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Is Qatargate a scandal too far even for Benjamin Netanyahu?

The Israeli PM will have to call on his talent for self-preservation in the face of questions about how a foreign power viewed as an enemy was able to infiltrate the highest levels of his government

Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is no stranger to scandal. Over three decades in politics, the 75-year-old has been accused of everything from spending excessive public money on ice-cream and striking deals with media outlets for favourable coverage to undermining trust in public institutions and the rule of law. In November, the international criminal court announced it was seeking his arrest for alleged war crimes in the conflict in Gaza.

To date, the prime minister has always managed to find a way to cling on to power – and public support. But even for “King Bibi”, as he is known to both supporters and detractors, this has been a difficult week, as a new scandal known as Qatargate gains momentum.

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© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

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JD Vance may disagree, but this anti-abortion activist isn’t a brutally censored dissident | Catherine Bennett

The US vice-president’s avid concern for Livia Tossici-Bolt’s conviction is plain sinister

You know the feeling: you’re feeling sociable, why wouldn’t you make a sign saying “Here to talk, if you want to”, and head for a spot outside the nearest abortion clinic? And why wouldn’t some of its arriving patients want to pause before their appointments and satisfy your entirely innocent interest in their reproductive intentions?

This, give or take, amounted to the case by the prominent anti-abortion campaigner, Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was on Friday found guilty of twice breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). Her sign-holding outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic was, she had argued, not covered by a council-imposed safe zone, being “a mere invitation to speak”. And thus an invitation she could have happily extended to strangers just a little further from the clinic. But that did not suit Tossici-Bolt’s purpose. Nor does anything prevent her from staging anti-abortion rallies, distributing literature, or expressing her views on abortion anywhere except right in abortion patients’ faces outside clinics. These details, although similar regulations exist in parts of the US, routinely fail to surface in accounts by her prominent US supporters, with whose help Tossici-Bolt has been misrepresenting the illegal undermining of UK women’s reproductive rights as a noble quest for free speech.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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© Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images

© Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images

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Feeding the soul: Laurie Woolever on food, addiction – and working with Anthony Bourdain

Working alongside NY’s hottest chefs took its toll on Laurie Woolever, but in a new memoir she opens up about her battles with drinking, drugs – and losing her friend

Laurie Woolever is an expert on indulgence. The first time we met was in a dimly lit omakase restaurant in downtown Tokyo, in the summer of 2017. We were both in Japan on respective work trips. Woolever was researching a travel book she was writing with her boss, the chef Anthony Bourdain, and I was filming a CNN digital spin-off series from his Parts Unknown show. We were introduced through mutual friends in New York, where I had been living that year, and where her reputation preceded her. She was known to be private, tough, with a wickedly dry sense of humour. I was a little intimidated.

As she expertly navigated a seven-course tasting menu of wagyu beef with her chopsticks, she casually mentioned that she’d recently stopped drinking, alluding to the fact it had become out of control. I self-consciously sipped my own cold beer, picked up sweet strips of marbled meat and couldn’t help thinking how tricky giving up drinking must have been, both because of her job as the then long-term assistant to Bourdain – one of the most rock’n’roll food personalities of our time – but also being immersed in a fast-paced New York food scene where drinking to excess was the norm. What I didn’t realise until reading her new memoir, Care and Feeding, was that while Woolever wasn’t drinking, she was still seeking hits of illicit pleasure. A few days after our dinner, she hired a Japanese male sex worker to join her for an “erotic massage” at her hotel. A clinical act to numb the discomfort she felt, trapped in an unhappy marriage without alcohol to smooth over the cracks.

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© Photograph: Benedict Evans/The Observer

© Photograph: Benedict Evans/The Observer

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‘Profiting from misery’: how TikTok makes money from child begging livestreams

Exploitation fears as people in extreme poverty perform stunts and beg for virtual gifts

Three young children huddle in front of a camera, cross-legged and cupping their hands. “Please support me. We are very poor,” says a boy, staring down the lens.

They appear to be in a mud-brick hut in Afghanistan, living in extreme poverty. But their live stream is reaching viewers in the UK and worldwide – via TikTok Live.

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© Photograph: TikTik

© Photograph: TikTik

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Jordan Spieth: ‘I feel more comfortable at the Open and the Masters’

The 2015 Augusta winner was set fair to be golf’s next big thing. After loss of form and a wrist injury, can he bounce back?

Modern golf has been defined by streaks and Scottie Scheffler is in an especially hot one, with eyes focused on whether that can continue at Augusta National over the coming days.

Brooks Koepka had one. Cameron Smith had one. Rory McIlroy had one in majors, with his competitive longevity outside the big four tournaments setting him apart from his peers. There are countless other runs, varying in length and trophy haul since Tiger Woods stopped decimating all before him. Each emphasises how extraordinary was Woods’s time at the top.

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© Photograph: Douglas P DeFelice/Getty Images

© Photograph: Douglas P DeFelice/Getty Images

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What we should be talking about when we see Snow White | Eva Wiseman

Snow White has sparked outrage across the board, but why is no one worried about its messaging on beauty?

Last week I took my daughter to see the new Snow White film and on the train she told me how all the girls had been called into a special assembly. It was to tell them that makeup was strictly forbidden – some girls (she discreetly told me their names, vaguely scandalised) had started wearing mascara to school. And as she spoke I was immediately propelled to 1991, my friend’s kitchen, the violet smell of other people’s laundry, her mother explaining that we shouldn’t wear makeup until we were, “At least 40,” because it was just, “for covering wrinkles and the shadows of age.” That conversation has rattled around in my head for decades (“the shadows of age”) and it lodged there as I settled in with my popcorn.

The new Snow White has been plagued by so much controversy some might assume the marketing team had bitten a cursed apple. It took nine years to make it into cinemas, after, OK: Rachel Zegler’s casting sparked a racist backlash; actors with dwarfism debated the ethics of portraying (in Disney’s words) the “seven characters’,”; and critics (including the son of a director who worked on the 1937 film, to the Telegraph) complained that Disney is “making up new woke things”. Then, in August, a member of a pro-Palestine campaign called for a boycott of the film, citing Gal Gadot’s (who plays the evil queen) support of Israel’s military actions. Rightwing press were next to call for a boycott, after Zegler spoke out first in support of Palestine and then against Trump, leading Disney (allegedly) to scale back the eventual premiere. And then it was here, and the reviews were… grumpy. The New Yorker headlined its review with: “Disney’s remake whistles but doesn’t work.”

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© Photograph: John Angelillo/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: John Angelillo/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

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Death of a Unicorn review – Jenna Ortega shines in B-movie-style satire on big pharma

Murderous unicorns run amok in Alex Scharfman’s gory American horror that gleefully embraces a lo-fi aesthetic but lacks sufficient bite

What if unicorns were badass? What if, rather than the twee, sparkly fairy creatures that distribute magic and glittery microplastic at kids’ themed birthday parties, unicorns were fearsome beasts with deranged amber eyes, huge tombstone teeth that could sever a man’s arm, and horns covered in the entrails of their victims like flesh pennants? It’s an appetising central premise. And this Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega-starring horror comedy, produced by the achingly hip boutique studio A24, certainly delivers on the grisly, torso-skewering gore. Maybe the jokes could have been sharper, but at least the unicorns’ horns make their point.

Killer unicorns are not an entirely novel concept. The ultraviolent 2022 cult feature animation Unicorn Wars – described by its director as “Bambi meets Apocalypse Now meets the Bible” – pitted unicorns against teddy bears in a savage battle for supremacy. But it’s a sufficiently distinctive selling point for this pulpy feature debut from producer turned director Alex Scharfman. What’s less original is the messaging that underpins the blood-sodden mess: that the real monsters are not the unicorns, but the evil representatives of big pharma – in this case, company boss Odell, played by Richard E Grant, his trophy wife, Belinda, played by Téa Leoni, and their idiot son, Shepard, a role that allows Will Poulter to hog the lion’s share of the best jokes – plus most of the recreational drugs.

In UK and Irish cinemas

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© Photograph: Balazs Goldi/AP

© Photograph: Balazs Goldi/AP

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Fatal error: 20 years on, the Met still has questions to answer about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. A new drama investigates the tragedy

The award-winning producer and screenwriter of Philomena’s new show, Suspect, is about the shooting of an innocent young Brazilian electrician on the London Underground in the wake of the 7/7 bombings. Here he asks why the force still can’t admit that it acted incompetently

‘Everybody’s human. Mistakes can be made… But you are really not prepared to say that any mistake [was made] here, are you?”

Michael Mansfield QC put this question to Cressida Dick – then deputy assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police – at the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, a young man who, 20 years ago this summer, was shot dead at Stockwell station in south London by Met firearms officers. The inquest took place in 2008, three years after his shooting on the morning of 22 July 2005, which was 15 days after the 7/7 bombings in London and one day after copycat bombers had tried and failed to detonate more explosives on the transport system and then fled. De Menezes was a 27-year-old Brazilian man living in London, an electrician on his way to work, with a travel card in his pocket and a copy of the free newspaper Metro, which he’d just picked up, tucked under his arm. A man completely unconnected to terrorism, terrorists, bombs, extremism or fundamentalism. A man not carrying a bag or rucksack. A man wearing jeans and a thin denim jacket.

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© Composite: Metropolitan Police/PA

© Composite: Metropolitan Police/PA

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Max Verstappen defies McLaren duo to win fourth straight Japanese F1 GP

  • Dutchman led from pole to win fourth Japanese GP
  • McLaren duo Norris and Piastri finish second, third

Max Verstappen won the Japanese Grand Prix for Red Bull with a very strong drive from pole position at Suzuka, beating the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri into second and third.

It was a fine run from the Dutchman in a car that is not the quickest in the field to secure his first victory of the season. Charles Leclerc was in fourth for Ferrari, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton in seventh. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were in fifth and sixth for Mercedes.

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© Photograph: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

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Sunday with Laura Aikman: ‘The dog hates our park because he finds it boring’

The actor talks about getting excited at the cinema, being lured to kids’ parties and buying amazing breakfast samosas from the farmers’ market

Sunday highlights? Spending time with Eric Cantona, my dog. He’s a nine-year-old grey French bulldog. I meet my friends for a chatty run on the heath, then my husband, Matt, will meet me and we’ll walk Eric. The dog hates walking around our park because he finds it boring.

What do you chat about? Gossip. DIY. My friend Becca is renovating her kitchen. We’re trying to move, so there’s quite a lot of very dull chat about conveyancing.

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© Photograph: Karwai Tang/WireImage

© Photograph: Karwai Tang/WireImage

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To Hades and back: my family holiday in Parga, Greece

With its white sand, sparkling sea, olive groves and echoes of ancient myths, a holiday in Greece’s beautiful Parga makes you very glad to be in the kingdom of the living

There is a place in western Greece where, in a single day, you can frolic at an all-inclusive resort at breakfast time and then, after lunch, wade through an entrance to the underworld. This is Parga, built over a double-curve bay where the beaches are studded with tasteful tourist attractions, and inland the Acherontas River (the “river of woe”) weaves through the rocks.

It’s a good way to plan a family holiday, I think: glamour, sunburn, feta, little bit of death, beer, swim. I decided not to tell the children about the death.

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© Photograph: miljko/Getty Images

© Photograph: miljko/Getty Images

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The white working class is nothing like what politicians think – or claim – it is | Kenan Malik

A new book, Underdogs, demolishes the myth that it is homogeneous in its hostility to immigration

‘Many of those who act as the champions of the white person against immigrants,” Labour MP David Winnick told the House of Commons in 1968, “have not in the past gone out of their way to defend the interests of the white working class.”

It was the first time anyone had referred to the “white working class” in parliament to describe a segment of the British population. Half a century on, that segment has become the focus of one of the most contentious and polarising of debates. For many on the right, the white working class constitutes a distinct group, both their distinctiveness and their problems, stemming largely from their whiteness. Many on the left have, Joel Budd notes, “fallen silent on the subject”, nervous of racialising issues of class.

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© Photograph: Jon D/Alamy

© Photograph: Jon D/Alamy

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‘There is no ceasefire. Attacks are ongoing’: how Putin’s envoy played US over Ukraine

White House welcome for key member of Russian president’s inner circle raises fears over America’s commitment to peace

Kirill Dmitriev’s meetings with US officials in the White House last week went largely below the radar. And deliberately so.

The dapper investment envoy to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who also serves as a key negotiator for Moscow on Ukraine, posted an image of his flight plan on social media to make the point that a senior sanctioned Russian official was being welcomed by the Trump administration. Otherwise, details of what was discussed remain opaque.

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© Photograph: Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty

© Photograph: Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty

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‘We’d been through so much’: Jean Hannah Edelstein on breasts – and life without them

All her life Jean Hannah Edelstein had tried to feel comfortable with her breasts, battling unwelcome attention and breastfeeding woes. But then came cancer and a double mastectomy – and she realised she was losing something she loved

Let me tell you about my breasts, of blessed memory. That’s not something I would have said while I still had them. I was quite prim, you see, and maybe I still am, but a double mastectomy gives you license to say “‘breast” over and over again, without the usual consequences. My breasts were real, and they were spectacular.

That’s a Seinfeld reference, if you’re not familiar. Seinfeld was one of the shows that I watched often in my adolescent years when my breasts first asserted themselves. It was among our key texts. We were in late-20th-century America, my breasts and I. It was a time and place that taught me that women’s bodies – breasts, specifically – were objects of desire, and jokes, and danger. Friends, Baywatch, Melrose Place. Clueless, Scream. Britney, Beyoncé. Monica Lewinsky.

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© Photograph: Rebecca Miller/The Observer

© Photograph: Rebecca Miller/The Observer

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The big picture: Clark Winter on the road in Beijing

The American photographer​ captured life​ behind the wheel ​across the US and elsewhere over three decades, using a vehicle’s angles to frame the world outside

It’s 3.35pm in Beijing and everything is happening. The wide street, bathed in slanted afternoon sun, is filled with traffic. We are in the back seat of a taxi, paused at the mercy of the traffic controller atop his tiered stand, like a figurine on a wedding cake. The edges of the road are clogged with cyclists rushing towards and away from us, but mostly what we see is cars, cars and more cars, including the interior of our own.

The four-wheeled automobile is the subject and the vehicle, so to speak, of American photographer Clark Winter’s Here to There: Photographs from the Road Ahead, which chronicles three decades of road life across the US and beyond. As a youth, Winter was offered a rare place to study at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design under American photography luminaries such as Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. Realising he wanted to know more about the world before fixing it with his lens, he instead took an entry-level job at JP Morgan, who funded a year of education in finance and then sent him across the world to learn about global markets. He took his Leica with him.

Here to There. Photographs from the Road Ahead is published by Damiani (€50)

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© Photograph: Clark Winter

© Photograph: Clark Winter

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Bright eye products: 10 of the best

Dark circles, under-eye bags: these problems require quite different approaches

With age comes wisdom, experience and – unfortunately – dark circles under the eyes. Sneaky little shadows that make you look as if you’ve pulled an all-nighter, even after a proper rest.

Dark circles and under-eye bags are often assumed to be the same thing, they’re not. The former is usually caused by thinning skin or hyperpigmentation, making them harder to treat. Under-eye bags, on the other hand, are more about puffiness and fluid retention. Each requires a different approach. You can’t banish dark circles completely, but you can improve their appearance.

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© Photograph: Stephen Smith/Getty Images

© Photograph: Stephen Smith/Getty Images

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UK bans £2.2bn ‘sneaky’ fees and fake reviews for online products

New law aims to eliminate added costs that can be up to 25% of retail price

Sneaky fees that are estimated to cost consumers £2.2bn a year are to be banned from today under new consumer protection laws.

Businesses, including travel websites, ticket agencies and food delivery apps, will be required to include any mandatory fees in the headline price. Research has found these fees can be more than 25% of the product price.

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© Photograph: M4OS Photos/Alamy

© Photograph: M4OS Photos/Alamy

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US revokes all visas for South Sudanese over country’s failure to repatriate citizens

State department ‘taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further entry’, secretary of state says

Washington is revoking all visas for South Sudanese passport holders and blocking new arrivals, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Saturday, complaining the African nation is not accepting its nationals expelled from the US.

The state department “is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry”, Rubio said in a statement.

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© Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/Reuters

© Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/Reuters

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Tens of thousands rally against Trump at DC ‘Hands Off’ protest

Congress members Jamie Raskin, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar among speakers as demonstrators denounce ‘fascism’

Demonstrators estimated to be in the tens of thousands gathered in Washington on Saturday in a display of mass dissent against Donald Trump’s policies that organizers hoped would snowball into a rolling cycle of protests that could eventually stymie the US president in next year’s congressional elections.

Anger with Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk, was expressed in a sea of placards and banners on the Washington mall, in the shadow of the Washington monument. Multiple messages denounced the two men for shuttering government agencies, cutting jobs and services and – in often graphic terms – for threatening the survival of US democracy.

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© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

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F1: Japanese Grand Prix – Verstappen regains lead from Norris and Piastri after 32 laps

  • Updates from the Formula One race at Suzuka Circuit
  • Lights out at 2pm local/6am BST/3pm AEST
  • Any thoughts? Email or tweet @joeylynchy

Pole is always important, of course, but it could prove especially so for Verstappen today.

The Dutchman has gone coast-to-coast from the front of the grid in the last three races in Suzuka and while he hasn’t had to deal with the kind of gap between himself and a rival’s car like experiencing this season with the McLarens, his drive to secure pole yesterday shows you right him off at your peril.

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© Photograph: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

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Britain needn’t be cowed by wrecking-ball Trump, it should seize opportunities in Europe, Canada and beyond | Will Hutton

Keir Starmer can help redefine global trade while strengthening new – and old – alliances

‘Liberation Day” was, of course, a tragic idiocy based on a bewildering inversion of reality. The rest of the world has not been ripping off or pillaging and plundering the US, as claimed by Trump launching his salvo of tariffs, the highest for a century. The truth is the opposite.

There is no American “national emergency”. The US still represents the same 25% of world GDP, as it did in 1980. More than half the goods it imports are from affiliates of US multinationals denominated and paid for in dollars, so its deficit is an accounting identity with itself rather than reflecting economic weakness.

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© Illustration: Dominic McKenzie/The Observer

© Illustration: Dominic McKenzie/The Observer

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Netanyahu heads to Washington to talk tariffs and Gaza with Trump

Tariff discussions would make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to travel to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a better deal

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to travel to Washington to meet with US president Donald Trump to discuss issues including tariffs, Gaza and the “Iranian threat”, his office has confirmed.

The meeting will take place on Monday, a White House official said on the condition of anonymity.

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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

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The Observer view on SUVs: they are too dangerous and too big, their drivers should be made to pay

If a car generates more potholes, takes up more space and poses more risk, it is only fair that its owner pays more

Britain is facing an unusual crisis: carspreading. Our road vehicles are getting bigger as people buy more and more SUVs of increasing dimensions and weight. At the same time, our streets and parking places remain the same size.

The consequences of this uncontrolled vehicular expansion have become profound. Potholes are being created in greater numbers as our roads are pounded by heavier vehicles; multiple parking spaces are being taken over by single, giant cars; and road accidents are now producing more severe injuries to drivers and passengers of other vehicles. This last issue is of particular concern.

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© Photograph: RichardBaker/Alamy

© Photograph: RichardBaker/Alamy

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Tim Tszyu gets career off the canvas with stunning fourth round TKO of Joey Spencer

  • Tszyu wins IBO superwelterweight title following two shock losses
  • Sydney fighter calls out American Keith Thurman for next bout

Tim Tszyu has restored his reputation and reignited his international career with a brutal beatdown of American Joey Spencer in Newcastle.

The referee stopped the fight two minutes and 18 seconds into the fourth round after Australia’s former WBO world champion battered Spencer with a stunning blitz to the head and body.

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© Photograph: Mark Evans/EPA

© Photograph: Mark Evans/EPA

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Intrusive thoughts have convinced me I’m repulsive to look at

This inner critic isn’t you, it’s just a voice that has been given far too much authority

The question I am struggling with intrusive and increasingly critical self-talk around my appearance. So much so that some days I struggle to look in the mirror. I’ve recently had a baby and assumed that my long history of feeling ugly, lesser and fundamentally inadequate would be surpassed by being a mother and having an external concern other than myself but, if anything, it’s worse.

It has become so bad I have convinced myself that my partner will find someone else despite him being lovely, reassuring and committed. I know this cognitively, but emotionally I feel deeply flawed as a woman and ugly in the world. I judge myself constantly when I’m around other women.

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© Photograph: aerogondo2/Shutterstock

© Photograph: aerogondo2/Shutterstock

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Trump news at a glance: anti-Trump protests draw huge crowds across the US

Biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain momentum – key US politics stories from 5 April


Crowds of people angry about the way Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities on Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the US president’s first weeks in office.

The so-called “Hands Off!” demonstrations were held in more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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Man charged after allegedly attempting to open plane door on flight to Sydney

Australian federal police say the man, 46, allegedly tried to open the rear emergency exit door of the plane from Malaysia on Saturday

A Jordanian national has been charged after he allegedly attempted to open the doors of a Sydney-bound plane mid-flight.

Australian federal police (AFP) said the man, 46, allegedly tried to open the rear emergency exit door of the plane, travelling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Saturday night.

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© Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

© Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

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Torrential rain and flash flooding follow deadly tornadoes as storms rage in central US

Days of heavy rains have led to rapidly swelling waterways and prompted a series of flood emergencies from Texas to Ohio

Another round of torrential rain and flash flooding on Saturday hit parts of the US south and midwest already heavily waterlogged by days of severe storms that also spawned deadly tornadoes. Forecasters warned that rivers in some places would continue to rise for days.

Day after day of heavy rains have pounded the central US, rapidly swelling waterways and prompting a series of flash flood emergencies from Texas to Ohio. The National Weather Service (NWS) said dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach major flood stage, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

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© Photograph: Ryan C Hermens/TNS/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ryan C Hermens/TNS/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

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The moment I knew: when he said I love you, it took me days to build up the nerve to respond

Despite her instant attraction to Lachlan Dearing, Angelina Thomson was lost for words when he declared his feelings for her. Then she plucked up the courage to say it back

Lachlan says he first noticed me when I was working as an usher at the Eternity Playhouse theatre in Sydney before Covid, but I first remember meeting him in December 2021 when we started rehearsals for A Chorus Line together.

I was instantly attracted to this handsome, talented guy. When I found out he loved the ocean, surfing and skateboarding – like me – I knew he was a triple threat twice over. These aren’t the kind of interests you encounter too often working in musical theatre, so we bonded quickly. I made the first move and asked for his number.

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© Composite: Angelina Thomson

© Composite: Angelina Thomson

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What does Australian sovereignty look like? It’s a question we now must answer thanks to Donald Trump | Julianne Schultz

Confidence in American reliability is tumbling in every poll. As tariffs kick in, how can we adjust to not having a great superpower as our protector?

Prof Hugh White, the esteemed yet critical analyst of Australian defence policy, took a deep breath, surveyed the men he had spent a lifetime debating, and said: “Donald Trump is doing us a favour.” He is proving that our old assumptions are “all wrong”.

White knew this was a provocation, but maybe one whose time had come. Malcolm Turnbull agreed that this was a debate we needed to have. As the shopping list election campaign sidesteps the changed world order, the 29th prime minister used his convening power to host a forum at the press club about the bigger underlying issues.

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© Composite: AAP / Getty Images

© Composite: AAP / Getty Images

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Cory Booker urges action in first event since historic speech: ‘This is a moment for America’

Democratic senator calls on voters to get creative in pushing back against Trump at town hall in New Jersey

The Democratic senator Cory Booker took a version of his record-breaking Senate floor speech on the road Saturday to a town hall meeting in a New Jersey gymnasium, calling on people to find out what they can do to push back against Donald Trump’s agenda.

Booker took questions at suburban New Jersey’s Bergen Community College the same day that more than 1,200 “Hands Off” demonstrations took place around the country. The town hall event was punctuated both by celebratory shouts of “Cory, Cory” as well as at least a half-dozen interruptions by protesters.

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© Photograph: Kena Betancur/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kena Betancur/Getty Images

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More than 1,000 ‘Hands Off’ anti-Trump protests hit cities across the US

‘The aim is, get people to rise up,’ said one protester in DC, one of many cities where people took to the streets

People across the US took to the streets on Saturday to oppose what left-leaning organizations called Donald Trump’s “authoritarian overreach and billionaire-backed agenda”.

Organizers estimated that more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Washington DC, Florida and elsewhere.

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© Photograph: Ken Cedeno/Reuters

© Photograph: Ken Cedeno/Reuters

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Gen X men: if you don’t find the strength to inoculate boys against the manosphere, what men are left? | Van Badham

The popularity of Adolescence has provided an icebreaker for these conversations, but having them is not a responsibility women can shoulder

“The fitness coach starts his very early morning routine by removing a piece of tape from his mouth,” CNN reports. The “manfluencer” in question, Ashton Hall, spends the rest of his day dunking his face in ice water, rubbing banana peel on his skin and chugging down “Saratoga Water”. This is apparently the modern western definition of hardcore masculinity.

Friends, maybe – just maybe – we should restart that conversation about western manhood because if it involves banana peel, you are not demonstrating what it means to be a human adult; you are culturally appropriating a clown.

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© Photograph: Andreea Alexandru/AP

© Photograph: Andreea Alexandru/AP

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Anti-Trump protests get under way across the US – video

Protesters across the US rallied against Donald Trump's policies on Saturday. The 'Hands Off!' demonstrations are part of what the event's organisers expect to be the largest single day of protest against Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul government and expand presidential authority

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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UK foreign secretary criticises Israel for denying two Labour MPs entry

David Lammy says it is ‘unacceptable’ that the parliamentary delegation had been detained and deported

The UK’s foreign secretary has criticised Israeli authorities for denying two Labour MPs entry into the country and deporting them.

Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were rejected because they were suspected of plans to “document the activities of security forces and spread anti-Israel hatred”, according to a statement from the Israeli immigration ministry cited by Sky News and Politics UK.

Yang, who represents Earley and Woodley in Berkshire, and Mohamed, the MP for Sheffield Central, both flew into Ben Gurion airport from Luton with their aides, according to reports.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, said in a statement on Saturday: “It is unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning that two British MPs on a parliamentary delegation to Israel have been detained and refused entry by the Israeli authorities.

“I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians, and we have been in contact with both MPs tonight to offer our support.

“The UK government’s focus remains securing a return to the ceasefire and negotiations to stop the bloodshed, free the hostages and end the conflict in Gaza.”

Since renewed military operations last month ended a short-lived truce in its war with Hamas, Israel has pushed to seize territory in the Gaza Strip in what it said was a strategy to force militants to free hostages still in captivity.

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© Composite: Antonio Olmos, The Observer / House of Commons

© Composite: Antonio Olmos, The Observer / House of Commons

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Biologist whose innovation saved the life of British teenager wins $3m Breakthrough prize

Prof David Liu is among the winners of 2025’s ‘Oscars of science’, with honours also going to researchers for landmark work on multiple sclerosis, particle physics and ‘skinny jabs’

For the past five years, David Liu – a professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical research facility in Massachusetts – has marked Thanksgiving by handing over his entire annual salary, after taking care of taxes, to the staff and students in his laboratory.

It started as the pandemic broke and Liu heard that students who wanted to cycle instead of taking public transport could not afford bicycles. Given how hard they worked and how little they were paid, Liu stepped in. He couldn’t unilaterally raise their incomes, so emailed them Amazon eGift cards. This ran into problems too, however. “Everyone thought they were being scammed,” he recalls. And so he switched to writing cheques.

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© Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images

© Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images

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Mahmoud Khalil says his arrest was part of ‘Columbia’s repression playbook’

Green-card holder and activist led campus pro-Palestinian rallies and is now fighting Trump effort to deport him

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist who led campus pro-Palestinian rallies and is now resisting the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, has accused the university of laying “the groundwork for my abduction” and called on the student body to continue demonstrations and protests.

Khalil, a green-card holder who is in custody in Louisiana as his case moves through the courts, was detained on 8 March. The Trump administration is seeking to deport him under a provision in federal immigration law that permits the state department to deport non-citizens considered to be a threat to US foreign policy.

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© Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

© Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

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