Fire broke out during onboard cooking before wooden vessel capsized with 500 passengers aboard

The death toll from a boat fire and capsizing in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week has risen to 148 with more than 100 people still missing, officials said on Friday.

About 500 passengers were on board the wooden boat when it capsized on Tuesday after catching fire on the Congo River in the country’s north-west.

Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the ban

Virginia’s state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.

The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained that Gary Shapley had been chosen without his knowledge

Donald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.

According to a report from the New York Times published on Friday, Bessent believed that the Doge head “had done an end-run around him” to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, despite the fact that the IRS reports to Bessent. The report cited five anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation.

Internal mission statements from Harmeet Dhillon pivots division’s priorities away from marginalized groups’ rights

The justice department’s civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trump’s priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.

The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them only give glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trump’s executive orders as priorities for the section.

After cutting off $2.26bn in funding, the US president reportedly gave the IRS a potentially illegal order

Harvard University is in a standoff with Donald Trump after rejecting a series of demands from the president’s administration, which critics view as an attack on the elite college for its reputation among conservatives as a bastion of liberal thought.

After cutting off its funding, Trump has reportedly given the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a potentially illegal order to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status. Such a decision would mark an escalation in the Republican president’s weaponization of federal government agencies against the people and institutions that defy it.

Release of files, ordered by Trump, includes notes from killer, who said presidential candidate ‘must be disposed of’

About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy, including handwritten notes by the assassin, who said the US senator and Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.

The release continued the disclosure of national secrets ordered by Donald Trump after he began his second presidency in January. It comes a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of president John F Kennedy were disclosed. The earlier documents gave curious readers more details about cold- war era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, RFK’s brother.

• Australian goes down 7-5, 6-3 against the world No 2
• Victory gives the Spaniard a 4-0 record in head-to-heads

Alex de Minaur’s 50th tour-level quarter-final has ended in defeat, the Australian No 1 beaten 7-5 6-3 in 100 minutes by defending champion Carlos Alcaraz at the Barcelona Open.

De Minaur began well, breaking the top seed in the third game before taking a 3-1 lead, and breaking again in the seventh after Alcaraz had broken back. But the Spaniard took four of the last five games to claim the set.

The 2024 winner reflects on the emotional backstory to Crucible triumph amid major health concerns for his family

“‘I still believed in myself but it was quite soul-destroying out there,” Kyren Wilson says in a back room at Barratts Snooker Club in Northampton. The world champion once worked here as a barman because he had lost his place on tour after his first season as a professional in 2011. He was still only 19 and he had little idea that an avalanche of adversity would engulf him in the years ahead.

Wilson begins the defence of his world title, with a first-round match against Lei Peifan, in the venerable Crucible in Sheffield on Saturday morning. But it seems fitting that we should meet here, in the unpromising surroundings which once defined Wilson’s life, as he describes his extraordinary world championship backstory.

Recalcitrance appears to be product of Trump White House’s maximalist interpretation of executive powers

Faced with a flurry of adverse court orders it would rather not follow, the Trump White House is increasingly deploying a strategy of claiming or even manufacturing its own uncertainty to dodge their effects without appearing to outright defy them.

The Trump administration has faced several major legal setbacks in recent weeks, most notably in its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act or in spite of protective orders.

The awe-inspiring might of the government is pitted against the might of the revered US university: let the fight begin

Donald Trump attended the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event of his new presidency on Saturday, reveling off stage in a standing ovation from Maga supporters and on stage in the barely controlled violence of a sport he has long adored.

The previous day he instigated his own UFC bout, picking a fight with one of the US’s most formidable opponents: Harvard is not only the world’s richest university, with a $53bn endowment that is bigger than the GDP of almost 100 countries, it is also the oldest in the US.

• Updates from the Kassam Stadium; kick-off 8pm BST
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Peep! Here we go, then. Leeds, making their first-ever visit to the Kassam Stadium, are in their navy third kit.

Gary Rowett: “Having won against Sheffield United, another top, top team, it gives us confidence, but this is a very different test. It’s a question of ‘how do you stop them?’” On survival: “We’ll keep going until it’s done. We’ve come too far to let it slip now.”

Enzo Maresca loves controlled buildup play while Blues fans tend to like forceful football. Conflict seemed inevitable

There was a news story this week about a team of a hundred scientists who have spent nine years analysing a single cubic millimetre of mouse brain. The one hundred scientists have finally published their results. And those results are basically: “Whoah, have you seen this stuff?”

What they found inside the cubic millimetre of mouse brain was an eternity of wiring, just miles and miles of tiny wire to be untangled, pictured in the accompanying article clumped into a single mass, like a pan of mouse brain vermicelli left overnight in the sink.

• World-record holder Chepngetich ‘not in right place’
• Defending women’s champion Jepchirchir has ankle injury

The women’s world-record holder, Ruth Chepngetich, and the reigning champion, Peres Jepchirchir, have withdrawn from the London Marathon, organisers said on Friday, less than two weeks before the race.

Kenyan Chepngetich broke the women’s record in Chicago last year, running 2hr 9min 56sec to become the first woman to break 2:10, and had hoped to improve on that time in London on 27 April. “I’m not in the right place mentally or physically to race my best in London and I am therefore withdrawing,” she said in a statement. “I am very sad to miss the race and I hope to be back next year.”

Site that once provided health information now includes criticism of Anthony Fauci, who led response to pandemic

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The Trump administration has replaced Covid.gov – a website that once provided Americans with access to information about free tests, vaccines, treatment and secondary conditions such as long Covid – with a treatise on the “lab leak” theory.

The site includes intense criticism of Dr Anthony Fauci, who helmed national Covid policies under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the World Health Organization (WHO) and state leadership in New York.

Contested discovery achieved by experiment firing laser pulses into eyes, stimulating retina cells

After walking the Earth for a few hundred thousand years, humans might think they have seen it all. But not according to a team of scientists who claim to have experienced a colour no one has seen before.

The bold – and contested – assertion follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes. By stimulating individual cells in the retina, the laser pushed their perception beyond its natural limits, they say.

Briton in cautious mood before Saudi Arabian GP but maintains Scuderia are ‘greatest team in F1 history’

Weathering the choppy waves of his new career with Ferrari it is still clear that every time Lewis Hamilton climbs into the car the seven-time Formula One champion believes he is taking a step forward, regardless of how it seems to others. He remains unfazed by the process of adapting, having long considered it would be an evolution, even given the weight of all the expectation and scrutiny.

This weekend at the fifth round of the season in Saudi Arabia, Ferrari and Hamilton are optimistic they will be making another stride in bridging the gap to the dominant McLaren.

Stop Trump coalition to dust off blimp, hoping demonstrations will surpass those during US president’s 2019 visit

Donald Trump’s second visit to the UK later this year will be disrupted by “even bigger” protests than those that coincided with his state visit in his first term, campaigners have vowed.

On Thursday Trump let slip that he expects to visit the UK in September, after Keir Starmer handed him a personal invitation from King Charles III during his visit to the White House in February.

Ex-media boss moved from Rikers Island jail to Manhattan hospital as he awaits rape and sexual assault retrial

Harvey Weinstein has been moved to a New York City hospital after a judge approved the ailing ex-studio boss’s request to stay there rather than in jail when he is not in court for his retrial on rape and sexual assault charges.

The judge, Paul Goetz, late on Thursday ordered that Weinstein, 73, be immediately relocated from the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex to the prison ward at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan so he can receive necessary medical treatment.

Acquisition expected to be completed on 18 May after Federal Reserve and currency comptroller sign off on deal

The pending merger between Capital One and Discover Financial services received approval from several regulators on Friday, bringing the $35bn tie-up closer to completion.

The Federal Reserve and the office of the comptroller of the currency (OCC) signed off on the deal, which was first announced in February 2024.

Russian airstrikes in Sumy, a paediatric hospital in Gaza, Holy Week processions in Spain and Rory McIlroy winning the Masters: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Order comes a day after the ‘efficiency’ team sent out orders to lay off 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 employees

A federal court has blocked the sweeping termination of staff at the top US consumer protection agency, a day after the Trump administration moved to axe about 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 workforce, while officials investigate whether the action violated existing judicial orders.

The ruling from the judge Amy Berman Jackson put a legal hurdle in front of mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Thursday, which came after a federal appeals court modified – but did not eliminate – an injunction limiting the agency’s ability to terminate employees.

Pop star posts on Instagram about his fright and ‘discomfort’ when asked for photos and autographs

Robbie Williams has spoken of the “discomfort” and “panic” he feels when he is approached for photos and autographs by fans.

In a post on Instagram, the pop star said he was able to “mask” the reality that social interactions frighten him.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura relieved husband is alive but Trump officials say in mocking X post he is ‘never coming back’

• US politics live – latest updates

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man the Trump administration has admitted it mistakenly deported, expressed relief to learn he is alive after a Democratic US senator managed to meet with him in El Salvador – as the White House posted on social media that he is “never coming back” to the US.

“It was very overwhelming – the most important thing for me, my children, his mom, brothers was to see him alive, and we saw him alive,” Vasquez Sura told ABC in an interview.

The ambitions of two generals and the interests of other states have led to the massacre of adults and children already forced to flee their homes

Sudan has begun its third year of civil war in the bleakest manner imaginable: mourning the massacre of hundreds of civilians and relief workers in displacement camps in Darfur. What began as a power struggle between generals has led to the killing of tens of thousands of people and widespread sexual and ethnic violence. The International Rescue Committee says the result is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: 640,000 people face catastrophic hunger. Basic services and infrastructure, already woefully inadequate, have been destroyed.

“One thing that has been consistent since day one,” the Sudanese activist and commentator Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem observed this week, “[is that] it’s a war on civilians. Now, I think we’ve become so desensitised to it, that doesn’t make much of a difference any more. There’s no impact.”

For vast swathes of this match – the first half, in particular – any spectator would have been hard-pressed to identify the Premier League-destined team on the cusp of an all-time Football League clean-sheet record.

Not only did Watford find a route past James Trafford – a rare occurrence in just 14 of Burnley’s 43 Championship matches – but the England goalkeeper endured a torrid afternoon preventing the hosts from becoming the first team to score two goals against him in the Championship this season.

Doyenne of children’s literature has regularly utilised social media in support of women-only spaces

Cocktail in hand and puffing on a celebratory cigar onboard her superyacht, reportedly somewhere in the Bahamas, JK Rowling celebrated on social media after this week’s UK supreme court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” she posted on X, borrowing the catchphrase from the popular 80s TV series The A-Team.

US adults in the age group are using cannabis to treat pain and poor sleep – and they’re a fast-growing market

Polls suggest Americans aged 65 and older are trying cannabis for the first time more than any other group in the country. This trend is propelled by decreased stigma and increased legalization, with 24 states and the District of Columbia allowing recreational use (in the UK, recreational use is still illegal).

But there’s something else too. Getting older comes with its challenges, physically and emotionally. Some people are betting on cannabis as a way to navigate these hurdles. Research indicates older adults primarily use cannabis for health-related issues, like poor sleep, pain and mental health concerns such as anxiety.

Emergency strike duo reeling in Lyon was electrifying while also showing deep flaws in Ruben Amorim’s squad

Bedlam, pandemonium, ecstasy and simply wow: Manchester United’s three-goal, six-minute (and 34 seconds) blockbuster extra-time comeback from 4-2 down is one for the ages, and a thrilling advertisement for the heart-stopping drama football can generate.

Yet if the Harry Maguire header that KO’d Lyon was a last, heroic act of a pell-mell, childhood-like jumpers-for-goalposts victory, it should also clang alarm bells for the fragile unit Ruben Amorim oversees, and cause a serious reality check.

Joe Montemurro and Renée Slegers are reunited but can they find a way to stop each other’s array of attacking talent?

The former Arsenal manager Joe Montemurro, who left the club at the end of the 2020-21 season, returns to the Emirates Stadium when Arsenal host the eight-time European champions Lyon on Saturday in their Champions League semi-final first leg. Montemurro, who led Arsenal to a first Women’s Super League title in seven years in 2019, was previously back in N5 in 2023, where his Juventus team lost 1-0 in the Champions League. Arsenal look very different, on and off the pitch, to the club he left. They upped their investment in and commitment to the women’s side after a review towards the end of Montemurro’s tenure, but a face familiar to him sits in the home dugout. While with Arsenal Montemurro was paired with Renée Slegers on the Uefa coach mentor programme in the early stages of the former Netherlands international’s coaching journey. Montemurro describes her as “a perfect fit for Arsenal”: “She really has brought back a level of belief in the squad and who they are. It’s a reflection of her. She’s very confident in what she does. She’s very strategic in how she goes about things. I’m so happy for her, happy she was given the opportunity and took it because it’s a very big job but she seems to be handling it well.” He said with a laugh: “I must have taught her well.”

Wind power developer eyes legal remedies to order that blocks renewable energy projects and eliminates green job opportunities

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The buildout of renewable energy projects in downstate New York – the region that includes the Hudson valley and below – is often complicated. The space for these projects is limited, particularly in New York City, and they’re often expensive.

Enthusiasts gathering on Good Friday – renamed Carfreitag – face curbs on unauthorised tuning, illegal races and pollution

Police in Germany have announced a crackdown on illegal racing and the unauthorised modification of cars as members of the so-called tuning scene meet across the country for the start of their annual season.

The Good Friday holiday marking Christ’s death on the cross, called Karfreitag in German – from the Old High German word kara, meaning sorrow – is otherwise known by the extreme car enthusiasts as Carfreitag (car Friday) for its unofficial gathering of the “tuners” and “car posers”.

He might not hop to it

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It’s one of Victoria’s favourite national parks for good reason. Hiking the park’s south reveals stunning coastlines and complex history, topped off by a night in a lighthouse

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We left the Wilsons Promontory Lightstation with one last look out to sea, admiring the chain of islands leading like stepping stones across the Strait. They’re the remnants of a landbridge between the Prom and Tasmania’s Freycinet, a link easily seen in the areas’ shared beauty: fine white sand, rough granite and bright orange lichen contrasting with a startlingly blue sea. It’s the nature, the beauty and the walking that brought us here, as well as a sense of unfinished business.

My husband and I had been coming to Wilsons Prom for decades, for day walks and multi-day hikes. But we’d never made it to the lighthouse, or stayed in the cottages converted to walkers’ accommodation. To tackle the trip, we booked two bunkrooms and roped in the Schultz family. It would be the first time either of our families – four adults and five kids aged nine to 15 – had attempted a four-day walk, but there was a reward waiting at the end. After 30km of trekking around the Prom, on the last night we’d have luxuries: the cottages’ hot showers and comfy beds.

Stars and their high-quality content enable streamers and others to pull in younger audiences

From MrBeast creating the world’s most expensive reality TV show and Jake Paul’s record-breaking clash with Mike Tyson to the British supergroup Sidemen’s Netflix deal, YouTube’s superstar creators are taking over mainstream television.

Last month Netflix launched the second series of Inside, the Sidemen’s reality show that was a hit when the first run of episodes premiered on YouTube.

The star’s new single, Azizam, is a rare pop-cultural moment in which Iran is celebrated for the beauty of its culture

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As a second-generation Persian immigrant, my connection with my roots has always been relatively surface-level. Admiring the intricate artworks adorning the walls of our homes, hand-loomed rugs crafted by my own grandmother, barberry-laden rice and saffron-infused stews, the music of Googoosh, Bijan Mortazavi and Susan Roshan blasting from dawn to dusk.

My parents spoke Farsi to one another and to me when I was a child and as such it was my mother tongue. But I was born in Australia, so it was only going to be a matter of time before I became more proficient in English. Now I stumble my way through conversations in broken Farsi, longing for the day when Iran will be safe enough to finally visit and I can hopefully scrub up my language skills.

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Tequila blitzed with its traditional pineapple juice-based chaser will leave your tastebuds tingling

In Mexico, it’s traditional to serve a refreshing, alcohol-free chaser with or after tequila – that is, a red, pomegranate juice-based sangrita or a green, herby pineapple verdita. So we thought, why not combine the two in the same glass?

Lukas Etas for Bloodsports, London WC2

Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family

As a young photojournalist living in Gaza, Fatima Hassouna knew that death was always at her doorstep. As she spent the past 18 months of war documenting airstrikes, the demolition of her home, the endless displacement and the killing of 11 family members, all she demanded was that she not be allowed to go quietly.

“If I die, I want a loud death,” Hassouna wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”

With the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, investors may find comfort in a trusted pair of hands

Two weeks after Donald Trump announced his “liberation day” tariffs, the fashion industry finds itself in turmoil as it tries to navigate the chaos unleashed.

Some are calling it the “tariffpocalypse”, with the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, snarling up supplies and hiking costs, alongside plummeting consumer confidence.

The authors of a new book explain why understanding the science of stress can help us manage it better

True (up to a point)
The way stress manifests is very much bodily, centred around hormones such as cortisol and their effect on us. But this process is triggered by the brain (notably the amygdala and the hypothalamus) and the way our brains react to stress is often set in early childhood, even in the womb. Pregnant women who experience extreme stress can give birth to infants who react more strongly to stress hormones – with increasing evidence suggesting that this causes modifications to the baby’s DNA. Self-actualising your way out of stress is difficult – not least because the causes might be serious and inescapable – but not always impossible. Some studies have shown that if you tell people they are the sort of person who doesn’t feel stress, they experience fewer symptoms. One US study found that teenagers growing up with worries about violent crime in a deprived part of Chicago tended to fare better if they simply tried to not think about it.