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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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 estimatedthat more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Washington DC, Florida and elsewhere.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Police urge people to stay away, as helicopters try to extinguish flames in Galloway and surrounding region
Firefighters are dealing with a wild blaze that has spread over a large area of forest in Scotland with police urging people to stay away from the area.
Emergency services were called to Glentrool in Galloway, southern Scotland, at about 11.50pm on Friday with fire crews still on the scene on Saturday afternoon.
Police Scotland said the wildfire was expected to reach the Loch Doon area of East Ayrshire at about midnight
Helicopters are being used in efforts to extinguish the flames which have also affected Merrick Hill, Ben Yellary and Loch Dee, police said. One appliance from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is at the scene.
Another wildfire had been reported in around the same area on Thursday and covered about 1.5 miles (2.4km).
On Wednesday, crews in Scotland tackled a large grass fire at Gartur Moss in Port of Menteith, Stirling.
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has warned it needs “long-term and sustained investment” to cope with the climate crisis and “increased demand” on its services, after firefighters battled wildfires across the UK this week.
This year has seen 286 wildfires hit the UK, according to the NFCC, more than 100 above the number recorded in the same period in 2022, a year that had record-breaking temperatures and unprecedented wildfire activity.
The NFCC warned the government that it could not continue to cope with “significant increases in wildfires” with current budgets “already under strain”.
Phil Garrigan, chairman of the NFCC, said: “There is no getting away from the fact that climate change is driving increases in extreme weather events, such as wildfires.
“Responding to wildfires requires a lot of resource, and often over long periods of time, which puts pressure on other fire and rescue service activities.
“Rising resilience threats mean there is an increased demand on fire and rescue services and that has to be met with long-term and sustained investment. This is really crucial to ensuring we can continue to keep our communities safe.”
Fire services in Scotland, Wales and England have all warned against barbecues and campfires in open spaces this weekend, as well as urging people to dispose of cigarettes properly.
Surfing pioneer Josh will join Sierra in the Challenger series as the former child prodigy competes for a spot in the World Surf League
Sierra Kerr’s qualification for the Challenger series, the second-tier of international surfing and pathway to the World Surf League, has been long foretold. Kerr, who recently turned 18, was a child surf prodigy; it was just a matter of time before the Australian – a former junior world champion – started climbing the competitive ladder.
Less foreseen was what happened late last month, when the final qualifying event wrapped up and the 2025 Challenger series field was announced. Alongside Kerr on the list of surfers contesting the five-stop, five-country competition was none other than her father, Josh Kerr.
Anna Ryan-Punch was 15 when she received her first friendship book. It was the start of a lifelong hobby
Australian Anna Ryan-Punch was 15 when she received her first friendship book – a handmade and decorated pocket-sized booklet full of names and addresses of people looking for pen pals. Recipients were invited to add their details to the list, send a letter to other signatories and then pass the booklet on to someone new.
“They were included in letters as a side thing,” Ryan-Punch, now 44, says. When it was full of potential pen pals, the friendship book would, hopefully, be returned to the person who made it. “I didn’t have anyone to send them on to, but I wrote to people out of them and that kind of grew into a circle.”
They cannot be sold, made into a tasty dish or set to work. So what qualifies as a marvel? And why do we respond to them with such deep pleasure?
Last Sunday, while I was walking along a coastal path in Sydney, I was stopped in my tracks by a marvel. It was first noticed, as these things often are, by a small boy who was walking with me. Look at that! We both stopped and gazed at the marvel.
It sat on a low sandstone rock near the edge of the sea. We squatted down to examine it more closely. It was only a walking boot, but it was laced delicately all over the back and sides and tongue, and even the rim of the sole, with small white conical seashells, as if someone had stitched the shells into the fabric. The shells’ bright whiteness was tinged with a faint pink and there was a dark narrow opening where, with careful observation, we could see in each shell a soft living creature.
Full fathom five thy father lies/ Of his bones are coral made/ Those are pearls that were his eyes/ Nothing of him that doth fade/ But doth suffer a sea change/ Into something rich and strange.
When I was young, I had no idea that my mother was such an extraordinary woman. She was just my mother, swirling in and out of the house, singing to her jonquil bulbs, tripping over the animals I rescued, all while reading five books at once. If she was in the kitchen, my sisters and I hid downstairs as she clattered and crashed all the saucepans and swore like a sailor at the latest ruined batch of biscuits.
She wept at whatever devastation the nightly news delivered into the lounge room. She loved and was loved in return by my father, Douggie. She birthed four babes, grew the surviving three into formidable women and instilled in us a fierce belief that there was nothing we could not do.
Incident took place after Fenerbahce’s Turkish Cup loss
Galatasaray coach collapsed on pitch holding his face
José Mourinho has been banned for three matches and fined around £6,000 for grabbing the nose of the Galatasaray coach Okan Buruk after Wednesday’s dramatic Istanbul derby.
Mourinho, coach of Fenerbahce, approached Buruk at the end of the Turkish Cup quarter-final in the wake of a mass scuffle, and was seen on camera pinching Buruk, who fell to the ground clutching his face.
Organisers say 150,000 joined protest in Madrid urging the government to ‘end the housing racket’ and to demand access to affordable housing
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain in the latest protest against housing speculation and to demand access to affordable homes.
Organisers claim that up to 150,000 joined the protest in Madrid while smaller demonstrations were held in about 40 cities across the country. Protesters from Málaga on the Costa del Sol to Vigo in the Atlantic northwest chanted “end the housing racket” and “landlords are guilty, the government is responsible”.
Writer and director behind Taxi Driver and American Gigolo accused by former employee in lawsuit
Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver and director of American Gigolo, has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting his former personal assistant, firing her when she wouldn’t acquiesce to advances and reneging on a settlement that was meant to keep the allegations confidential.
The former assistant, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, sued the filmmaker and his production company on Thursday. She is seeking a judge’s order to enforce the agreement after Schrader said he couldn’t go through with it. The terms, including a monetary payment, were not disclosed.
Paris Saint-Germain, who beat Liverpool with verve and energy, are the upstart newcomers among big-name quarter-finalists
Narratives are never as straightforward as they may appear. One era does not yield easily to another. What constitutes an era changes over time. While history is happening it’s often hard to make sense of it; patterns seem to emerge that, from the perspective of 20 years later are meaningless, or culs-de-sac. That seems particularly true this season. As the Champions League reaches its quarter-final stage this coming week, it feels that one age has ended and another has yet to materialise.
The past was a simpler place. First there was the age of dominance by Real Madrid and Benfica, teams from the capitals of Iberian nations under right-wing dictatorships, packed with great individuals. Then came systematisation, catenaccio and the Italian ascendancy, followed, with a brief period of crossover, by the era of domination by the northern European industrial powers, skipping swiftly over Celtic and Manchester United to the Dutch and Total Football and then Bayern Munich. Then came the long period of English superiority before the Heysel ban, after which everything gets more complicated.
Against a backdrop of internal strife, facing their sky blue rivals provides a struggling team with chance to rebuild the brand
This brave overhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, this collection of generic spires with a massive plastic handkerchief chucked over the top. Three weeks on from first sight of the conceptual drawings for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s stately pleasure dome, also known as the proposed Manchester United Stadium Soccer Product Hub, there is still a sense of double-take about the whole thing.
Early impressions of the new ground ranged from a defunct Venusian mercury mine, to Dubai Butlin’s, to a pointed corporate monument to our divided world. Welcome to the Staff Lunch Arena, embodiment of the 21st-century conviction that if you just stopped buying so many sandwiches and also fired the tea lady you could probably afford a vast and unattainable house.
Some resettled Ukrainians reportedly were told Homeland Security would terminate their legal protections
Donald Trump’s presidential administration has acknowledged and apologized after it says it accidentally informed some Ukrainian refugees fleeing their country’s invasion by Russia that they needed to leave the US because their legal status was being revoked.
About 240,000 Ukrainians have been settled in the US as part of the Uniting for Ukraine – or U4U – program launched during Joe Biden’s presidency. But according to CBS News, some resettled Ukrainians received emails this week telling them that the US Department of Homeland Security would be terminating their legal protections.
How Aston Villa were made to sweat for a seventh successive victory. At least the manner in which Nottingham Forest swarmed their goal as they pushed for a second-half equaliser may prove a decent dress rehearsal for Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg at Paris Saint-Germain.
Forest pulled a goal back through the half-time substitute Jota Silva and then dialled up the pressure but the visitors, determined to emulate Villa by gatecrashing Europe’s elite, were beaten by early goals from Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malen. For Villa, who cut the gap to third-placed Forest to six points, attention will quickly turn to analysing the Ligue 1 champions.
The 83-year-old played his first date of an intimate 20-city tour after quitting live performances back in 2018
Paul Simon largely avoided mention of the health problems that had kept him off the road for the previous seven years when the storied singer-songwriter kicked off his return – and evident farewell – tour in New Orleans on Friday.
Yet, having strummed and crooned his way through some of his catalogue’s more discreet entries, and having reached a part where he treated the audience to a finishing salvo of three of his mega hits, Simon made apparent reference to those issues by letting some lyrics from The Boxer hang in the air.
The world’s biggest youth Christian missionary organisation is facing allegations of spiritual abuse and controlling behaviour from young people who say they were left “traumatised”.
An Observer investigation has revealed evidence of safeguarding failings within Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a global movement that trains young Christians to spread the gospel. A spokesperson for YWAM said the organisation was “heartbroken” by the claims and was “deeply committed to the safety and wellbeing” of everyone in its care.
Team’s fall from grace has been similar to Manchester City’s and rivals are circling around the world champion
Turbulence and turmoil, infighting and instability, the past 12 months have been trying for Red Bull to the extent it was a wonder that Max Verstappen stood in the eye of the storm and calmly dragged a recalcitrant car to his fourth Formula One title. A fifth this year already looks to be a tall order as the team swing from a period of undisputed dominance to being left impotent by a car they cannot tame and in no little disarray, so much so that Verstappen may be considering his options.
In Japan, all eyes have been on the home hero Yuki Tsunoda, promoted to Red Bull from the sister team, Racing Bulls, with indecent haste, after Liam Lawson was sent packing the other way after two races. Even by F1 standards it was a brutal decision but indicative of the disorder that embroils Red Bull.
The viral response to US influencer Ashton Hall’s morning routine shows that the manosphere is now mainstream
How does the perfect morning begin? With gentle stretching, a coffee in bed? It could be a walk in the sun, a hot breakfast or simply managing to spend the first 20 minutes off your phone before spending the next 20 on Instagram. Lately, it may feel like the answer is being more productive.
The optimised morning routine has become a near-mythical ideal for young people, sold by fitness influencers posting obsessively about their 5.30am starts, claiming to finish their weight training, macronutrient-rich meals and emails before our first alarm – promising that everything in your life would be better if you, too, had the discipline to just get up early.
Constitutional expert says Tory leader’s break from political consensus over target for greenhouse gasses will require monarch to choose his words carefully
King Charles will have to temper his public support for net zero after Kemi Badenoch broke the political consensus over the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Senior royal sources have conceded that the 76-year-old monarch, who has spent more than half a century highlighting environmental challenges, will have to choose his words more carefully now that the Conservatives under Badenoch have said it will be impossible for the UK to hit net zero by 2050.
French prime minister calls for rival gatherings to be held in a spirit of ‘calm, mutual respect and responsibility’
France’s far right is hoping for a massive public show of support tomorrow in a “people’s protest” against Marine Le Pen being barred from standing for president in 2027.
The Rassemblement National (National Rally – RN) party called for a nationwide demonstration under the banner “Save Democracy” after Le Pen was found guilty in a €4m (£3.4m) embezzlement trial.
Patrick Mullins rides his father’s horse to victory
There have been many remarkable races and afternoons in Willie Mullins’s training career during his rise to unprecedented dominance in National Hunt racing, but never anything to match the nine minutes of Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree, as Nick Rockett, a 33-1 chance ridden by his son, Patrick, led home a 1-2-3 for the family’s yard, with two more of their six-strong team finishing in the first seven.
Mullins has had 1-2-3s in big races before. He even had a 1-2-3-4-5 in a race at Cheltenham’s festival meeting last year and the concentration of jumping talent in his yard, as a result of the huge demand for his services, means he often has a fair percentage of the field in some of the sport’s major events.
Uefa’s president could yet do a volte-face and run for office in 2026 as he enjoys success of new-look Champions League
As Uefa’s delegates filed into a long, low-ceilinged room it was tempting to wonder what difference a year makes. Sava Centar in Belgrade places function ahead of form and there was little of the Parisian grandeur that adorned the governing body’s annual congress in 2024. Nor were there as many fireworks on display, although plenty of the issues that will define European football over the second half of this decade flickered persistently around the edges.
Last year’s event turned into the Aleksander Ceferin show, the Uefa president drawing a scandalised reaction by pushing through an extension to the term limits for his role before pulling the rug away by announcing he would step down in 2027 anyway. Uefa had already been rocked by the acrimonious departure of its head of football, Zvonimir Boban, and the sense was that internal posturing risked diverting focus from the real structural and existential concerns the sport continues to face.
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