predicted, Musk instead appears set to keep close ties with Trump and retain influence on US politics
After months of exerting extraordinary power over the US government and becoming a mascot for Donald Trump’s new administration, the first signs that Elon Musk may shift away from his prominent role in the White House began to appear this week.
Both Trump and JD Vance have stated in interviews over the past few days that Musk would eventually leave the administration and the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) that he founded, their most direct statements yet on his tenure. Politico also reported on Wednesday that Trump had told members of his inner circle that the Tesla CEO would be departing in the coming weeks, though Musk called the article “fake news”. Musk is a “special government employee”, a designation that technically carries a 130-day term that, depending on how the administration chooses to log those days, could run out at the end of May. Vance made sure to say that Musk would remain a close “friend and adviser” to the administration even after leaving, further muddying the waters on how to mark Musk’s potential departure.
Centuries later, Jamaican Patwa and US Gullah Creole retain many Africanisms adopted from enslaved people
Illustrations by Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba
In 2000, I won a writing competition that awakened me to the depth and variety of Caribbean languages. As the Jamaica finalist for the My Caribbean essay competition, I joined more than 20 children from the region to form the youth delegation of the 24th Caribbean Tourism Conference in Bridgetown, Barbados.
I spent days with peers from islands that, until then, I did not know existed, such as the small but brilliant Sint Eustatius and Saba in the Leeward Islands. What I remember most are the simple greetings and phrases the other children and I taught one another in our different Creoles. Every child had an official language they wrote in to win their national competition – English, French, Dutch etc – but as soon as we were comfortable enough, we ditched those and shared as much as we could in our everyday tongues.
US and Europe criticised by head of Norwegian Refugee Council for ‘neglect’ of people living ‘subhuman’ existence
World leaders should be ashamed of their neglect of people whose lives were “hanging by a thread” at a time of surging violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the international charity leader Jan Egeland has said.
In a stinging attack on aid cuts and the “nationalistic winds” blowing across Europe and the US, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s head told the Guardian how people were living out in the open, in overcrowded, unsanitary displacement encampments around the city of Goma, where 1.2 million people have had to flee from their homes as the M23 rebels advanced through the DRC’s North and South Kivu provinces.
The standup comedian and broadcaster on realising he was funny, Parenting Hell and avoiding the spotlight
Born in south London in 1986, Rob Beckett is a comedian and broadcaster. He started on the standup circuit in 2009, performing at the Edinburgh fringe in 2012 with his show Rob Beckett’s Summer Holiday. Television quickly beckoned – after hosting ITV2’s I’m a Celebrity spin-off series, he became a panel-show regular, appearing on programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, as well as the travel series Rob & Romesh vs … . In 2020, he launched the hit podcast Parenting Hell with comedian Josh Widdicombe. He is married and has two daughters. His current tour, Giraffe, continues until April 2026.
That’s my dad in the background but, aside from that, I’ve got no other details. It might have been on holiday, possibly at my dad’s mate’s place in Spain. We always went there – he gave it to us for cheap, but I’m not sure why. You don’t ask questions in my family.
The standup used to joke about not having kids, but then she had IVF and found herself an ‘eroded’ mother of two. Now she’s back with a show about motherhood in her 40s – but don’t expect any cute parenting stories
My favourite Sara Pascoe joke is her imaginary riposte to people asking if she’s going to have kids. They mean well, these prying parents – they just don’t want her to miss out on a life-enhancing experience. The thing is, the comedian has had some life-enhancing experiences of her own. “But I have never, ever said to anybody: ‘Oh, have you been on QI? Ahhh, you should go on QI!’” she insists, settling into her archly patronising pep talk. “No I didn’t think I wanted to be on QI until I was on QI, and then it was like I looked back and my entire life had been leading up to me being on QI. Yes it’s very tiring being on QI, but it’s so worth it. I just wouldn’t want you to leave it too late and they’ll have stopped making it!”
As a skewering of smug, insensitive acquaintances foisting their own ideas of fulfilment on a child-free woman in her 30s, it’s a gratifyingly clever joke. In reality, however, Pascoe wasn’t laughing. During the period she was doing that routine on stage, she was actually “quite sad about not being able to have children”, she says over coffee in a north London cafe near her home. She’d long suspected she had fertility issues after unsuccessfully trying for a baby with an ex-boyfriend.
Digital technology reveals ‘incredibly modern’ royal who lived 3,500 years ago in kingdom associated with Helen of Troy
She lived around 3,500 years ago – but facial reconstruction technology has brought a woman from late bronze age Mycenae back to life.
The woman was in her mid-30s when she was buried in a royal cemetery between the 16th and 17th centuries BC. The site was uncovered in the 1950s on the Greek mainland at Mycenae, the legendary seat of Homer’s King Agamemnon.
Edinburgh University report authors say dietary changes could benefit women living with the disease
Dietary changes could reduce the pain of endometriosis for half of those living with the disease, a new study suggests. The largest international survey ever conducted on diet and endometriosis, involving 2,599 people, found 45% of those who stopped eating gluten and 45% of those who cut out dairy reported experiencing an improvement in their pain.
When women cut down on coffee or other caffeine in their diet, 43% said their pain was reduced, while 53% of women who cut back on alcohol reported the same.
Congressman tells the Guardian Trump is exploiting fight against antisemitism as a ruse to stamp his will on schools
Jerry Nadler, the most senior Jewish member of the House of Representatives, has accused Donald Trump of being a “would-be dictator” who is cynically exploiting the fight against antisemitism as a ruse to stamp his will on top-flight universities.
In an interview with the Guardian, the New York congressman lashed out against the president for using genuine dangers confronting American Jews as a guise to justify his attacks on Columbia, Harvard and other universities. “Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism, this is just an expression of his authoritarianism,” he said.
Paula White, a millionaire televangelist who speaks in tongues, was criticized for an alleged cash-for-blessings scheme
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to “protect religious liberty”, and two weeks after his inauguration he acted: creating a “White House faith office”, which will be led by Paula White, a millionaire televangelist known to speak in tongues who called the Black Lives Matter movement the “Antichrist” and once encouraged people to buy “resurrection seeds” for $1,114.
The move brought renewed focus on White, Trump’s longtime spiritual guru. And for White, not all of it will be welcome.
The US president’s tariffs are vengeful and impetuous – and will have immense costs with no clear goal
With the huge and painful tariffs that Donald Trump announced on Thursday, “Tariff Man” is acting like a paranoid 12-year-old bully who is convinced that everyone has wronged him, and he wants revenge. But the president’s instrument of revenge – massive tariffs – is going to do serious damage to the US and global economies. Stock market investors are convinced that’s the case, with Wall Street and world stock markets losing trillions of dollars in value in recent days as a result of Trump’s obsession.
The president has escalated his risky, vengeful trade war even though the US economy was in strong shape when he took office – the jobless rate was just 4.1%, inflation was below 3% and US economic growth was the strongest in the industrial world, with its stock market at record levels. So it’s unclear whether the US economy needed the shock treatment that Trump is inflicting. The price increases resulting from his tariffs – which are a tax on imports – will cost the average American family $3,800 a year, according to the Budget Lab at Yale.
When Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998, lawyer Philippe Sands was part of the prosecution. As his book about the case comes out, he talks to the Colombian novelist about literature and justice
What do law and literature have in common? Do they represent similar impulses towards understanding human motives and behaviour, or are they fundamentally different systems? In his new book, 38 Londres Street, lawyer and writer Philippe Sands revisits the attempts to extradite and prosecute former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, beginning in 1998, in which he was involved. He also finds himself on the trail of Walther Rauff, a former SS officer featured in Sands’s award-winning book East West Street, who went on to seek refuge in Chile, later becoming involved in the Pinochet regime’s arrangements for the detention, torture and murder of its opponents. The Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez, who trained as a lawyer but decided instead to write journalism and fiction, has addressed political violence and its legacy throughout his work, including in his acclaimed novel The Shape of the Ruins. The two friends met to discuss excavating the past, the limits of law and the potential of art.
Philippe Sands: We’ve known each other for quite a few years, and you’re one of those rare people who straddles the worlds that I’ve fallen into: you understand the world of law with your legal qualification, and understand far better than I do the world of literature. But you’re also from the region I’m writing about. Having been to Chile for this book six or seven times, and about to head off again, I’m conscious of being an outsider. It’s a Chilean story, and this Brit has stumbled across it in various ways. It’s a local story for you.
PSG confirmed as champions for fourth straight season
Real Madrid stunned by Valencia in La Liga shock
Paris Saint-Germain sealed their fourth straight Ligue 1 title on Saturday after a 1-0 win over Angers gave Luis Enrique’s side an unassailable lead in the French top-flight.
The victory, courtesy of a Désiré Doué goal, moved PSG to 74 points with six rounds left, 24 points ahead of second-placed Monaco, who play later on Saturday but can reach only 71 points if they win all their remaining games.
Before she became a mother, Samantha Ellissecretly judged other parents who let their children subsist on white bread and pesto-pasta. And when her son was born she couldn’t wait to share the Iraqi Jewish food of her ancestors. Unfortunately, he had other ideas …
My family takes food very seriously. So seriously that when my mother’s family left Iraq in 1971, limited to 20kg of luggage each, they found room for not one but two rolling pins. The truth is that, having used the rolling pins, I think they were right. Born in England, I grew up on my father’s stories, too, of going to a Baghdadstreet stall to buy hot samoon, Iraqi bread shaped like a teardrop, with a puffy middle and a crunchy crust, with amba (mango pickle) oozing out of it. But he left Baghdad even earlier, in 1951, in a mass airlift along with most of Iraq’s Jews. I grew up in Britain, homesick for a place I’ve never been to, and will probably never see. There are now just three Jews left in Iraq.
Scattered across the world, we didn’t have much from Iraq, but we did have the recipes, which we clung to like a life raft. We didn’t just eat together but often cooked together, too. One of my earliest, happiest memories is of sitting under the Formica table in my grandmother’s kitchen at maybe three or four, and pulling the stalks off parsley so my mother and aunt could make tabbouleh. When, decades later, I was finally about to become a mother myself, I was excited about sharing Iraqi Jewish food with my son. Maybe he’d even want to be my tiny sous chef! Maybe he’d like tabbouleh as much as I did. We make itvivid green with barely any bulgur in it (I was confused when I first saw the pots of beige in the supermarket because they looked nothing like the salad I’d grown up with). Maybe he’d love ingriyi (fried aubergine slices layered with fried lamb or beef and sliced tomato, and simmered with turmeric, lemon juice and date syrup); and tbeet, which just means “overnight” because it was an ingenious dish developed to get around the restrictions on lighting fires or turning on ovens on Shabbat. The flame was kept very low, and chicken and rice were cooked through the nightwith cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, with eggs tucked around the chicken till they went a deep brown. I imagined if I made him kitchri, rice with red lentils, garlic, turmeric, cumin, tomato, melting onions, so much butter and melting slabs of halloumi, and thick yoghurt spooned over the top, he’d say ashteedek (long live your hands) in our language, Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, and understand me when I replied awafi (to your health).
Anglers who campaigned for protected area off Oban and Mull are providing key data on critically endangered species
Sea anglers will tell you that catching and landing a large flapper skate is the equivalent of running a four-minute mile. The fish can weigh 100kg and stretch the length of a dinner table.
The first thing anglers will reach for when they land one is their camera or mobile phone, to capture the unique pattern of white spots ranged across each skate’s mottled brown back.
Alarm over ‘the health of the nation’s children’ follows federal workforce cuts by health secretary RFK Jr
Multiple maternal and child health programs have been eliminated or hollowed out as part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) layoffs, prompting alarm and disbelief among advocates working to make Americans healthier.
The fear and anxiety come as a full accounting of the cuts remains elusive. Federal health officials have released only broad descriptions of changes to be made, rather than a detailed accounting of the programs and departments being eviscerated.
The junta’s poor emergency response leaves people fearing prolonged chaos, despite the relentless propaganda
For seven painful days, Hnin has waited for news. Her two daughters, two and seven years old, her husband and their domestic worker, were all inside a six-storey hotel in Mandalay, central Myanmar, when it collapsed.
Delays to search operations have added to her agony. Hnin rushed around the devastated city, where communication lines were barely functioning, to buy head-torches and fuel for poorly equipped teams. A hotel manager refused to allow the use of a digger, fearing the building would collapse. Days passed before Chinese and Russian rescue teams arrived.
A lone vegetable stranded in a world of plastic transformed a trip to the supermarket into a photo opportunity
Ieva Gaile didn’t expect to take a photo on her trip to the supermarket. The lawyer, who lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, was working from home on the day and had popped next door for some lunch. When she spotted the errant cabbage placed atop a towering stack of water-bottle pallets, her reaction was instant.
“Since I began photography I’ve developed a habit of always observing my environment for interesting shots, andI thought it was beautiful visually,” Gaile says of this image, shortlisted in the Object category at the Sony World Photography awards 2025. “I liked the play of colours and repetition of green, and the contrast of textures: the wrinkled and imperfect surface of the cabbage against the synthetic shine of the plastic bottles.”
Malian singer and guitarist, who sold millions of albums with his wife, Mariam Doumbia, had been ill for a while, say family
The guitarist and singer Amadou Bagayoko of the Malian music duo Amadou & Mariam has died aged 70 after an illness, his family said, paying tribute to the Grammy-nominated blind musician.
Amadou and his wife, Mariam Doumbia, formed a group whose blend of traditional Malian music with rock guitars and western blues sold millions of albums across the world.
As Neige Sinno’s critically acclaimed memoir about being sexually abused by her stepfather is published in English, she reveals how writing her story has helped set her free
When it came out in France, Neige Sinno’s heart-stopping Sad Tiger, which pieces together in fragments the lifelong impact of the sexual abuse of a girl in the French Alps by her mountain guide stepfather, blew the literary world apart. Its experimental form of creative nonfiction – a memoir that ditches linear narrative, yet races along like a thriller – was hailed as groundbreaking, the book an instant classic. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies, won a swathe of prizes and became one of the most borrowed books in libraries across France when it was published in 2023. The Nobel prize-winning French author Annie Ernaux was so impressed that she made a public appearance in conversation with Sinno, saying: “Reading Sad Tiger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it.”
Now published in English, Sad Tiger – the title is a reference to William Blake’s poem The Tyger – veers between the little girl’s memories of her stepfather blasting French rocker Johnny Hallyday from a cassette player as the hippy family restores a house in an Alpine village, and his attacks on her, during a period when he is scratching a living taking on part-time jobs. Sinno combines the inner world of an abuse survivor with a portrait of life in the French mountains. The book is also a study in society’s denial. The stepfather eventually faces trial, serves a prison sentence, remarries and has four more children after his release.
The Harry Potter and Death of Stalin actor has found fame with a new audience in hit TV show
He has worked in the industry for more than three decades, and appeared in blockbusters, but for a long time Jason Isaacs had managed to eschew the limelight.
Then came The White Lotus, and suddenly the 61-year-old Liverpudlian became an internet sensation. He presented an award at the Brits, and was part of ITV’s Oscars coverage last month, bemusing viewers with his refreshing honesty. “Whoever at ITV decided to get Jason Isaacs as part of their coverage is a genius,” one fan commented.
Replica of world-famous train aimed at reviving glamour of the classic version makes debut journey from Rome
A replica of the world-famous Orient Express made its debut journey from Rome on Friday, transporting well-heeled passengers into the heart of Tuscany’s wine region.
La Dolce Vita Orient Express, the first Italian-made luxury train, is aimed at reviving the glamour of the classic version as well as the romanticised notion of Italy’s dolce vita, or “sweet life”, all the while promoting slow tourism.
Woman who worked with western governments in her home country before fleeing the Taliban told to return
An Afghan woman who risked her life to defend human rights in her home country before fleeing to the UK has been told by the Home Office it is safe for her to return after officials rejected her asylum claim.
Mina (not her real name) worked for western government-backed projects and was involved in training and mentoring women across Afghanistan, which left her in grave danger even before the Taliban took over in 2021.
Red Bull driver’s ‘great little surprise’ in unpredictable car
Norris beaten by one-hundredth of a second
Max Verstappen delivered a salutary lesson to anyone who might consider his world championship defence a forlorn hope with one of the best qualifying performances of his career in claiming pole for the Japanese Grand Prix.
In a car that is a handful to drive, at a circuit where precision and total commitment go hand in hand, Verstappen wrestled the beast through what was no less than a champion’s drive.
A tom-yum style bowl bursting with aromatic Thai flavours
This is probably a middle-aged thing, but it only takes something small to make my day. Usually, that’s bumping into a friend on the school run, spotting a cheeky green parakeet in the tree-tops or lighting a few candles at dinner in the evening. When it comes to food and today’s recipe, however, I rather childishly like to say the words “noodle soup” out loud, as if my mouth is pursing in anticipation of the noodles. I love using a whole butternut squash in a dish – that is where a cook’s satisfaction lies. And, for my sins, I adore slurping the noodles out of the bowl.
We forced the government to take some action, but still it closes it eyes to the impending climate collapse. A new method of confrontation is needed
Indigo Rumbelow is co-founder of Just Stop Oil. She is currently on remand in HMP Styal
After three years, Just Stop Oil is ending its campaign of non-violent civil disruption: we are hanging up the high-vis. But this does not mean the resistance is over. Sitting here in a prison cell in HMP Styal, I am still demanding an end to oil and gas. Every prison key that rattles, every door that is bolted shut, every letter that is read by the prison staff – it all reminds me that 15 Just Stop Oil supporters are currently locked up for refusing to obey governments whose climate inaction is frankly murderous.
There has been some progress. The Labour government was elected last year on a manifesto including the pledge that they will “not issue new licences to explore new [oil and gas] fields”. This is a victory for civil resistance and the climate movement. To everyone who donned an orange high-vis, who leafleted on the streets, who got arrested for their actions, ran a social media page, gave a talk in a community centre, or answered a phone call from someone in custody, I say: you are part of this change.
Indigo Rumbelow is co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain. She is currently on remand in HMP Styal having been found guilty of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance. She is due to be sentenced on 23 May at Minshull Street crown court in Manchester
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We asked camping pros to tell us about their favourite sites, from the highest pitches in Switzerland to a wilderness reserve in Sweden
Pitchup.com lists more than 5,500 campsites in 67 countries. One of the most scenic is the remote Šenkova Domačija farm near Zgornje Jezersko in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, close to the border with Austria. This heritage farmstead dates to 1517 and is surrounded by pastures and peaks. The farm has 25 pitches (including 10 for tents) in a meadow under old ash trees, plus a communal campfire and kitchen, a shop and restaurant serving breakfast and dinner. Campers can ride horses on short guided hacks or longer treks into the mountains, or tackle the trails on foot. From £16.93 for a tent and two adults, open 1 April-30 September, pitchup.com
A record number of humanitarian workers were killed last year. My staff’s red uniforms should have protected them. Instead they became their death shrouds
Jagan Chapagain is secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Which was most horrific? The agonising week-long wait – silence after our colleagues went missing, as we suspected the worst but hoped for something different? Or the confirmation, seven days later, that bodies had been found? Or, since, the ghastly details of how they were found, and killed?
Their ambulances were crushed and partly buried. Nearby were their bodies – also buried, en masse,in the sand. Our dead colleagues were still wearing their Red Crescent vests. In life, those uniforms signalled their status as humanitarian workers; they should have protected them. Instead, in death, those red vests became their shrouds.
Jagan Chapagain is secretary general of the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies)
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.
More than 850 men a month are arrested for online child abuse offences in England and Wales. They come from every walk of life: teachers, police officers, doctors, TV presenters. And the numbers are rising every year. How did this happen?
Andy was enjoying a weekend away with his wife when it happened. “My neighbour phoned me and said, ‘The police are in your house. They’re looking for you.’” He didn’t need to wonder why. “You know. You know the reason. I was petrified when I got that call. It wasn’t just the thought of other people knowing what I had done; I also had to face myself, and that is a sick feeling – it is guilt, shame.”
Andy had been watching and sharing images of children being sexually abused for several months before the police appeared at his door. He tried at first to keep it from his wife: “I was afraid she would ask me to leave. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had.”
After his dad died at 67, the 12 Years a Slave film-maker knew it was only a matter of time before he would get prostate cancer, too. The disease kills 12,000 men a year in the UK – a disproportionate number of them black. Now, in a bid to save lives, he is speaking out about his own diagnosis, alongside the doctors who successfully treated him
Steve McQueen felt relieved when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had no symptoms, was perfectly fit, at the peak of his game. Yet the Oscar-winning film-maker and artist believed it was inevitable. After all, his father had died from it, and he is a black man. The statistics speak for themselves. They are as overwhelming as they are bleak. One in eight men will get prostate cancer. They are two and a half times more likely to get it if their father or brother had it. They’re twice as likely to get it if they’re black – and they’re two and a half times more likely to die from it, too.
McQueen is here today with his urology specialist Prof Suks Minhas and surgeon Ben Challacombe to talk about the nitty-gritty of the disease that is killing so many men. But he believes he might easily not have been. If he had known as little as his father had, he may well be dead. McQueen feels grateful and guilty, and is determined to make people more aware. After all, prostate cancer is eminently treatable. And yet more than 12,000 men die from it in the UK every year – well over one an hour. Simply unacceptable, he says.
After three years, thousands of arrests and a state crackdown on protests, the group is ending direct action after a polarising campaign
On the morning of Valentine’s Day 2022, Hannah Hunt stood at the gates of Downing Street to announce the start of a new kind of climate campaign, one that would eschew mere protest and instead move into “civil resistance”.
Last week, three years and thousands of arrests later, in a neat tie-up exemplary of Just Stop Oil’s (JSO) love of media-savvy stunts, Hunt went to the same spot again – this time to announce the group would be “hanging up the hi-vis”.
Victor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with his scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist?
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Despite mixed views across France over RN leader since conviction, people are still joining her party in support
Near a roast chicken stand at a rural market, Jocelyn Dessigny was giving out leaflets bearing a photograph of the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and the words “Save democracy!”
“It is a political attack,” he said of Le Pen’s criminal conviction this week.
The extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined – and is even bigger than Texas.
The seemingly endless plains of outback Queensland are so vast and remote as to boggle any attempts to visualise the scale of what is being described as one of the most devastating floods in living memory.
Verdict marks end of the first trial of 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years ago, alleging firm’s projects destroyed the regions
Chevron has been ordered to pay more than $744m in damages for destroying parts of south-east Louisiana’s coastal wetlands over the years.
The ruling, which came in the form of a civil jury verdict on Friday, marks the conclusion of the first trial among 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years earlier which alleged that the company’s oil and gas projects have led to the degradation of the region’s wetlands. Among other things, the wetlands play a key role in offering the area a measure of protection from hurricanes.
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