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Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League – live

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.

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© Photograph: Jacob King/PA

© Photograph: Jacob King/PA

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Jaguar Land Rover pauses shipments to US as Trump says impact of tariffs ‘won’t be easy’ – live

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

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.

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© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

© Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

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US protests live: Demonstrations planned across US to oppose Trump agenda

More than a thousand events to be held across the country in a show of defiance against Trump’s ‘authoritarian overreach’

Jamie Raskin is calling on the Donald Trump administration to keep its “hands off Greenland, that’s an independent country.”

Raskin went on to add:

“Hands off Canada, that’s an independent country. Hands off Panama, that’s an independent country. Statehood for Washington, DC!”

“They showed America that organized people who want nothing but freedom can defeat organized billionaires.”

“These were monsters who turned the flag of America into a weapon of war against our police. And now, Donald Trump says he wants to set up a fund to compensate them. Mr. Trump, if there’s got to be a fund to compensate people for January 6, we’re going to compensate the police officers and their families. We’re going to back the men and women of the blue, not the planners of the coup.”

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© Photograph: Amid Farahi/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Amid Farahi/AFP/Getty Images

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Now you see it: Eric Kogan’s everyday urban illusions – in pictures

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.”

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© Photograph: Eric Kogan

© Photograph: Eric Kogan

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‘Skyrocketing’ demand for matcha raises fears of shortage in Japan

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.

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© Photograph: REDA/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

© Photograph: REDA/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

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Youth Demand pro-Palestinian protest blocks traffic in London

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.

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© Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

© Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

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No forgetting my encounter with two giants of the stage | Tim Lewis

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.”

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© Photograph: Perou/The Observer

© Photograph: Perou/The Observer

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Various: Chet Baker Re:imagined review – new reworkings by R&B, pop, soul and jazz artists

(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.

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© Photograph: Frans Schellekens/Redferns

© Photograph: Frans Schellekens/Redferns

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Floating away: warm tones and vintage details lift the spirits in a grand Parisian apartment

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.”

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© Photograph: Ramona Balaban/Living Inside

© Photograph: Ramona Balaban/Living Inside

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Genetic data is an another asset to be exploited – beware who has yours | John Naughton

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.

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© Photograph: George Frey/Reuters

© Photograph: George Frey/Reuters

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‘We’re not a third world country, we’re England’: anger rises as Birmingham’s bin strike takes toll on locals

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.

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© Photograph: Sonja Horsman

© Photograph: Sonja Horsman

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Crystal Palace 2-1 Brighton, West Ham 2-2 Bournemouth, Ipswich 1-2 Wolves and more – as it happened

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.

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© Photograph: Matthew Childs/Action Images/Reuters

© Photograph: Matthew Childs/Action Images/Reuters

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Anti-ageing products that actually work: Sali Hughes on the 30 best serums, creams and treatments

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.

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© Photograph: Ayo Banton/Getty Images/Image Source

© Photograph: Ayo Banton/Getty Images/Image Source

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On my radar: Nell Zink’s cultural highlights

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.

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© Photograph: Frederik van den Berg/The Observer

© Photograph: Frederik van den Berg/The Observer

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A Minecraft Movie review – Jack Black and Jason Momoa star in seriously cobbled-together live-action spin-off

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 Jungleand, 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

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© Photograph: Warner Bros.

© Photograph: Warner Bros.

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Venezuelans with legal status are being illegally detained in the US, lawyers say

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.

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© Photograph: Kena Betancur/VIEW press/Corbis via Getty Images

© Photograph: Kena Betancur/VIEW press/Corbis via Getty Images

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‘A case study in groupthink’: were liberals wrong about the pandemic?

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.

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© Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

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Ndiaye on the spot as Everton put dent in Arsenal’s slim title hopes

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.

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© Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

© Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

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Space probe to map carbon content of world’s remotest tropical forests

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.

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© Photograph: ESA/ATG medialab

© Photograph: ESA/ATG medialab

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‘It’s distressing’: Elton John speaks of pain of losing his eyesight

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”.

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© Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

© Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

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‘It was filthy, horrible work’: actors Paul and Stephen McGann reveal how their great uncle survived the Titanic

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.

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© Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

© Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

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Melania Trump’s secret to getting through hard times? Love (actually)

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?

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© Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

© Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Millions of Americans believe they’re safe from wildfires in their cities. New research shows they’re not

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.

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© Composite: Getty, Guardian graphic

© Composite: Getty, Guardian graphic

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Kae Tempest review – a brave, intimate set where the personal is political

Village Underground, London
The laser-focused spoken-word performer returns to the musical stage with new tracks focusing on their identity, but wider concerns are never far away

“This has been a performance piece about how technology is going to be the death of us all,” jokes rapper, poet, author and playwright Kae Tempest as a keyboard player and a technician wrestle with malfunctioning equipment. We’re just two tracks in; Tempest assures us that if the electronics are not back up soon, they’ll do the whole show a cappella.

They could, too. The teenage Tempest cut their teeth battle-rapping in south London, turning to slam poetry when more direct avenues into hip-hop refused to open easily to a young, blond slip of a thing. You suspect they have never wasted the opportunity when handed a mic. Given Tempest’s extended output over more than a decade of albums, works of fiction, poems, plays and nonfiction, with prizes and accolades for many of them – you can’t imagine them ever being at a loss for words either.

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© Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

© Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

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Phone footage appears to contradict Israeli account of killing of Gaza medics

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.

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© Photograph: OCHA/Red Crescent

© Photograph: OCHA/Red Crescent

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Nick Rockett holds off I Am Maximus to win thrilling 2025 Grand National – live reaction

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.

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© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Observer

© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Observer

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Painkillers without the addiction? The new wave of non-opioid pain relief

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.

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© Illustration: Observer Design/The Observer

© Illustration: Observer Design/The Observer

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Trump officials quietly move to reverse bans on toxic ‘forever chemicals’

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.

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© Photograph: Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

© Photograph: Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

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Girl Scout cookies contain heavy metals beyond safe limits, lawsuit alleges

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.

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© Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

© Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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US neo-Nazi group with Russia-based leader calls for targeted Ukraine attacks

The Base, terrorist group founded in 2018, free to export violence abroad as Trump pulls FBI from pursuing far right

A US neo-Nazi terrorist group with a Russia-based leader is calling for targeted assassinations and attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine in an effort to destabilize the country as it carries out ceasefire negotiations with the Kremlin.

The Base, which has a web of cells all over the world, was founded in 2018 and became the subject of a relentless FBI counter-terrorism investigation that led to several arrests and world governments officially designating it as a terrorist organization.

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© Photograph: Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images

© Photograph: Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images

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Eighteen people killed in Russian missile strike on Zelenskyy’s home city

Missile attack on Kryvyi Rih left 61 injured including three-month-old baby and elderly residents

Eighteen people, including nine children, have been killed in a Russian missile strike on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city, a Ukrainian official has said.

A further 61 people were injured in the attack on Kryvyi Rih on Friday, including a three-month-old baby and elderly residents, the regional governor, Serhii Lysak, said. Forty remain in hospital, including two children in critical condition and 17 in a serious condition.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

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What is up with car door handles these days? | Dave Schilling

Why is everything computerised, automated or impossible to turn off these days?

I believe, deep in my soul, that car companies’ number one goal in life is to ruin the experience of driving. I don’t have any direct evidence of this conspiracy to rob us of the pleasure of the open road, other than the cacophony of beeps, blips, bloops and blops that greet us in the latest models. Oh, and the screens. Every year, they try to find a new place to glue a touchscreen in a car, like Pizza Hut hunting for more orifices to stuff cheese into one of their pies.

Everything is computerized, automated or impossible to turn off. According to surveys of new-car buyers by the market research firm Strategic Vision, satisfaction with car controls plummeted by 23 percentage points in the last nine years. The whiz-bang gizmos foisted on the North American car buyer have devolved from the glorious, life-saving back-up camera to gesture controls that allow you to turn an invisible knob to crank up the volume on Espresso without touching a single thing in your vehicle.

Turn the volume up: circle your finger in a clockwise direction.

Turn the volume down: circle your finger in a counter-clockwise direction.

Accept a call: point to the BMW iDrive touchscreen.

Select navigation/custom setting: use two fingers to point to the touchscreen.

Change rearview camera angle: draw a circle using your forefinger and thumb.

Regret your life choices: look in the mirror for 10 seconds.

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© Photograph: Tom Hudson/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tom Hudson/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

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I was a British tourist trying to leave America. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre

Graphic artist Rebecca Burke was on the trip of a lifetime. But as she tried to leave the US she was stopped, interrogated and branded an illegal alien by ICE. Now back home, she tells others thinking of going to Trump’s America: don’t do it

Just before the graphic artist Rebecca Burke left Seattle to travel to Vancouver, Canada, on 26 February, she posted an image of a rough comic to Instagram. “One part of travelling that I love is seeing glimpses of other lives,” read the bubble in the first panel, above sketches of cosy homes: crossword puzzle books, house plants, a lit candle, a steaming kettle on a gas stove. Burke had seen plenty of glimpses of other lives over the six weeks she had been backpacking in the US. She had been travelling on her own, staying on homestays free of charge in exchange for doing household chores, drawing as she went. For Burke, 28, it was absolute freedom.

Within hours of posting that drawing, Burke got to see a much darker side of life in America, and far more than a glimpse. When she tried to cross into Canada, Canadian border officials told her that her living arrangements meant she should be travelling on a work visa, not a tourist one. They sent her back to the US, where American officials classed her as an illegal alien. She was shackled and transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre, where she was locked up for 19 days – even though she had money to pay for a flight home, and was desperate to leave the US.

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© Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Guardian

© Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Guardian

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Musk may soon leave the White House, but his bromance with Trump will remain

Rather than an explosive split that many predicted, Musk instead appears set to keep close ties with Trump and retain influence on US politics

After months of exerting extraordinary power over the US government and becoming a mascot for Donald Trump’s new administration, the first signs that Elon Musk may shift away from his prominent role in the White House began to appear this week.

Both Trump and JD Vance have stated in interviews over the past few days that Musk would eventually leave the administration and the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) that he founded, their most direct statements yet on his tenure. Politico also reported on Wednesday that Trump had told members of his inner circle that the Tesla CEO would be departing in the coming weeks, though Musk called the article “fake news”. Musk is a “special government employee”, a designation that technically carries a 130-day term that, depending on how the administration chooses to log those days, could run out at the end of May. Vance made sure to say that Musk would remain a close “friend and adviser” to the administration even after leaving, further muddying the waters on how to mark Musk’s potential departure.

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© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

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Patwa is not ‘broken English’: the African ties that bind US and Caribbean languages

Centuries later, Jamaican Patwa and US Gullah Creole retain many Africanisms adopted from enslaved people

  • Illustrations by Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba

In 2000, I won a writing competition that awakened me to the depth and variety of Caribbean languages. As the Jamaica finalist for the My Caribbean essay competition, I joined more than 20 children from the region to form the youth delegation of the 24th Caribbean Tourism Conference in Bridgetown, Barbados.

I spent days with peers from islands that, until then, I did not know existed, such as the small but brilliant Sint Eustatius and Saba in the Leeward Islands. What I remember most are the simple greetings and phrases the other children and I taught one another in our different Creoles. Every child had an official language they wrote in to win their national competition – English, French, Dutch etc – but as soon as we were comfortable enough, we ditched those and shared as much as we could in our everyday tongues.

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© Illustration: Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba/The Guardian

© Illustration: Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba/The Guardian

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‘Shame’ on world leaders for neglect of displaced civilians in DRC, says aid chief

US and Europe criticised by head of Norwegian Refugee Council for ‘neglect’ of people living ‘subhuman’ existence

World leaders should be ashamed of their neglect of people whose lives were “hanging by a thread” at a time of surging violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the international charity leader Jan Egeland has said.

In a stinging attack on aid cuts and the “nationalistic winds” blowing across Europe and the US, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s head told the Guardian how people were living out in the open, in overcrowded, unsanitary displacement encampments around the city of Goma, where 1.2 million people have had to flee from their homes as the M23 rebels advanced through the DRC’s North and South Kivu provinces.

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© Photograph: Ed Prior/NRC

© Photograph: Ed Prior/NRC

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This is how we do it: ‘Trying for a baby has improved our sex life – we’re more adventurous’

Doug and Maggie feel as if they’ve had a relationship reset and are communicating more openly about sex
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

It was like we’d pressed a reset button on our relationship

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© Illustration: Ryan Gillett

© Illustration: Ryan Gillett

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Rob Beckett looks back: ‘Where I was from, you got attention by being good at fighting or football. There were no class clowns’

The standup comedian and broadcaster on realising he was funny, Parenting Hell and avoiding the spotlight

Born in south London in 1986, Rob Beckett is a comedian and broadcaster. He started on the standup circuit in 2009, performing at the Edinburgh fringe in 2012 with his show Rob Beckett’s Summer Holiday. Television quickly beckoned – after hosting ITV2’s I’m a Celebrity spin-off series, he became a panel-show regular, appearing on programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, as well as the travel series Rob & Romesh vs … . In 2020, he launched the hit podcast Parenting Hell with comedian Josh Widdicombe. He is married and has two daughters. His current tour, Giraffe, continues until April 2026.

That’s my dad in the background but, aside from that, I’ve got no other details. It might have been on holiday, possibly at my dad’s mate’s place in Spain. We always went there – he gave it to us for cheap, but I’m not sure why. You don’t ask questions in my family.

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© Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian

© Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian

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Sara Pascoe: ‘I still identify as an infertile, childless woman’

The standup used to joke about not having kids, but then she had IVF and found herself an ‘eroded’ mother of two. Now she’s back with a show about motherhood in her 40s – but don’t expect any cute parenting stories

My favourite Sara Pascoe joke is her imaginary riposte to people asking if she’s going to have kids. They mean well, these prying parents – they just don’t want her to miss out on a life-enhancing experience. The thing is, the comedian has had some life-enhancing experiences of her own. “But I have never, ever said to anybody: ‘Oh, have you been on QI? Ahhh, you should go on QI!’” she insists, settling into her archly patronising pep talk. “No I didn’t think I wanted to be on QI until I was on QI, and then it was like I looked back and my entire life had been leading up to me being on QI. Yes it’s very tiring being on QI, but it’s so worth it. I just wouldn’t want you to leave it too late and they’ll have stopped making it!”

As a skewering of smug, insensitive acquaintances foisting their own ideas of fulfilment on a child-free woman in her 30s, it’s a gratifyingly clever joke. In reality, however, Pascoe wasn’t laughing. During the period she was doing that routine on stage, she was actually “quite sad about not being able to have children”, she says over coffee in a north London cafe near her home. She’d long suspected she had fertility issues after unsuccessfully trying for a baby with an ex-boyfriend.

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© Photograph: MATT STRONGE

© Photograph: MATT STRONGE

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Ceferin gives little away over Uefa future while Infantino has wind in his sails

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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© Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

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