Impoverished African country is hit with highest tariff rate at 50%, overturning decades of global trade policy
The day after Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs, Lesotho’s garment workers feared for their jobs.
Last year, Lesotho sent about 20% of its $1.1bn (£845m) of exports to the US, most of it clothing, as well as diamonds, under a continent-wide trade agreement meant to help African countries’ development via tariff-free exports.
Journalists now effectively banished say Kremlin’s aim is to make them ‘toxic’ to anyone thinking of speaking to media
Russian BBC journalists who have been labelled “foreign agents” by Vladimir Putin’s regime have spoken of being unable to see their children, forced to sell homes and in effect being banished from their home country.
They are now meant to report their finances to the state, down to supermarket receipts, while there have already been practical effects for family members inside Russia. The journalists said the label was designed to make them “toxic” to any Russians thinking about speaking to independent media.
US-based global brands from Nike to Apple have suffered some of the heaviest falls in share price and market value, as investors react to fears of price increases and a potential slowdown in consumer spending. Here, we examine some of the most exposed industries and brands.
Amid claims that a chatbot helped shape the key calculations, the president is now off playing golf. He’ll find the world economy in a bunker
There’s a scene in the very first episode of Yellowstone where the casino-owning Native American chief explains the basic financial logic of all casinos to an uncomfortable politician: “The gamblers’ money is like a river – flowing one way. Our way.” Oh no, hang on, wait … Not all casinos. In fact, it could be that when all is said and done, the historians looking for that one key fact to illustrate the eventual legacy of Donald Trump will not go with his two stunning presidential election wins. Instead, they’ll point out that in the 90s, he literally managed to bankrupt casinos. To repeat: this is a man who somehow contrived to bankrupt multiple casinos. Is he the guy to reshape the entire global economic order of the past century? Let’s find out! Either way, only 45 months of his presidency left to go.
Anyway: tariffs. Rather than using actual tariff data, the United States of America this week appeared to have genuinely used a basic ChatGPT-style model to calculate the tariffs it would immediately impose on friends/foes/arctic wildlife. This was called either “liberation day”, or the “declaration of economic independence” (sadly not abbreviated – yet – to DEI).
While Harlequins forward focuses on Saturday’s Champions Cup test at Leinster, future opportunities are on his mind
There is a colossal game looming in Croke Park on Saturday afternoon and Chandler Cunningham-South’s pre-match routine is now established. First he likes to step into a cold shower to wake himself up properly. Then the big Harlequins and England forward will open the notebook he carries everywhere with him, pick up a pen and write down exactly what he plans to do to Leinster.
The precise wording – “It’s quite personalised to me” – is less important than the confident mindset it encourages. The basic idea is to reinforce one of two key objectives – “It’s just confirming what’s in my head already,” he says – and ensures he goes into battle “with a clear mind”. Unthinkingly following the herd has never been his style.
In unprecedented orders, the president is targeting lawyers simply for filing cases he opposes. And firms are surrendering
If you are systematically engaged in lawbreaking, lawyers can be very annoying. They sue, and their suits may lead courts to declare your actions illegal.
So Donald Trump, who has launched his second term with a blizzard of blatantly illegal actions, many of which have been suspended by the courts, has decided to address the problem at its root. He’s targeting lawyers, punishing them for doing nothing more than filing lawsuits he opposes, or hiring lawyers he does not like. He has issued unprecedented executive orders penalizing five of the nation’s major law firms, and more are likely to come. These tactics, blatantly illegal, are designed with one goal in mind: to chill lawyers’ willingness to challenge his illegal actions. They are a fundamental attack on the foundation of the rule of law. And they are achieving their purpose, not because they are legal – they obviously are not – but because too many law firms are surrendering to Trump’s illegal demands.
David Cole is a professor at Georgetown Law and former legal director of the ACLU. Amrit Singh is a law professor and executive director of the Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School
Nicholas Jacobs was immersed in party activities, even working to elect the Musk-favored candidate who lost
Archived social media posts from a student Republican operative, Nicholas Jacobs, who received a $1m check from Elon Musk, show that he was deeply immersed in Republican electioneering over the last year, working not only to elect Donald Trump but other party candidates in the state.
They included failed Wisconsin Republican senate candidate Eric Hovde; first-term congressman Tony Wied; incumbent Milwaukee Republican vice-chair Brett Galaszewski; and Brad Schimel, the state supreme court candidate whom Musk has spent $25m supporting.
Devices similar to those used during pandemic to be deployed to help stamp out trade in threatened fish
Last year, a colleague of Diego Cardeñosa sent the international shark trade researcher a few pieces of shark fin taken from a bowl of soup in New York City. Using a PCR test similar to those used during the Covid-19 pandemic to test for the virus, Cardeñosa was able to identify the species behind the fin as sandbar shark, an endangered species found in tropical and warm-temperate waters.
Now, Cardeñosa and other scientists from Florida International University, alongside law enforcement officials from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), plan to deploy the tests at ports across the country in order to crack down on seafood fraud and fish trafficking.
After years of creating dark, disturbing, thought-provoking TV, Charlie Brooker is changing it up. The creator and star-studded cast of Black Mirror talk about why this season is the most moving and vulnerable yet
Charlie Brooker has been contemplating the passing of time, and he’s not happy about it. We’re on set at Shepperton for USS Callister: Into Infinity, the sequel to the 2017 space opera from his terrifying tech anthology Black Mirror. “The cast don’t seem to have aged at all,” he grumbles, “whereas I am a wizened old gentleman.”
There is a more reflective, almost nostalgic tone to this seventh season. The episode Plaything flashes back to Brooker’s early years as a gaming journalist in a Bandersnatch-adjacent slice of computer-induced madness; Eulogy immerses Paul Giamatti in his memories as he literally enters decades-old photos; gaslighting parable Bête Noire forces Siena Kelly’s chocolatier to reckon with youthful misdemeanours; Hotel Reverie stars Emma Corrin as a 1940s matinee idol falling for Issa Rae’s modern film star, who plays her white, male love interest in an AI remake of a vintage romance.
In this week’s newsletter: Donald Trump’s week of chaos has made me reappraise the unloved Star Wars prequel – was it quite prescient after all?
There are many scary things to come out of Trump’s tariffs. The world economy being thrown into chaos; spiralling prices; furious economic experts showing charts with big down arrows, using phrases like “gilt markets” and “share index undergrowth”, which I definitely understand. But the most terrifying thing – the thing that has made me truly believe that we are living in the End Times – is a panic-inducing realisation: The Phantom Menacejust might have been right all along.
For those who haven’t seen the first Star Wars prequel, GOD I envy you. The dialogue is wooden and the structure inexplicable (sure, let’s just have a pod-race instead of an Act II) – and that’s even before we get onto the Jar Jar Binks of it all (the answer to the question “what if we shaved Paddington and spliced his DNA with the most unlikeable newt in the world?”). But the biggest complaint is the subject matter.
Tournaments in 2031 and 2035 are likely to be great events but will be hosted by those who need them the least
There is an abundance of reasons why staging the 2031 and 2035 Women’s World Cups in the United States and UK respectively offers cause for delight. The countries have well-established and emotionally invested fanbases, a genuine buy-in to the women’s game and huge, modern stadiums to choose from. These two summer parties will surely eclipse anything women’s sport has seen and the countries, having invested in the women’s game more than any others in modern times, have frankly earned this.
Yet the news that the US and UK are bidding unopposed to host these tournaments is also sad for the women’s game from a global perspective. The US’s NWSL and England’s Women’s Super League are the two most-watched women’s leagues in the world with the largest average attendances and the most professionalised facilities for players and therefore, while many will agree that means they deserve the Women’s World Cup the most, they are also the countries who need the tournament the least.
‘Vertical dramas’ consisting of minute-long episodes are booming, with market predicted to be worth $14bn by 2027
Found a Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas. The Quarterback Next Door. Revenge of the XXL Wife. My Secret Agent Husband.
These may sound like cringey fantasies, but they’re actually titles of “vertical dramas”, a new form of episodic television that is gripping millions around the world.
We should all be worried that the rightwing organisation Alliance Defending Freedom has been increasing its activities in this country
I couldn’t sleep the other night, because I made the fatal mistake of reading about US politics directly before bed, specifically the executive order calling for the removal of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian museums. If US politics were a film, I’d say we’re somewhere in between having read aloud from the book that summons demons as a joke, and the final bloodbath.
If JD Vance rewriting history isn’t sinister enough, then came the news that the US state department will be “monitoring” a UK woman’s abortion buffer zone case (why does everything they say always sound so creepy?) They are “concerned”, apparently, “about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom”. The case is that of Livia Tossici-Bolt – who held up a sign reading “Here to talk if you want” outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic and was this morning convicted of breaching the buffer zone. Her case was being funded by the UK branch of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a rightwing organisation with links to the White House, which has increased its expenditure and activities in this country of late. It has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in the US.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
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Got a niggling houseplant query? Our expert is here to help. This week: how to repot a claustrophobic peace lily
What’s the problem?
My peace lily’s roots are escaping.
Diagnosis
When roots start growing through the drainage holes, it’s a sign the plant may be root-bound, meaning it has outgrown its pot. While some plants, such as succulents, can tolerate being root-bound, others – such as monsteras and peace lilies – can suffer from stunted growth, drooping leaves due to water retention, or even nutrient deficiencies.
Harvard weighs costs of standing up to president as other elite schools, such as Princeton, signal they won’t concede
The day after the Trump administration announced a review of $9bn in federal contracts and grants with Harvard due to what it claimed was the university’s failure to combat antisemitism on campus, the university’s president, Alan Garber, sent an email to the Harvard community titled: Our resolve.
“When we saw the Garber statement’s subject line, everybody thought: ‘Oh, great, Harvard’s going to stand up!” said Jane Sujen Bock, a board member of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, a group of alumni founded in 2016 amid a legal battle over affirmative action.
Doctors worry about semaglutides being used by people with restrictive eating disorders – but research also shows they could help others struggling with binge eating
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic have, in three short years, changed our attitudes to the body. They’ve revived a cultural fervor for thinness that has been blamed for everything from the closure of wine bars to killing off the body positivity movement. What began as a seeming miracle drug posited to help those most in need of losing weight for health reasons has led to a clamor in which one in eight Americans have tried the drugs and telehealth companies have offered cheaper off-brand versions with very little oversight.
Ozempic (the brand name for semaglutide) and other GLP-1s mimic a natural hormone in the body, stimulating insulin and slowing the rate of stomach emptying after eating, increasing one’s sense of fullness. But the very qualities that make GLP-1s such powerful tools for weight loss also make them potentially dangerous for those who struggle to adequately feed themselves.
His failure in Wisconsin could provide a model for the defeatist Democrats. Instead of fearing him, they should make him a symbol
It’s important to relish the little pleasures in life, like the knowledge that somewhere, Elon Musk is sad. On Tuesday, the world’s richest person faced an unmistakable rebuke from the public when voters in Wisconsin rejected his preferred candidate for a vacant state supreme court seat there: Brad Schimel, the former state attorney general, on whose campaign Musk had spent more than $25m – lost in a landslide to the liberal Susan Crawford. He must have been devastated, a thought which liberal Americans greeted with relish. The Democratic party’s official account on Musk’s X posted a photo of Musk with the caption “loser”. All that money wasted. Maybe he cried.
In addition to his lavish expenditures, Musk had made himself the center of the race in a deliberate and ill-advised fashion. He appeared at a rally in Green Bay wearing a cheese hat – a deliberately silly article donned by fans of sports teams in the dairy-producing state. He paid for in-person canvassers at a rate of $25 an hour, three times the minimum wage. And in an illegal gesture that the Wisconsin supreme court declined to stop, he handed out giant, novelty $1m checks to voters who signed a petition against “activist” judges – a thinly veiled cash-for-votes scheme, something he also did in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
It may not reinvent the wheel but the forthcoming racer looks awesome, plays flawlessly, offers more exhilarating carnage than ever before – and even allows some open-world exploration
How do you follow a game as complete and extensive as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Nintendo is banking on the answer being: go bigger. Double the number of racers to 24. Increase the number of characters (60 in total). More weapons. And, most eye-catchingly, more exploration.
That’s not a term you’d associate with the closed circuit, three-lap formula that the series has perfected over the last three decades, but in Mario Kart World, the flagship launch title for the forthcoming Switch 2, Nintendo is tearing down the tyre barriers and offering players a Forza Horizon style open world. It’s not exactly a total reinvention of the wheel, but it’s as big a change to the format as any since the series began. Given physical copies of Mario Kart World will retail at £75 though, is it enough?
Great Hall, Cardiff University In a dazzling performance, the jazz saxophonist draws out tracks from his latest album into giddy extemporisations, ceding the floor to a series of awesome soloists
‘I don’t need to be from here to tell you I love you,” Kamasi Washington says, teeing up the velvet soul of Lines in the Sand. From the back of the room comes a voice, propelled as much by the convivial brilliance that has lit up the stage for the past half an hour as it apparently is by a couple of Thursday-night beers: “I love you too, mate!”
The title of the Los Angeles bandleader and tenor saxophonist’s recent album Fearless Movement promised much and largely delivered, but when live, its all-in-it-together spirit grows extra legs. As Washington and his band draw out its tracks into giddy, 15-minute jazz extemporisations coloured by P-funk squelch and rowdy hip-hop, their joy at being able to play together is obvious and wonderful.
(Island EMI) The British star and the US country artist spur each other on in this tuneful, swinging set with poignant moments
In the twilight years of his career, Elton John has been anointing the next generation with a keener ear than most, championing new stars from Chappell Roan to Wet Leg via his Rocket Hour radio show and collaborating with artists as genre-diverse as Britney Spears, Gorillaz and Young Thug. Who Believes in Angels?, however, feels like a genuine meeting of minds. Created alongside American country rock royalty Brandi Carlile, an 11-times Grammy winner, there is the audible sense of two artists pushing each other and raising the other’s game; on the rollicking rock’n’roll romp of Little Richard’s Bible, or the full-blooded country duet Swing for the Fences, 78-year-old John sounds like a man half his age.
Where many of his recent collaborations have seen him enter the sonic palettes of modern pop, Someone to Belong To’s interweaving harmonies, or the rousing piano balladry of the record’s title track, live firmly in the world of classic, melody-driven songwriting, created by two artists supremely gifted at exactly that. The album ends with the remarkably poignant, Elton-led end-of-life reflection When This Old World Is Done With Me. Who Believes In Angels? is a fine reminder that he’s certainly not there yet.
Downing Street has refused to confirm President Trump’s claim that Keir Starmer was “very happy” about the treatment the UK is getting under the new US global tariff regime. (See 9.32am.) Asked about the president’s words at the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said that the government had already set out its position yesterday and that it was “disappointed” by the US tariff policy.
Livia Tossici-Bolt has been sentenced at Poole magistrates’ court to a conditional discharge for two years for two charges of breaching a “buffer zone” outside an abortion clinic in Bournemouth, PA Media reports. See 11.22am.
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 condemned threats aimed at James Tarkowski in the aftermath of the Merseyside derby and pledged to work with social media companies and police on any investigations into online abuse.
Tarkowski’s wife, Samantha, said the Everton defender had received death threats after Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at Liverpool and that the family had also been the target of vile abuse. Tarkowski was booked for a reckless 11th-minute tackle on Alexis Mac Allister in the derby and Howard Webb, head of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, has admitted to Liverpool the challenge was worthy of a red card.
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 the sister team, Racing Bulls, only last week to replace Liam Lawson, whom 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 secretary of state says ‘markets will adjust’ during press conference following Nato summit in Brussels
Asked further about Ukraine, Rutte lists a number of projects by Nato member states, including Poland, Denmark, and the Czech Republic.
He says that “the shortest answer” to question on safety guarantees is to adopt measures that make sure that “Putin will never, ever try again to get one square kilometer or one square mile of Ukraine in the future, that he knows that there is a deterrence and a defence by which Ukraine can never be attacked in the future.”
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.
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