David Lammy, foreign secretary, says UK is ‘a nation that believes in open trade’ and says government is negotiating with US over economic agreement
An anti-abortion campaigner at the centre of a free speech controversy involving the US government has been found guilty of breaching a “buffer zone” outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic, PA Media reports. PA says:
Livia Tossici-Bolt was convicted at Poole magistrates’ court of two charges of breaching the Public Spaces Protection Order on two days in March 2023.
The case involved the 64-year-old from Bournemouth holding a sign saying “Here to talk, if you want”.
But I think our approach should be to slightly stand back and think, what does Britain want, and can it get from the rest of the world, and what can we contribute?
And in that regard, it’s important to realise that the rest of the G7, except the US, collectively are the same size as the United States. And I would have thought a very sensible thing to be doing is having a serious conversation with the other members about actually lowering trade barriers between ourselves, especially for cross-border services, which is what the UK has a marginal advantage in, which would be very healthy for all of those countries because it’s the one area of global trade where most countries haven’t done enough in.
The US is the biggest economy in the world still, but it’s not anything like as important for global trade as it is in global finance and global security.
So if the US wants to do this [impose global tariffs], then it’s perfectly within the bounds of feasibility for other large economies to structure themselves, stop this addiction to the US consumer, and start to consume more themselves, as well as between each other.
An email: “On the subject of Ange Postecoglou,” writes Peter Wilkinson. “I’m not a Spurs fan so I don’t have a dog in the race but it amuses me that while fans give players and managers absolute pelters, as soon as they get a bit back the fans start clutching their pearls saying it’s a disgrace. If you can’t take it, don’t give it out.”
A fair point well made, Peter. Ange is due to face the press shortly in an appointment he’s probably looking forward to with as much relish as a trip to the dentist for root canal surgery. It could get spiky, mate.
Chanel Tapper holds Guinness World Records title with her 3.8in tongue that is longer than a medium-sized lightbulb
Party tricks are second nature to Chanel Tapper, who has long wielded the Guinness World Records title for woman with the globe’s longest tongue.
The California native can easily use the 3.8in (9.75cm) organ to remove Jenga blocks from a stack. She can flip red plastic cups with it; touch the tip of her nose as well as under her chin; and raise a spoon by curling it around the utensil.
The reason we don’t see that person is because we’re asking the wrong question
Everyone’s waiting for that one person to stand up to Donald Trump. Not just that one person. There are a lot of such people. You can read about them in every newspaper. But that one person with real power who’s willing to risk something costly in defiance. That one university president who’ll say, fuck you and your money. That one Democrat who’ll say, fuck you and your threat to my re-election or that of my party. Everyone’s looking for our Tank Man, staring down a column of tanks, all by himself, in Tiananmen Square.
Why don’t we see that person? Where is our Tank Man? (And, no, I don’t think Cory Booker doing a marathon-length filibuster counts.)
When you’re thinking of becoming a hero, you feel like a slob. You feel, do you really have a right to do that?
Everton have strongly condemned abuse directed at their defender James Tarkowski after Wednesday’s Merseyside derby. The centre-back was targeted for his tackle on Alexis Mac Allister, which resulted in a yellow card but led to an acknowledgment from Premier Game Match Officials Ltd that the video assistant referee was wrong not to recommend an upgrade to a red.
Tarkowski’s wife, Samantha, posted on Instagram on Thursday that they had received, among other things, death threats.
Four years of medical school notes vanished with my device, and my flight was due to take off in 45 minutes
When asked where the safest place in the world is, some might suggest the airport security queue. Vigilantly monitored, it sends me into autopilot: finishing my water, putting my luggage on the tray, taking out my electronics, shuffling through the body scanner and collecting my belongings. But as of August last year, I’m no longer so nonchalant.
My family, boyfriend and I had spent a carefree two weeks on holiday in Portugal. I was already mourning the end of summer – and my return to medical school – when we arrived at Porto airport for our flight home. I had just stepped away from the security queue and was repacking my bag when I realised something I had put on the scanner belt was missing: my iPad. Panicked, I demanded that everyone comb through their luggage, but it was nowhere to be found. Four years of medical school notes, as well as reams of unfinished writing from my year as a journalist, had vanished.
Deadline for company to divest from Chinese ownership nears as Trump mulls over potential bids from US firms
Once again, the future of TikTok in the US is at stake. After a years-long tussle over whether or not to ban the app in the country, the deadline for the company to divest or sell its assets to a non-Chinese owner is up again on 5 April.
A handful of potential buyers have said they’re interested in the tremendously popular social media app and various news reports have floated other types of deals, including an investment from the Donald Trump-friendly venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz or a bid from Amazon. Trump signed an executive order in January to postpone a ban-or-divest deadline until April; earlier this week he said he would “like to see TikTok remain alive”. But the path forward for TikTok, and its 170 million US users, remains murky.
Tsunoda close behind Verstappen; Norris heads times
With the weight of a nation on his shoulders and under the most intense scrutiny of his career, Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda delivered with no little finesse in practice for the Japanese Grand Prix in his first outing for Red Bull. Lando Norris meanwhile appears well set to further advance his world championship ambitions, with a strong showing at Suzuka for McLaren, despite a second session interrupted by no fewer than four red flags, two caused by trackside fires.
Tsunoda was drafted in from sister outfit Racing Bulls only last week to replace Liam Lawson, who the team unceremoniously demoted after just two races. The 24-year-old has four seasons in F1 under his belt but has never driven this year’s Red Bull before and it is a notoriously hard car to handle, as Lawson discovered.
Singer-songwriter made more than 30 albums away from the mainstream, inspiring numerous artists in American alternative music
Michael Hurley, the American singer-songwriter whose unique path through the US folk scene made him an inspiration to generations of alternative musicians, has died aged 83.
A statement from the family announced his “recent sudden passing”, though no cause of death has been given. It added: “The ‘godfather of freak folk’ was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit … There is no other. Friends, family and the music community deeply mourn his loss.”
US president attacks French judiciary as frustration grows in France with Trump’s policies; part of French left prepares counter demonstration in Paris
The EU justice commissioner Michael McGrath has played down the possibility that services such as US big tech could be sucked into a looming trade war after France said it wanted to attack online services as part of the retaliation to Trump’s tariffs.
France is pushing for Brussels to use new anti-coercion instruments to allow it go beyond trade which would effectively allow it tax on software, social media and streaming services.
Will Gaitok go rogue? Might there be an incest-related shooting? Could primates do it? Here’s a rundown of the top rumours around the last episode’s looming death (or deaths)
It all began with a dead body, before the HBO hit flashed back to a week earlier. Now satirical spa drama The White Lotus is set to solve all its mysteries in the third season finale, titled Amor Fati (which translate as “love of fate”, Latin fans).
The Thailand-set series opened with Zion’s meditation session being interrupted by gunfire. As the panicking student waded through the resort’s ponds to look for his mother, Belinda, an unidentified corpse floated past him face-down. Who was it? Who pulled the trigger? And will anyone squat over a suitcase?
With air pollution causing a fifth of deaths in Nepal, growing EV use could add nearly three years to Kathmandu residents’ lives
In a rundown hangar in the heart of Kathmandu, the remains of a dozen electric trolley buses stand abandoned and corroding. Caked in dust and bird-droppings and lined with rubbish, they are a reminder of a bold experiment, launched 50 years ago, to electrify the city’s public transport system. Down the side of one is written, “Keep me alive”.
Today, that plea is being heard. More than 70% of four-wheeled passenger vehicles – largely cars and minibuses – imported into Nepal last year were electric, one of the highest rates in the world. The figure reflects a remarkable growth in the use of electric vehicles (EVs), which saw the country import more than 13,000 between July 2023 and 2024, up from about 250 in 2020-21.
Its inspiration was Sydney Opera House and its paper-thin louvre windows are reminiscent of a luxury ocean-liner. More importantly, the people of Arklow in Ireland can finally go swimming without fear of floaters
It is not often that the arts section of a newspaper finds itself concerned with the aesthetic merits of a sewage works. But then there are few facilities designed with the finesse of the new €139m (£117m) wastewater treatment plant in Arklow, which stands like a pair of minty green pagodas on the edge of the Irish Sea. Nor are there many architectural firms who have thought so deeply about the poetics of effluent as Clancy Moore.
“There’s a wonderful passage in Ulysses,” says practice co-founder, Andrew Clancy, summoning James Joyce as we tiptoe along a metal gantry above a gigantic vat of bubbling brown sludge. “The narrator turns on the tap to fill a kettle, sparking a lengthy rumination on where the water comes from, how it flows from reservoirs, through aqueducts and pipes, describing each step in minute detail, from the volume of the tanks to the dimensions and cost of the plumbing.”
The director of One to One: John & Yoko reveals how he was given access to a trove of intimate and family archive material that changes how we see the star couple
People are usually at their most interesting when they are in flux – uncertain of the way forward, of what life they ought to build. That was the case with John Lennon and Yoko Ono when they arrived in New York in 1971. They were both fleeing England – the recriminations around the Beatles breakup; the terrible misogyny and racism levelled at Ono – but also running towards the optimism and creative excitement of the New York art scene.
This is the period I have tried to recreate in my film One to One: John & Yoko – using a plethora of previously unheard phone recordings, home movies and archive. It’s an unconventional film in many ways, pitching the viewer headfirst into the life, politics and music of the time without the usual music documentary guardrails. At its heart is the One to One concert that the couple gave at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1972 – a concert that turned out to be Lennon’s only full-length concert after leaving the Beatles.
Ju Wenjun and Tan Zhongyi are playing in Shanghai for the world crown, while 136 players, six of them from England, compete in Rhodes for the European championship
Women’s chess takes centre stage this week. In Shanghai and Chongqing, there is an all-Chinese 12-game match for the women’s world crown between Ju Wenjun, 34, the holder, and Tan Zhongyi, 33, the challenger. The pair are closely matched on ratings (2561 to 2555) and level on head-to-head. The prize money pool is $500,000. Thursday’s game one, with Ju playing White in a Sicilian Defence, was a routine draw by threefold repetition in 39 moves.
There is live commentary from 7am BST each day from the all-time No 1, Judit Polgar, and England’s popular Jovanka Houska on YouTube. Saturday is a rest day, game three (of 12) is on Sunday.
Minimalist modern is giving way to a more individualistic, vintage-inspired look. Time to layer bead-style necklaces and add some colour
Jermaine Stewart was right, you know. We don’t have to take our clothes off to have a good time. I’m talking about fashion, naturally. If you want to tap into the most fun update happening in style right now, you can do so without changing a single item of clothing. Because the party is happening in your jewellery box, not your wardrobe.
Fun jewellery is back, and I am thrilled. I love a hoop earring as much as anyone, but I think it is time to admit to ourselves that the hoop has got a little tired at this point. For several months last year, the biggest thing that was happening in earrings was that the precise shape of the hoop had changed a tiny bit. Instead of being shaped like car tyres, they had a melted quality, heavier at the bottom. Before that, they had shrunk slightly, into huggie hoops that tightly clasped the lobes. They had switched from gold to silver, and sometimes to a combination of gold and silver. To put this another way: I think we can agree that we have explored all possible avenues of what a hoop earring could look like at this juncture.
From Anna Wintour’s table manners to Oscar party hijinks, the former editor of Vanity Fair tells all
There are lines in When the Going Was Good, Graydon Carter’s memoir of his swashbuckling career as an editor during the heyday of magazines, that will make any journalist laugh (bitterly) out loud. “There was a bar at the end of each corridor,” writes Carter of his first job at Time magazine in the mid-1970s, where expense accounts were huge, oversight relaxed and, “I went five years without ever turning on my oven”. At Vanity Fair, where Carter took over the editorship in 1992, “the budget had no ceiling. I could send anybody anywhere for as long as I wanted.” For a commission on the collapse of Lloyd’s of London, one Vanity Fair hack ran up expenses of $180,000 – and the piece didn’t run.
These are the details most readers will come for and Carter, who at 75 remains a symbol of magazine glamour and excess – a fact somehow vested in the whimsy and extravagance of his comic-book hair – doesn’t short-change us. His years at Vanity Fair entailed as much sucking up to the worlds of Hollywood and fashion as it did publishing great journalism, and this book reminds us that, like all hacks, he is a gossip at heart; casting an eye back on his life, he can’t help but dish the dirt.
Morant hits buzzer beater to secure Memphis’s victory
Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant risked further action from the NBA after making a shooting gesture with his finger during Thursday’s game against the Miami Heat, despite being told to refrain from the “inappropriate” celebration.
Morant made the gesture after making a three-pointer in the first quarter of the Grizzlies’ 110-108 victory over the Heat.
Curtis Jones is not a long-term fix at right-back for Liverpool, Tyler Dibling is a wanted man and Arsenal are depleted
When Arsenal next visit Merseyside on 11 May their first act may be to form a guard of honour for Liverpool, who could by then be newly crowned Premier League champions. The title appears destined for Anfield – Arsenal have been unable to sustain a consistent challenge for it all season – but Mikel Arteta will feel duty-bound to delay the seemingly inevitable for as long as possible on his return to Everton. Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid may be the priority for Arsenal but rotating is hardly an option for Arteta at Goodison Park given he has four defenders available. A makeshift unit would benefit from a demanding afternoon together before welcoming Real to the Emirates. Arne Slot claimed it is unfair on Everton to have an early Saturday kick-off after Wednesday’s Merseyside derby. Depleted or not, Arteta’s team should take advantage. Andy Hunter
Everton v Arsenal, Saturday 12.30pm (all times BST)
Tottenham manager chiding his own fans during defeat at Chelsea was an act of self-indulgence that backfired
In fairness to Ange Postecoglou it will go down as one of the great managerial ear-cuppings. It was bitter, it was undignified and, rather than an act of defiance, it is probably going to be remembered as the moment of high farce that finally broke Postecoglou’s relationship with Tottenham’s fans.
Here was a man on the edge, the list of grievances piling high, the emotion impossible to contain as he watched his side somehow cancel out Chelsea’s 1-0 lead at Stamford Bridge. Postecoglou had heard the chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing” from the travelling supporters when he brought Pape Sarr on for Lucas Bergvall in the 64th minute. Now came vindication. On 66 minutes: a first shot on target. This was progress. Three minutes later, Sarr charging into midfield, knocked Moisés Caicedo over and unleashed a shot that went in thanks to more dreadful goalkeeping from Robert Sánchez.
League queries disappearance of €100m from accounts
Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor can continue to play until the end of the season after the Spanish sports council (CSD) upheld Barcelona’s appeal against the league’s decision to unregister them because the club did not meet a 31 December deadline on financial controls.
The judgment comes a day after La Liga said Barcelona still did not comply with the salary limit set and that it would report the club’s former auditors after €100m effectively disappeared from their accounts.
Ministers are considering how to secure an agreement that might exempt Britain from Trump’s tariffs
UK ministers are redoubling their efforts to agree a trade deal with Donald Trump after he announced sweeping 10% tariffs on British exports to the US.
Downing Street has said talks were at an “advanced stage” and officials have indicated that the broad outlines of a deal have been agreed.
The island of Ireland faces a complex challenge with Trump’s tariffs. But giving up on transatlantic relations is not the answer
Ireland believes in open, free trade and has build a strong, resilient economy by being the most globalised in Europe. We are a trading country. That is why the announcement on tariffs came as such a disappointment to us.
Imposing tariffs to force companies to locate in the US will fundamentally change how the world sees it. US economic dominance has not been built on scale or purchasing power alone, but on relationships and alliances, something it is now damaging. “Liberation day” risks forcing a realignment of how global trade operates, without the US at its centre, as countries rethink their relationship with the US and seek new, more reliable partners.
Simon Coveney is a former deputy prime minister, foreign minister and enterprise and trade minister of Ireland
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The project in Uganda has captured the disastrous effects of the climate crisis on a vital source of water that is central to the lives and sacred beliefs of the local Bakonzo community
Jon Hamm stars as a gentlemen thief in a very entertaining midlife-crisis satire. Plus: Charlie Brooker’s hit series is back with another sensational cast
Manifesting his signature blend of unshakeable self-confidence and understated self-loathing, Jon Hamm stars in this midlife-crisis satire. Coop (Hamm) is a hedge fund manager who, after years gazing down at the world from an ivory tower, finds his life falling apart. His wife has gone, his kids are expensive, his sister’s mental health problems are getting worse and he’s lost his job. “Your biggest mistake,” his boss tells him, “was thinking any of this was ever yours.” At a barbecue hosted by friends, he has an idea: the people around him are awful and undeservedly rich – so why not rob them? Soon, everything is spiralling out of control in very entertaining fashion. Apple TV+, from Friday 11 April
Dismissing Haugh, who headed the US Cyber Command, puts the country at risk at a time of ‘unprecedented cyber threats’, congressional Democrats say
Top congressional Democrats on Thursday protested against the reported firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.
The Washington Post reported late Thursday that Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, had been dismissed from their roles. Haugh also headed US Cyber Command, which coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity operations. The Post report cited two current US officials and one former US official who requested anonymity.
The UK is among those least hit by the US president’s war on the world economy. Retaliation at this point makes no sense
The tirade was astonishing. On Wednesday afternoon the world watched as the leader of its most powerful nation accused friends and foes alike of having “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered”, and simultaneously waved a bogus list of tariff imbalances. The playground paranoia was cringeworthy. What on earth was going on?
The answer can only be that Donald Trump is America’s elected president for the next four years. He says he wants to end the military conflicts the US has fought or sponsored round the globe for a quarter of a century. We are waiting for that. Meanwhile, he is waging an economic war on world trade, a response that his biographer and ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, blames on his childhood: “a life spent feeling like a victim … any time he does not totally dominate he feels ripped off”.
Justice committee said the majority of public submissions oppose the legislation, which seeks to reinterpret the country’s founding document
A parliamentary committee has recommended a bill that seeks to radically reinterpret New Zealand’s founding treaty between Māori tribes and the British Crown should not proceed.
The treaty principles bill, which was introduced to parliament by the minor coalition Act party, seeks to abandon a set of well-established principles that guide the relationship between Māori and ruling authorities in favour of its own redefined principles.
Authorities race to complete clean-up operation after devastation from gales and heaviest rainfall in 20 years
People on the Aegean islands, more used in April to the sight and scent of spring’s blossoms, have been left reeling from flash floods spurred by typhoon-strength gales, with authorities calling a state of emergency in some of Greece’s most popular destinations less than three weeks before Easter.
“It’s a total catastrophe and it happened in just two hours,” said Costas Bizas, the mayor of Paros, the island worst hit by weather not seen in decades. “We need all the help we can get.”
The UK indie-rockers won two Grammys for their debut album. Ahead of their second, they explain how they protected one another amid sudden fame – and how queer love and Davina McCall inspired them
Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale looks like a pop star from a different era. She walks into a bar in east London wearing a giant, floor-length pale-pink padded coat. She has bleached eyebrows, dip-dyed hair, drawn-on freckles and jewels stuck to her nails and teeth. For a moment, Top of the Pops could be on primetime TV and a copy of Smash Hits in my bag. But then Wet Leg’s story always did feel anachronistic. In 2021, they managed what indie bands don’t often manage any more and became an overnight success. That June, they released their first single, Chaise Longue, a deadpan, perfectly simple and cheerfully daft megahit; they conquered the US and Japan, toured arenas and topped the album charts with their scathing, self-titled debut, scoring two Brit awards and two Grammys.
They were still touring that album last summer, supporting Foo Fighters in stadiums. But eventually they found time to make a new one. Trailed by the punchy, indie-sleazy Catch These Fists, Moisturizer otherwise largely ditches their trademark death-stare sarcasm in favour of stompy but soppy love songs. Teasdale lives in London and we are meeting in person, but Hester Chambers, the band’s co-founder and lead guitarist, lives on the Isle of Wight, where Wet Leg met and formed. (Having written their debut alone, this time, they co-wrote with drummer Henry Holmes, guitarist Joshua Mobaraki and bassist Ellis Durand.) Tracking Chambers down will prove a trickier task, but more on that later.
With populist leaders on the back foot and EU support at its highest in years, the US trade war could be an opportunity for the union
Donald Trump has unleashed a trade war on the world, and Europe, considered by Washington to be among the “worst offenders”, is a major target.After hitting European steel, aluminium and cars, this week Trump announced sweeping 20% tariffs on almost all EU imports. Europeans have seen this coming for a long time. Well before his re-election, officials in Brussels were drawing up plans on how the EU might respond to Trump 2.0 and a possible transatlantic trade war.
What might the political fallout in Europe be? The good news is that Trump’s trade war puts Trump-friendly far-right forces in Europe in a terribly uncomfortable position. It’s one thing for the European far right to support Trump in principle, or to support the administration’s tyranny over peoples it doesn’t care about, be it Ukrainians, Canadians, Mexicans or Palestinians. It’s quite another to defend Trump and his policies when the victims are countries that these far-right parties supposedly represent.
Indore in Madhya Pradesh was once dotted with fetid waste dumps but after a huge campaign is now virtually spotless
This is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.
But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for being the cleanest city in the country, it kept winning for eight straight years, until last year.
This tale of a terminal cancer patient’s newfound horniness upends every expectation you have for on-screen sex – as well as the definition of a soulmate. It leaves you longing for more
Sex is for men. This is a lesson we learn from a very early age. Maybe it is a nice lesson to learn if you are a man, though I imagine the pressure to be seen to know all about it from the off could feel a teensy bit much now and again. I’d probably take that over the internalised shame and alienation from your own body – and from one of the main drivers of pleasure that exists – so that we may all enjoy perpetuating the species, though, I think.
(Why yes, this is all about me! And yes I did grow up Catholic, which can’t have helped. You’re such a sweetheart for noticing!)
Legislation was repealed in 2018 but Caribbean country’s supreme court last week recriminalised the act after appeal
The privy council in London will soon be called upon to make the final decision on a court case to remove homophobic laws in Trinidad and Tobago.
The laws were repealed in 2018 in a high court judgment that struck from the statute book the “buggery law” that had criminalised consensual anal sex since an act passed in 1925 under British rule. However, last week Trinidad’s supreme court upheld a government appeal against the ruling and recriminalised the act, dealing a hammer blow to LGBTQ+ rights in the Caribbean country and prompting the UK Foreign Office to update its advice for LGBTQ+ travellers.
The actor-director brings his 2005 drama to the stage, now playing the lead role, but while it’s timely and nicely staged, it feels stiff
Time has been kind to Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney’s sincere dramatization of the broadcaster Edward R Murrow’s on-air tangles with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Sleek, slim and reverent, the 2005 film recalled a time of both cultural panic and promise, before American attention splintered and television’s road forked toward cable news. In its own era, the movie played in implicit contrast to mainstream media’s failure to interrogate the Bush administration’s dubious justifications for the Iraq war. In 2025, well … now, as in 1953, the lies run rampant. But in Clooney’s stark black-and-white drama, truth prevails.
Wouldn’t that be nice. The ongoing lurch away from due process casts both a haunting pall and a self-congratulatory glow over New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, where Clooney leads a proficient, if stiff, Broadway adaptation of his directorial debut. The 63-year-old actor, who originally played Murrow’s comparatively warm producing partner Fred Friendly, steps into the shoes of the hardbitten broadcaster for his Broadway debut with a palpable sense of purpose. The show, one of a handful of starry, expensive productions this spring, at least has the argument of pressing relevance for exorbitant prices. The past week’s wave of government deportations and detentions, for “ties” to “terrorist groups” without evidence or trial, uncannily echo the McCarthy hearings that falsely accused government employees of colluding with the Communist party.
Connexion
