Canadian police say driver is in custody after deaths at Filipino festival for Lapu Lapu Day
Several people were killed when a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a street festival on Saturday in the Canadian city of Vancouver, local police said.
“A number of people have been killed and multiple others are injured,” Vancouver police posted online. “The driver is in custody.”
27-year-old defeats Brazil’s Luana Silva in women’s final
Australian gets revenge after narrow defeat in El Salvador
Resurgent Australian Isabella Nichols has claimed the biggest victory of her surfing career by downing young Brazilian star Luana Silva in the women’s final at Bells Beach.
Earlier this month, Nichols made the agonising choice not to attend her twin sister’s wedding and shoot for surfing glory instead in El Salvador. The 27-year-old had reckoned tearfully that it had been the biggest sacrifice of her life.
Exclusive: Paul Nowak acknowledges voters’ frustrations but says Reform UK hasn’t got the answers, and urges Keir Starmer to resist any move to the right
Nigel Farage is a “political fraud and hypocrite” who is “cosplaying” as a working-class champion in order to win votes at this week’s local elections, the UK’s most senior union chief has warned.
In a stark rejection of the Reform UK leader’s attempts to court the trade unions, Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, said there were “massive contradictions” in Farage’s positions on issues ranging from workers’ rights, the economy, industry and Brexit.
Just 20 miles from the bustle of the medina, Ourika valley is a place of magical gardens, olive groves and walking trails in the foothills of the High Atlas
From my vantage point on a rooftop terrace I can see the snaking form of the Ourika River meandering through the swathe of palmerias at the southern edge of Marrakech. It’s hard to imagine that barely 20 miles (32km) separate me from the frantic bustle of the famous Djemaa el Fna square and the clamour of the souks.
“Salam alaikum,” says Abdelkarim Ait Ali, owner of Ourika Lodge (doubles from £53), as he loads my already groaning table with the generous breakfast offerings that are part of traditional Amazigh (Berber) hospitality. “There are so many [hot air] balloons this morning!” he says, pouring glasses of sage-scented tea.
The largest city in the world is as big as Austria, but few people have ever heard of it. The megacity of 34 million people in central of China is the emblem of the fastest urban revolution on the planet. The Communist party decided 30 years ago to unify and populate vast rural areas, an experiment that has become a symbol of the Chinese ability to reshape the world
Plans by five Nato countries to pull out of life-saving agreement are ‘stupid’, says Nobel laureate Jody Williams
When leaders from dozens of countries met in Mozambique a decade ago, their aim was to rid the world of one of its most treacherous weapons. Years after signing a landmark treaty banning the use, production and stockpiling of landmines, they seized on the gathering to set out an ambitious deadline for the completion of their efforts: 2025.
Now 2025 is here, a very different precedent looms as five European countries have announced their intentions to be the first to withdraw from the treaty. All are Nato members that border Russia, and cite concerns about the growing threat posed by Vladimir Putin.
You’re very generous, but your friends may feel uncomfortable about accepting your help and want the satisfaction of making it on their own
I’m in the fortunate position of owning my own home and some land without a mortgage (in a very affordable and somewhat remote area), and every week I hear more stories from friends about their struggles to get by. We’re all in our 30s, but I feel as if my stress levels are infinitely lower than theirs.
I’ve offered to have people stay rent-free so they can save money for a house – and generally act as a backup plan for anyone who needs a place to stay longer term – or even put a mobile home on the land. However, I still feel as if I’m barely making a difference.
From Johnny Depp in Somerset Life to Barack Obama in Dogs Today, Bernard Bale’s litany of starry interviews offers a rare insight into the engine room of celebrity journalism, and is every bit as intriguing as the thought of Jack Sparrow tending his Somerset garden
In the spring of 2023, subscribers to the British local lifestyle magazine Somerset Life were eagerly anticipating their April edition – a Gardens Special promising top tips for green-fingered readers and the best places to see seasonal bluebells.
But when the magazine landed on readers’ doormats, a story bigger than blooming gardens of south-west England was on the cover. In what appeared to be a world exclusive interview, the Hollywood A-lister Johnny Depp had confessed his love for the bucolic county. More than that, he had bought a secret hideaway in the area.
Francis sought to lower age profile and broaden spread of college of cardinals and for most it is their first conclave
Conservative and progressives will intensify efforts to shape the future of the Roman Catholic church in the coming days as 135 cardinals prepare to be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel in order to choose a successor to Pope Francis.
The group of cardinals who will vote for the next leader of about 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide are less predictable than ever before, with the vast majority having no experience of a papal conclave. A much wider geographic spread of cardinals adds to the uncertainty.
Solomon says the scale and depravity of what he was exposed to was far darker than he had ever imagined
When Solomon* strode into the gleaming Octagon tower in Accra, Ghana, for his first day as a Meta content moderator, he was bracing himself for difficult but fulfilling work, purging social media of harmful content.
But after just two weeks of training, the scale and depravity of what he was exposed to was far darker than he ever imagined.
Workers at contractor in Accra say they have suffered from depression and anxiety as a result of their work
Meta is facing a second set of lawsuits in Africa over the psychological distress experienced by content moderators employed to take down disturbing social media content including depictions of murders, extreme violence and child sexual abuse.
Lawyers are gearing up for court action against a company contracted by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, after meeting moderators at a facility in Ghana that is understood to employ about 150 people.
Moderators working for Majorel in Accra claim they have suffered from depression, anxiety, insomnia and substance abuse as a direct consequence of the work they do checking extreme content.
When she was younger, I took her to a catwalk show to glimpse my working life as a style journalist. But now, as the Ozempic craze takes hold and six-year-olds share skincare routines on TikTok, I wonder whether that was the right thing to do
My seven-year-old daughter is playing a game on my husband’s phone. A punky, doll-like character has a dirty face, with green oozing spots and patches of brown dirt, bed-head hair sprouting from her head in crude black lines. My daughter dutifully selects a sponge from the toolbarand wipes off the spots, as if in a car wash. The game prompts her to cleanse and moisturise the cartoon face, and then apply layers of makeup. Giant comedy eyelashes, with gems, pop-coloured lips and blush. Then she selects an extravagant hairstyle, like a My Little Pony, and tops it with a tiara. “Now she’s pretty,” she says. I mentally add it to my ever increasing list of motherhood feminist fails.
Raising a daughter in an age where the cult of beauty is all encompassing and extreme perfectionism isgamified feels increasingly fraught. Raising a daughter having spent two decades as a fashion writer feels like a double twist of hypocrisy. In truth, working in fashion should make anyone feel like a hypocrite. I always have. Wear what you like and express yourself! Except also, wear these commodified trends invented to make you spend. But don’t shop! Because excessive consumption is killing the planet. But here are some cute new shoes!
The US constitution protects incompetence. But don’t underestimate the self-destructive power of the president’s own hubris
Tyrants come to a sticky end, or so history suggests. Richard III and Coriolanus made bloody exits. More recently, Saddam Hussein went to the gallows, Slobodan Milosevic went to jail, Bashar al-Assad went into exile. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was run to ground in a sewer. Tyranny, from the Greek túrannos (“absolute ruler”), is typically fuelled by hubris and leads ineluctably to nemesis. Tyrants are for toppling. Their downfall is a saving grace.
Tyranny, in its many forms, is back in vogue, and everyone knows who’s to blame. To be fair, to suggest similarities between the aforementioned abominable individuals and Donald Trump would be utterly wrong. In key respects, he’s worse. Measured by willingness and capacity to harm the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, wreak global economic mayhem and threaten nuclear annihilation, Trump is uniquely dangerous – and ever more so by the day.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
EHRC releases guidance in response to supreme court ruling, saying trans men and women need ‘suitable alternatives’
The UK’s equalities watchdog has said trans women and men “should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use” as it issued interim guidance after the supreme court ruling on biological sex.
Trans women “should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities” in workplaces or public-facing services like shops and hospitals, the EHRC said, and the same applies to trans men, who are biologically female, using men’s toilets.
As Dutch capital prepares to celebrate 750th anniversary, small business owners fear for independent retail
The floral perfume of tea and coffee fills the air in ‘t Zonnetje (The Sun), as – behind the counter – Marie-Louise Velder weighs out loose leaf tea, parcelling black leaves into paper packets. Mahogany-coloured shelves are stacked with pots containing beans from Ethiopia, Java, India, alongside bric-a-brac, such as vintage tea tins and old master-style pictures.
But in less than two months, the sun will set for good on this cosy shop in Amsterdam, which was founded in 1642. For the owner, the rent is just too high.
US president tasks secretary of state Marco Rubio with making ‘immediate’ progress
Donald Trump has demanded free transit for American commercial and military ships through the Panama and Suez canals, tasking his secretary of state with making progress “immediately”.
Trump has for months been calling for the United States to take control of the Panama canal but his social media post also shifted focus on to the vital Suez route. “American ships, both military and commercial, should be allowed to travel, free of charge, through the Panama and Suez canals!” Trump posted on Saturday.
Expulsion of people holding a Chinese passport or ID card prompts debate over identity, loyalty and freedom
Taiwan has launched a crackdown on holders of illegal Chinese identity documents, revoking the Taiwanese status of more than 20 people and putting tens of thousands of Chinese-born residents under scrutiny.
Under Taiwan law it is illegal for Taiwanese people to hold Chinese identity documents. In the past decade, hundreds of people have had their Taiwanese papers or passports cancelled for also holding Chinese ID, effectively revoking their citizenship.
Ojisan trading cards bear the faces of real people – local men whose competing professional qualities determine the outcome of each game
On the day before the new school year starts, four boys armed with plastic cases filled with cards are squeezing in a game at a community centre in Kawara, a small town in south-west Japan.
Like millions of children around the world, they are obsessed with trading cards. But they’re not wielding Top Trumps, Pokemon, superheroes or sports stars.
Sad, dizzyingly over-scheduled and suffering a serious case of “thumb fatigue”, midway through last year, Anne* decided to delete her dating apps.
For the previous four months, the 31-year-old Sydney resident had been attempting to achieve two big adult milestones at once: finding love and finding a place to buy. Every Saturday, it felt as though she was being priced out of another suburb, and at auctions she was mainly surrounded by couples. Then she would come home, open Hinge and experience a crushing sense of rejection “on such a personal level”.
The cat-proof fence drops off a sheer cliff on one side of Kangaroo Island, and disappears into the ocean on the other. The top section is floppy and electrified – a rude shock for wily cats seeking to climb over – and the bottom is burrow-proof.
Gaps left for humans and wildlife funnel any would-be trespassers through a minefield of traps, which are closely monitored.
Family issue statement on alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim who said she was trafficked to Prince Andrew
Virginia Giuffre has been hailed as an unflinching campaigner for survivors of sexual abuse, who took on the wealthy and the powerful during the course of her life.
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” her family said in a statement confirming her death.
It was late, and they were tired, but with four minutes left and long after midnight in Seville Jules Koundé found the strength to send a shot flying into the net and the Barcelona fans behind the goal into raptures. The fireworks were lit and the men in blue and red sprinted towards him from all sides of this stadium: here, at last, it was. The Copa del Rey final, a first clásico final in 11 years, had a winner. They had been a goal up and a goal down, they had thought they had a last-minute penalty to win it, but now the Catalan side had done it. Real Madrid had fought and rebelled, but eventually they were defeated 3-2.
You might call it a game of two halves, but there were four of them, and they had been superb. They also had an unlikely man there at the heart of a decisive moment: Pedri, Kylian Mbappé, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Ferran Torres had all scored and now it was Koundé who did. It had also had a very, very likely man standing in the middle of what might have been the decisive moment: after all the talk about referees, after Madrid had boycotted pre-match activities and the threat that they might boycott the game itself, it was indeed the officials who took the spotlight at the decisive moment.
Benn suffers first defeat after 12 gruelling rounds
On a night framed by manufactured rage and genuine vindication, Chris Eubank Jr outpointed Conor Benn in an initially close but ultimately clearcut victory. All three judges returned the same 116-112 scorecard in favour of the bigger, more poised and seasoned fighter who still had to weather some rocky moments when Benn hurt him.
Eubank Jr was wobbled on numerous occasions but Benn, 28, was just too wild to administer conclusive punishment. In contrast, the 35-year-old landed the more effective blows, often in clubbing combinations, and Benn looked on the brink of being stopped in the last minute of the fight. Despite a cut eye and swollen face, Eubank Jr poured on the pressure as he went in search of the knockout.
Red Roses win Six Nations after 43-42 victory over France
Coach believes Twickenham experience will help players
John Mitchell said England’s one-point win over France was the “ideal” test for his side with the Rugby World Cup on the horizon.
The Red Roses won their seventh consecutive Women’s Six Nations title after holding off a late French comeback at Twickenham. It was by far the closest match for England in this tournament, with their other four matches resulting in dominant wins. The lack of competition that the Red Roses face have led some to believe they needed a loss or a close game to learn from in order to know the answers if challenged at the upcoming World Cup.
Archibald Gracie is known for writing one of the most vivid accounts of the 1912 maritime disaster
A letter written by a survivor of the Titanic disaster has sold for a record £300,000 at auction.
First-class passenger Col Archibald Gracie wrote The Truth About the Titanic, which described his experience of the 15 April 1912 tragedy that claimed 1,500 lives on the vessel’s journey to New York.
‘At Feyenoord, I didn’t run three times round stadium’
Slot’s side 12 points clear in his first season in charge
Arne Slot will neither be the “loudest” nor “weirdest” during the celebrations if Liverpool win the Premier League on Sunday. The Reds welcome Tottenham to Anfield requiring a single point to secure the title and start the party in the Dutchman’s first season in charge.
The Liverpool head coach has experience of winning league trophies, lifting the 2022-23 Eredivisie title with Feyenoord. Should Liverpool draw or win against Spurs, Slot will share in the merriment alongside his wife and children, plus some of the 46-year-old’s friends who are visiting Merseyside during a Dutch holiday.
Mahmoud Abbas appoints veteran aide to newly created role, making him frontrunner to replace ageing leader
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice-president. It’s a major step by the ageing leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh as vice-president of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president. But it makes him the frontrunner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party who hope to succeed the 89-year-old Abbas.
Think back to your school days. At lunchtime, where did you sit? Did you take advantage of the smorgasbord of kids to find someone new and expand your horizons? Probably not. But that’s what Kate Freston advises you do when eating with other people. She’s a veteran of dining at Castlemaine’s Community Lunch – which attracts up to 150 people every Tuesday during school term time.
“I used to do a quick scan around the tables and think, ‘Oh God, I hope I don’t sit next to a dud’,” she says sheepishly. “And then, you’re like … maybe I’m the dud! Now, I really like how this crosses over into general life. You may have had a chat with 80-year-old Margaret, then you see her down the street and you may give a little wave and have a little chat.”
Freston, a community access worker who lives with her teenage son, had been missing the communal eating she’d experienced when travelling overseas, such as in Ghana where she stayed with local families. “It was beautiful, this simple act of fostering closeness with people,” she says. “I thought, why don’t I do that here? But I guess lifestyles and schedules get in the way.”
Sharing meals is the one of the best things we can do for our wellbeing, according to a report released last month. The World Happiness report 2025, based on a Gallup poll of more than 150,000 people from 142 countries and territories, found that people who dine alone have the lowest life evaluation rating globally compared with those who regularly share a meal, who are happier.
Your debut novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit turns 40 years old this year. How do you feel about it at this point in your life?
Can you believe it? I find that astonishing. I’m always having to think about it because people keep bothering me about it! Its next iteration is a musical, and then I really hope that’s the end. Just let me go! Obviously I love Oranges and I revisited it again with [her 2011 memoir] Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? and the musical too. Surely, by the rule of three, this is it? Then I can live in peace and plant potatoes.
There’s quiet optimism that gene-edited ‘Peter Pan’ tadpoles could help control one of the world’s worst invasive species
The toad’s eyes seemed to glow red, its warty and poison-soaked skin – normally splodged in browns – instead a porridge of creamy whites. This albino toad was produced by a team of scientists with one foot in a Sydney university laboratory and the other in a research station on the vast tropical savannahs and wetlands far away to the north near Humpty Doo.
It was September 2023 and for the man who dreamed it into being, the toad was but an opening act in a radical new play against one of the world’s worst invasive species.
12min: Lamine Yamal makes a bright run down the right for Barcelona. The score is nil-nil.
“I’d love to watch the game but a 10pm kick-off is getting a bit too near my bedtime,” emails Mark. “How do the players put up with it? It must be hard to be at your peak performance level so late in the day. Good night.
Anthony Yarde has won a close but uncontroversial unanimous verdict over Lyndon Arthur in the final undercard bout. The judges’ scores were 115-113 and 116-112 (twice). It’s Sweet Caroline time in North London. We should be seeing Eubank Jr and Benn making their entrances shortly.
The Tottenham Stadium looks almost full as the main undercard fight between Anthony Yarde and Lyndon Arthur reaches the halfway stage. This is a 60,000-plus crowd that currently seems more enthused by the musical breaks than the boxing. I am not sure too many were watching closely, but they missed young Aaron McKenna utterly dominate a proud old fighter in Liam Smith. McKenna calls himself ‘The Silencer’ and I’ve followed him closely for a few years and been with him in dressing rooms before fights. I always knew he was good; but tonight he was outstanding as he won a near shutout victory and knocked Smith down in the last round. He has moved up to a significant level – not that the Tottenham crowd cared much. They will only really start making noise once the undercard is over.
Amid all the talk of Chinese domination, the Class of 92 show no sign of giving way just yet. On the eighth day of the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams and John Higgins all rolled back the years.
There have been plenty of shocks so far, but the three legends of the game are made of tough stuff. Williams is 50, the other two 49, but the class remains. They have won 14 world titles between them and who would bet against that figure rising to 15 a week on Monday?
Actor who appeared in film of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hopes ‘we can all as a society just let people be’
David Tennant has criticised the “demonisation” of the trans community, saying that while he wishes JK Rowling “no ill will”, he hopes that “we can all as a society just let people be”.
The Scottish actor, who appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, likened the treatment of transgender people to the Thatcher government’s introduction of section 28 – a 1988 law that prohibited local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality.
It was a pinch me moment for the Crystal Palace supporters who had made it a sea of red and blue in the stand behind Emiliano Martínez’s goal. A few minutes earlier, the Aston Villa goalkeeper had been pumping his fists in delight after Jean-Philippe Mateta’s penalty miss appeared to have kept his side in the game.
Yet already leading through Eberechi Eze’s stunning goal in the first half, Palace were not to be denied. Ismaïla Sarr thumped the ball past Martínez from distance after another cheap Villa turnover and the Senegal forward was mobbed by his teammates as Oliver Glasner led a group hug with the substitutes on the bench.
From non-league to the Championship in three seasons, Wrexham are now the Hollywood-owned Welsh club who have written themselves a chapter in the English Football League record books. Never before had a team in the top five tiers of the English game been promoted in three successive years – until now. Even their owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, would have been laughed out of town for writing a script like this.
In the end it was a dominant 3-0 win over Charlton that sealed their spot in the Championship for 2025-26, another former Premier League team toppled. Ollie Rathbone’s strike and Sam Smith’s double put the Reds on the path to League One promotion with a game to spare, and consigned the Addicks, along with Wycombe and Stockport, to the playoffs.
One of the most extraordinary storylines in the history of the NFL draft came to a conclusion on Saturday as the Cleveland Browns, finally, selected Shedeur Sanders with the 144th pick in the fifth round of this year’s draft.
Sanders entered the draft as the most famous current college player in the United States. Not only was he a star quarterback at Colorado, he was coached there by his father, Deion, one of the greatest football players of all time and one of US sports’ biggest personalities.
Dow and Sing score twice before visitors’ late fightback
There was a moment after France’s Joanna Grisez scored where fans were looking left and right wondering if this would be the day England’s stranglehold on this competition would come to an end. The Red Roses were 31-7 up after 23 minutes but a resolute France stayed in the fight and cut back the lead to one point in the final minute . A French knock-on ended the game and the sheer pressure the hosts were under was plain to see by the wild celebrations by the England players at full time as they sealed their seventh successive Women’s Six Nations title.
It felt like the French ran out of time and had their revival come five minutes earlier they could have become the first team since themselves in 2018 to beat England in this competition. It was most definitely the visitors’ best outing of this tournament with the scrum-half, Pauline Bourdon-Sansus, and the wing Kelly Arbey having particularly impressive performances.
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has made a new complaint to British police over allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire obstructed justice, after stating he has spoken to officers involved in the original phone-hacking inquiry.
Writing in the Guardian, Brown said one of the detectives had alleged they believed there was “significant evidence” that News Group Newspapers (NGN) deleted millions of emails to pervert the course of justice.
The groundbreaking apology to Prince Harry from Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) has not closed an era of investigation and litigation into media corruption. It has opened it up. Far from ending one of the most sordid chapters in British media history, it is raising fundamental, troubling and as yet unresolved questions – and today I am making a criminal complaint to the Met and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleging that I am, along with many others, a victim of the obstruction of the course of justice by NGN.
This is not an allegation made lightly. It is informed by recently available evidence, and by the statements of senior officers involved in the original investigations into unlawful newsgathering, who have now stated to me that they were misled.
Gordon Brown was UK prime minister 2007 to 2010
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