How Aston Villa were made to sweat for a seventh successive victory. At least the manner in which Nottingham Forest swarmed their goal as they pushed for a second-half equaliser may prove a decent dress rehearsal for Wednesday’s quarter-final at Paris Saint-Germain.

Forest pulled a goal back through half-time substitute Jota Silva and then dialled up the pressure but the visitors, determined to emulate Villa by gatecrashing the Champions League, were beaten by early goals from Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malen.

The 83-year-old played his first date of an intimate 20-city tour after quitting live performances back in 2018

Paul Simon largely avoided mention of the health problems that had kept him off the road for the previous seven years when the storied singer-songwriter kicked off his return – and evident farewell – tour in New Orleans on Friday.

Yet, having strummed and crooned his way through some of his catalogue’s more discreet entries, and having reached a part where he treated the audience to a closing salvo of three of his mega hits, Simon made apparent reference to those issues by letting some lyrics from The Boxer hang in the air.

Exclusive: young volunteers also allege spiritual abuse and controlling behaviour at bases of Youth With a Mission

• ‘It felt like a demon was inside me’: young Christian missionaries allege spiritual abuse

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.

• I Am Maximus a brave second after last year’s win
• Patrick Mullins rides his father’s horse to victory

There have been many remarkable races and afternoons in Willie Mullins’s training career during his rise to unprecedented dominance in National Hunt racing, but never anything to match the nine minutes of Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree, as Nick Rockett, a 33-1 chance ridden by his son, Patrick, led home a 1-2-3 for the family’s yard, with two more of their six-strong team finishing in the first seven.

Mullins has had 1-2-3s in big races before. He even had a 1-2-3-4-5 in a race at Cheltenham’s festival meeting last year and the concentration of jumping talent in his yard, as a result of the huge demand for his services, means he often has a fair percentage of the field in some of the sport’s major events.

Uefa’s president could yet do a volte-face and run for office in 2026 as he enjoys success of new-look Champions League

As Uefa’s delegates filed into a long, low-ceilinged room it was tempting to wonder what difference a year makes. Sava Centar in Belgrade places function ahead of form and there was little of the Parisian grandeur that adorned the governing body’s annual congress in 2024. Nor were there as many fireworks on display, although plenty of the issues that will define European football over the second half of this decade flickered persistently around the edges.

Last year’s event turned into the Aleksander Ceferin show, the Uefa president drawing a scandalised reaction by pushing through an extension to the term limits for his role before pulling the rug away by announcing he would step down in 2027 anyway. Uefa had already been rocked by the acrimonious departure of its head of football, Zvonimir Boban, and the sense was that internal posturing risked diverting focus from the real structural and existential concerns the sport continues to face.

‘Baseline’ 10% import levy takes effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday, with some higher tariffs to begin next week

Donald Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including the UK, has come into force after 48 hours of turmoil.

US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses at 12.01am ET (04:01 GMT), with higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners due to start next week – including from the EU, which will be hit with a 20% rate.

One clip has been watched 25m times but a Netflix documentary shows him in his childhood bedroom with Wimbledon trophy

There’s a Carlos Alcaraz clip on YouTube that has to date been viewed 25m times. The whole thing is a seven-second loop of him catching a ball on his racket at Wimbledon. Currently it also has well over a thousand comments, engaged in a constantly shifting battle for most-liked, most-approved, most gushingly enthused-over.

You probably shouldn’t click on it because it is also addictive, a perfect moment of perfect Alcaraz, another endlessly replicating needle-prod of pleasure into your overstimulated brain.

• Russian star scores two goals in win over Blackhawks
• 39-year-old has chance to beat record on Sunday

Alex Ovechkin tied Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record by scoring the 893rd and 894th goals of his career, the second the game winner, as the Washington Capitals rallied to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3 on Friday night.

Ovechkin scored No 894 on the power play with 13:47 left in regulation to put Washington ahead after Dylan Strome tied it earlier in the third period. The 39-year-old Russian superstar also opened the scoring with his 893rd less than four minutes into game.

• Premier League latest, 5.30pm BST at Villa Park
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | Mail Scott

2 min: Forest – who deliberately kept their hosts waiting before kick-off, forming a huddle that went on a bit longer than was absolutely necessary – are kicking towards the Holte End in this first half.

Forest get the ball rolling. But only after a knee is taken: there’s no room for racism.

Trump’s baseline 10% tariff on all imports from many countries has begun, with higher levies on 57 trading partners to start next week

• America’s Brexit? Trump’s historic gamble on tariffs has been decades in the making

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss recently announced tariffs with US president Donald Trump, three Israeli officials said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

The impromptu visit was first reported by Axios, which said that if the visit takes place, the Israeli leader would be the first foreign leader to meet Trump in person to try to negotiate a deal to remove tariffs.

More than a thousand events expected in a show of defiance against US president’s ‘authoritarian overreach’

Hundreds of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday as part of global demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration.

Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”. The rally is one of hundreds of so-called “Hands Off” demonstrations around the world – including in cities across the US, Paris and Berlin.

We see the foundations of our society, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for, for generations, to ensure that our country lives up to its promise, are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations.

This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives, our healthcare, to our schools, to our thoughts, to our very free speech under the false banner of patriotism and freedom …

New York-based photographer Eric Kogan uses shadows, reflections and fortuitous timing in order to create optical illusions in his work. “It’s more of a life’s journey than a project,” he says, “but if I had to describe it, it’s all about spotting unusual moments in everyday places.” In his daily walks around the city, he keeps an eye out for interesting juxtapositions or humorous framings: a pigeon balancing on a ghostly tree; a cloud caught in a net; statues miraculously coming to life. “At the root it’s about seeing, but maintaining the right state of mind is also everything. I’m hoping the photos will connect with others, and, with each individual, take on personal narratives.”

• See more at instagram.com/erickogan

Fuelled by social media, a global boom is outstripping production of the powdered green tea

The appearance of the vivid-green powder elicits smiles and appreciative sounds, and anticipation among dozens of tea lovers. Their hand-milled batches now ready for whisking with hot water, they will soon be rewarded for their patience.

The foreign tourists attending a matcha-making experience in Uji, near Kyoto in western Japan, are united in their love of the powdered, bitter form of green tea the Japanese have been drinking for centuries, and which is now at the centre of a global boom.

Group plans to hold demonstrations in London against UK arms sales to Israel every Tuesday and Saturday in April

About 40 Youth Demand protesters were told to move on by the police during a pro-Palestinian rally in central London on Saturday.

The campaigners began gathering at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on Saturday morning and made their way to King’s Cross station.

Old pals Ewan McGregor and Michael Grandage prepare for their new play, My Master Builder, by chuckling about everything that could go wrong and has

For today’s Observer New Review I had the not-exactly-onerous assignment of spending an hour with the actor Ewan McGregor and director Michael Grandage, as they prepared to put on a new play, My Master Builder, in London’s West End. The two men go way back, and mostly they were cracking each other up with knockabout old stories – much of which there wasn’t room for in my article. McGregor recalled one of his first roles on stage, as Orlando in As You Like It, and how when Simon Callow – multiple Olivier and Bafta award winner – played the part in 1979, he walked out on stage at the National Theatre only to promptly forget the first line of the play.

“If you’re a woman and you’re about to have a baby, everybody tells you nightmare stories about childbirth,” said McGregor. “And when you’re an actor about to do a play, everybody tells you terrible things that have happened on the stage.”

(Blue Note)
There are hits and misses as 15 performers including Dodie, Mxmtoon and Ezra Collective’s Ife Ogunjobi give their personal take on Baker’s unique sound

Possessing a whisper-soft voice and sweetly melodic trumpet tone, Chet Baker (1929-1988) had a sound that is often imitated yet almost impossible to master. For the latest edition of Blue Note’s Re:imagined series, in which the jazz label invites artists to produce cover versions of its back catalogue, 15 R&B, pop, soul and jazz artists have been given the unenviable task of interpreting Baker’s repertoire – with often surprising results.

The trumpeter-vocalist’s supple take on jazz standards is well reflected in singer Dodie’s delicate version of Old Devil Moon as she emphasises the original’s swaying Latin percussion. British singer-songwriter Matt Maltese’s My Funny Valentine adds a beautifully elegiac guitar line to the well-worn melody. Other approaches work less well, with US singer Mxmtoon’s clean vocal tone overpowering I Fall In Love Too Easily’s sense of wistful romance.

An interior decorator and furniture designer uses colour and fleamarket finds to create an inviting sanctuary

Nestled in a classic Haussmannian building in Paris’s 17th Arrondissement, Tiphaine Verdier’s apartment is a feast for the senses. This large duplex, perched on the top two floors, is not just a home but a canvas where colour and creativity collide. With a fearless approach to bold hues, Tiphaine has transformed what was once a blank slate of plain white walls into a theatrical and inviting sanctuary.

When Tiphaine first stepped into the apartment, it was a minimalist’s dream – or, as she might put it, a colour enthusiast’s nightmare. “All the walls were just plain white,” she recalls. But Tiphaine, an interior decorator and furniture designer, saw the potential in the apartment’s unique layout. “I was drawn to the fact that it felt like a house in the sky, with a clear separation between the day and night spaces.”

The bankruptcy of genealogy company 23andMe has resulted in a fire sale of millions of people’s genetic information – and there’s no shortage of eager buyers with questionable motives

Ever thought of having your genome sequenced? Me neither. But it seems that at least 15 million souls have gone in for it and are delighted to know that they have Viking ancestry, or discombobulated to find that they have siblings of whom they were hitherto unaware. The corporate vehicle that enabled these revelations is called 23andMe, which describes itself as a “genetics-led consumer healthcare and biotechnology company empowering a healthier future”.

Back in the day, 23andMe was one of those vaunted “unicorns” (privately held startups valued at more than $1bn), but is now facing harder times. Its share price had fallen precipitately following a data breach in October 2023 that harvested the profile and ethnicity data of 6.9 million users – including name, profile photo, birth year, location, family surnames, grandparents’ birthplaces, ethnicity estimates and mitochondrial DNA – and there have been internal disagreements between its board and the CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki. So on 24 March it filed for so-called Chapter 11 proceedings in a US bankruptcy court in Missouri.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

With the city’s refuse collectors still on the picket line after four weeks, residents are pointing the finger of blame at the council

Suhail Sadiq’s car repair business is thriving and he’s furious about it.

The rats are responsible. “The amount of cars we’ve got coming in now with wiring chewed up by rats is unbelievable,” he says. Staff at Heartlands Auto Centre in Birmingham have repaired about 15 cars with chewed battery cables in the past week. The rats are drawn to the warmer cars at night, he says – rats gnaw to keep their teeth a manageable length.

Palace clung on with nine men to win the A23 derby while Ipswich’s fading survival hopes took another blow

Meanwhile, the top of League Two is madness. Port Vale are on the brink of a 3-2 win at Walsall that would take them to the summit, leapfrogging the hosts, while Doncaster conjured up two goals in the final few minutes at Cheltenham to win 2-0 and boost their hopes of automatic promotion.

Full time: Luton 1-1 Leeds, Coventry 1-2 Burnley. Sunderland still lead with a couple of minutes to go at The Hawthorns.

Which moisturiser is worth buying? What’s the deal with retinol vs retinal? And do I need an eye cream? (Answer: no.) Our beauty columnist shares her secrets to glowy, firm skin

Anti-ageing – I know, I know. It’s a gross and futile term. I considered using another. Perhaps one of the more modern marketing slogans such as “skin longevity” or “positive age management”. But my commitment to honesty in beauty extends to not fooling myself or my reader: we all know what these terms mean, and I know which one consumers Google in their millions.

I turned 50 recently. I was and am delighted about it. To still be alive, healthy, loved and in love feels like a lottery win. I’ve no desire to return to my 20s or 30s, when I cared more, knew less and had greater insecurities around my appearance than now. I don’t believe many of us at any age wish to be mistaken for someone much younger. And yet we know that people of all ages would like to keep skin glowier, smoother, juicier, firmer and flexible for longer. It’s a fine thing to want, and I find any accusations that this signals shame and desperation around growing old to be hugely patronising and selective. If you don’t care about skin ageing, great. Carry on. If you do, the products here will help in a realistic way.

The Germany-based American novelist on being cheered up by a gulag memoir, the best Wagner around and how to encourage a nightingale into your garden

Nell Zink was born in California in 1964 and grew up in rural Virginia. Before becoming a published novelist in her 50s, she worked a variety of odd jobs including bricklayer, technical writer and secretary, also running a postpunk zine. In 2014, with the help of Jonathan Franzen, she published her debut novel The Wallcreeper, followed closely by Mislaid, which was longlisted for a National Book Award. Her seventh novel, Sister Europe, out 24 April, charts the unravelling of a Berlin high-society party – Vogue called it “a worldly hangout novel of 21st-century manners”. Zink, a committed birder, lives outside Berlin.

Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess’s adventure based on the world’s favourite video game feels like one big cash-in

It’s a curious choice of title. A Minecraft Movie implies that this cynical intellectual property-rinsing exercise is one of numerous film adaptations of the enduringly popular sandbox video game. Perhaps there’s an alternative out there, a sharper, smarter, funnier version of a Minecraft movie. One with actual jokes. Or, God forbid, there may even be a worse iteration, although that’s hard to imagine. What becomes clear is that one of the key elements in the game’s popularity – the latitude it affords gamers to create their own experience – is a big stumbling block for any film adaptation of Minecraft.

In the absence of a single fixed storyline the screenplay can follow, A Minecraft Movie has a cobbled-together feel, borrowing a device from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – and, in Jack Black, a star – and superimposing an all-purpose quest-for-an-artefact structure on to a colour-saturated backdrop of cube-shaped vegetation, pink sheep and lax building regulations.

In UK and Irish cinemas

Temporary protected status lets people stay when it’s not safe for them to go home, but Ice is arresting them anyway

Venezuelans with legal permission to live and work in the United States are being unlawfully arrested by federal authorities at their homes, in their cars, at regular immigration check-ins and on the streets, attorneys say.

They are then stuck in immigration detention around the country, sometimes for weeks, despite the law explicitly banning the government from keeping them behind bars.

US political scientists’ book argues aggressive Covid policies such as mask mandates were in some cases misguided

Were conservatives right to question Covid lockdowns? Were the liberals who defended them less grounded in science than they believed? And did liberal dismissiveness of the other side come at a cost that Americans will continue to pay for many years?

A new book by two political scientists argues yes to all three questions, making the case that the aggressive policies that the US and other countries adopted to fight Covid – including school shutdowns, business closures, mask mandates and social distancing – were in some cases misguided and in many cases deserved more rigorous public debate.

Liverpool need no favours to win the Premier League, but the neighbours did them one anyway. Everton denied Arsenal victory courtesy of a controversial penalty, effectively ending their forlorn pursuit of the leaders in the process. Mikel Arteta did not rage against the dying of the light on his return to Goodison Park. The game is up and he knows it.

Arsenal took the lead through Leandro Trossard’s fine first-half finish, dominated possession and edged the chances, but never performed with the conviction or quality of serious title contenders. They paid the price when Myles Lewis-Skelly was adjudged to have fouled Jack Harrison inside the area, presenting Iliman Ndiaye with the penalty that earned Everton a fifth draw in six games.

Revolutionary scanner to be fired into Earth orbit this month to measure effects of deforestation

Scientists are about to take part in a revolutionary mission aimed at creating detailed 3D maps of the world’s remotest, densest and darkest tropical forests – from outer space. The feat will be achieved using a special radar scanner that has been fitted to a probe, named Biomass, that will be fired into the Earth’s orbit later this month.

For the next five years, the 1.25-tonne spacecraft will sweep over the tropical rainforests of Africa, Asia and South America and peer through their dense 40m-high ­canopies to study the vegetation that lies beneath. The data collected by Biomass will then be used to create unique 3D maps of forests normally hidden from human sight.

Artist says severe eye infection last year has left him unable to read, see TV or watch his sons playing sports

Elton John has spoken of his distress at losing his eyesight and how he can no longer watch his young sons playing.

John revealed in a social media post last year that a “severe eye infection” had left him “with only limited vision in one eye”.

New podcast series will show what coal-trimmers had to endure as they powered the ill-fated ship in 1912

Clinging to an overturned raft in the perilous, frozen waters of the north Atlantic, Jimmy McGann witnessed the horror of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. He was one of its soot-covered coal-trimmers, toiling in blazing heat, shovelling coal into furnaces that powered the mighty vessel.

Jimmy stayed aboard with the captain until the ship’s last moments and, although he survived history’s most famous maritime disaster, he died a few years later from pneumonia.

The first lady spoke about (wait for it) diversity as she presented awards to courageous women from around the world

Let’s take a quick break from the increasingly dreadful news for a little check-in, shall we? So … how are you holding up right now? How are those stress levels?

Many of the suburbs and cities hit hardest in recent years were caught off-guard, and key stakeholders are racing to understand the dynamics that drive these fires

Communities across the US that were once considered beyond the reach of wildfires are now vulnerable to disaster. As fires increasingly spread deep into neighborhoods, researchers estimate roughly 115 million people – more than a third of the US population – live in areas that could host the next fire catastrophe.

The understanding that many more Americans are at risk of losing their homes to wildfires comes as the climate crisis turns up the dial on extreme weather, drought and heat. But it’s also the result of new research that has exposed deep and dangerous gaps in our understanding of the threat.

Israel says soldiers fired on ‘terrorists’ in ‘suspicious vehicles’ but footage shows clearly marked ambulances

Mobile phone footage of the last moments of some of the 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces in an incident in Gaza last month appears to contradict the version of events put forward by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The almost seven-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle. It shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.

• Willie Mullins-trained horse ridden to victory by son
• Tom Jenkins’s best pictures from Aintree
• And send Tony an email with your thoughts

William Hill Handicap Hurdle (1.20pm)

And they’re off … Jipcot, always held up in the past, is up there in the very early stages … Building Bridges has taken over the lead … Dartan and Timmy Tuesday are also prominent … Act Of Authority and Double Powerful are at the back … no fallers with a circuit to go … and not much change in the running order for now … but Bill Joyce has gone at the first hurdle in the back straight … he’s up and going on riderless … Building Bridges has kicked clear with Dartan who is under pressure … Timmy Tuesday comes with a challenge … Deep Cave comes late and gets there close home.

I love that ITV still open up their National day coverage (as the Beeb used to) with the theme music from the 1984 film Champions based on the victory of Bob Champion and Aldaniti in 1981. I still haven’t seen the movie but I found it for a quid last year on DVD.

Pharma firms are developing drugs that avoid the brain’s opioid receptors to minimise the risks of dependence and overdoses, but not all experts are convinced

In January, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first new type of painkiller in more than two decades. The decision roused excitement across the healthcare sector for a key reason: the drug, which is called suzetrigine and sold under the brand name Journavx, is not an opioid.

Opioid painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine are still used to treat severe pain in the UK and US. But they come with an obvious downside: the risk of addiction.

EPA bids to change chemical risk evaluations, which could expose public to higher levels of PFAS and other pollutants

The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.

The bans, largely at the state level, touch most facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from bisphenol in children’s products to mercury in personal care products to PFAS in food packaging and clothing.

Suit seeking $5m based on study finding controversial herbicide and lead in most cookies across 25 US states

Girl Scout cookies contain lead, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum and mercury at levels that often exceed regulators’ recommended limits, as well as concerning amounts of a toxic herbicide, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

The suit bases its allegations on a December 2024 study commissioned by the GMO Science and Moms Across America nonprofits that tested 25 cookies gathered from across several states, and found all contained at least four out of five of the heavy metals.