The Oscar-nominated star of The King’s Speech will check in for the new season of hit comedy drama set in France
Oscar-nominee Helena Bonham Carter has joined Steve Coogan for the fourth season of HBO’s comedy drama The White Lotus.
Bonham Carter is one of three new cast members officially announced today alongside Chris Messina and Marissa Long. Messina is known for roles in Sharp Objects, The Mindy Project and Julie & Julia, while Long is a model with only a short film to her name as an actor.
Federal transportation regulator to investigate after child in Santa Monica sustained minor injuries from incident
The US’s federal transportation regulator said Thursday it had opened an investigation after a Waymo self-driving vehicle struck a child near an elementary school in southern California last week, causing minor injuries.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the child in Santa Monica ran across the street on 23 January from behind a double parked SUV towards the school and was struck by the Waymo autonomous vehicle during normal school drop-off hours. The agency said there were other children, a crossing guard, and several double-parked vehicles in the vicinity.
Apple will release its first quarter earnings Thursday after market close, and all eyes will be on the company’s roadmap for integrating artificial intelligence into its products. The tech titan has shown steady financial growth as iPhone sales remain strong. Investors have worried that Apple is getting left behind when it comes to AI.
To assuage Wall Street’s fears, Apple announced earlier this month that the rebooted version of its voice assistant, Siri, will be powered by Google’s Gemini AI models.
Anthony Kazmierczak faces federal assault charges after he appeared to spray the congresswoman with liquid from a syringe
The Department of Justice has filed federal charges against the man accused of attacking Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar at a town hall in Minneapolis on Tuesday. In newly filed court documents, a close associate told investigators that the alleged attacker previously said that “someone should kill” the Minnesota lawmaker.
Local police arrested and booked Anthony James Kazmierczak, 55, for third-degree assault after he appeared to spray Omar with an acidic-smelling liquid from a syringe as she addressed constituents from a lectern.
US president says he made appeal to Russian leader, but no ceasefire has been confirmed by Moscow or Kyiv
Donald Trump has claimed Vladimir Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for one week after he issued a personal appeal to the Russian leader due to the extreme cold in Ukraine.
The short-term ceasefire, which has not been confirmed by either Ukraine or Russia, was announced during a cabinet meeting of Trump’s top advisers at the White House on Thursday.
Avaaraq Olsen tells content creators to think before making jokes after German tried to raise Stars and Stripes in Nuuk
The mayor of Greenland’s capital has called on media professionals and content creators to act responsibly after a German comedian’s failed attempt to hoist the US flag.
Maxi Schafroth, 41, a Bavarian comic, tried to run up the Stars and Stripes on a flagpole near the cultural centre in Nuuk but was confronted by angry passersby.
Agency updates guidance after increase in reports of condition to its yellow card scheme
Patients on weight-loss jabs and diabetes injections should be aware there is a small risk of developing severe acute pancreatitis, the UK medicines regulator has said.
About 1.6 million adults in England, Wales and Scotland used GLP-1 medication, such as semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro), between early 2024 and early 2025 to lose weight, according to recent research.
Order allows direct flights from US to Venezuela, as major oil companies already on ground to assess potential operations
Donald Trump has ordered the immediate reopening of commercial airspace over Venezuela, weeks after US military forces toppled the dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Speaking at the White House during his cabinet’s first meeting of the year, Trump said he had just concluded a telephone conversation with Venezuela’s acting president (and former vice-president), Delcy Rodríguez, in which he informed her of the decision to restore flight access.
Protesters need support following the bloody crackdown by a ‘zombie’ regime – not wild threats or worse from the US president
The brutality of Iran’s crackdown on protesters is almost unfathomable. Despite the authorities cutting off communications and destroying evidence, it is clear that a regime never reluctant to shed its citizens’ blood has done so with unprecedented zeal, sensing an unprecedented threat from unrest across the country, challenging not only its policies but its very existence.
Officials have reported 3,000 deaths, but human rights groups have tallied many more, and a network of medical professionals has estimated that 30,000 could have been killed. Security forces shot people dead as they fled a fire and are arresting doctors for helping the wounded.
New study into ‘heritability’ shows that 50% of the variation in human lifespan could be down to genetics
Some people who live to a great age put it down to an evening tot of whisky, others to staying out of trouble. Now scientists think they may have unlocked a key secret to long life – quite simply, genetics.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers described how previous studies that had attempted to unpick the genetic component of human lifespan had not taken into account that some lives were cut short by accidents, murders, infectious diseases or other factors arising outside the body. Such “extrinsic mortality” increases with age, as people often become more frail.
International sporting events don’t often see teams refuse to participate for a cause – but when it’s happened, it hasn’t been effective
It was probably fitting that the first call from someone with genuine power should emanate from Germany, long one of soccer’s moral centers. “The time has definitely come,” German soccer federation vice-president Oke Göttlich told the Hamburger Morgenpost, “to seriously consider and discuss” a boycott of the 2026 World Cup.
“What were the justifications for the boycotts of the Olympic Games in the 1980s?” added Göttlich, who is also the president of FC St. Pauli, Hamburg’s earnestly countercultural club. “By my reckoning, the potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.”
After the American’s venting went viral, players’ privacy has become a serious issue and deserves to be respected regardless of their income
The court access corridor at Melbourne Park is buried inconspicuously underneath the tournament grounds. A long, spacious walkway, it connects the east and west points of the vast Australian Open venue, allowing competitors to move unaccosted between the courts, player areas and media facilities. Right in the middle of the corridor, a large pair of automatic doors open up to the various private player areas.
Those same doors also lead straight to the entrance of Rod Laver Arena. On Tuesday, in the immediate aftermath of her excruciating 6-1, 6-2 loss to Elina Svitolina, Coco Gauff removed a racket from her bag, exited the double doors into the vacant corridor and up a ramp that she believed was hidden by a wall. She then proceeded to obliterate her racket on the concrete floor. Two days later, the force of that racket smash continues to reverberate around the tour.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” David Eby told reporters.
Keir Starmer has taken a big step towards rapprochement with China, opening the door to a UK visit from Xi Jinping in a move that drew immediate anger from British critics of Beijing.
During the first visit by a UK prime minister to China in eight years – a period which Starmer has described as an “ice age” – he said talks with the Chinese president had left the bilateral relationship in a stronger position.
Sundance film festival: there are some effective early moments in this ultra low-budget, audio-first horror but deja vu soon replaces intrigue
There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from. The debut feature from writer-director Ian Tuason, about horror podcasters who receive a set of mysterious recordings, has elements of Paranormal Activity, Session 9, Hereditary, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist, enough sighs of familiarity to give horror fans a scary case of deja vu. It’s not that total originality is expected at this particular moment (this weekend’s Send Help has been touted as Misery meets Castaway), but given the genre’s overcrowd, it’s hard to see what pushes Undertone above the noise.
What it does do is make for an impressively resourceful use of a low budget, the whole thing costing about $500,000. It’s all shot in one house (Tuason’s actual home) and for the most part, any sinister goings on are restricted to audio footage, heard through the headphones of our lead Eva (Nina Kiri, who reminds me of a young Alice Eve). She’s living back home with her terminally ill mother, fending calls from a thoughtless boyfriend and patiently awaiting those from her friend, and maybe one that got away, Justin (the voice of White Lotus breakout Adam DiMarco, replacing the original voice after the A24 acquisition). The pair co-host a podcast that analyses creepy tales, Eva as the skeptic and Justin as the believer, the pair’s flirtatious pitter-patter positioning them as the Mulder and Scully of the audio world.
Critics worry that heckling, such as that at a recent Royal Opera performance, is becoming more common
Opera audiences pride themselves on knowing when – and how – to make noise. Cries of “bravo”, “brava” and “bravi” have become a celebrated part of the tradition, with shouted approval seen as evidence of connoisseurship.
Booing, too, has a long history, and as a brave stand-in at the Royal Opera House found out on Tuesday night, its impact may sometimes seem a little blunter.
Donald Trump says ‘time is running out’ for Iran as the threat of war appears to loom closer. A huge US armada is being moved towards the country and is seen as the starkest indication yet that Trump intends to strike. The US president had called on the Iranian regime to negotiate a deal on the future of its nuclear programme, only weeks after he promised Iranian protesters ‘help was on the way’ before backtracking days later. Nosheen Iqbal talks to the Guardian’s deputy head of international news, Devika Bhat, about what Trump could do next
Opponents of bill insist government should not give it special treatment as peers delay its passage
Opponents of the assisted dying bill have accused its supporters of bullying after key backers said they would attempt to bypass the House of Lords if peers continue to block it.
The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and the Labour peer Charles Falconer said the government had a duty to listen to the anger among supporters about how the bill had been handled in the Lords.
Experts say factors including Trump’s aggressive policies and pressure on the dollar are pushing investors toward ‘safe haven’ of precious metals
Last year’s extraordinary run in precious metals has only intensified in 2026, as Donald Trump has continued to rip up the rules of the global economy.
Gold has been on a tear since last summer, repeatedly breaking records. It has risen by more than a quarter this month and hit a new high of just under $5,595 (£4,060) an ounce on Thursday.
Stephen Cottrell was criticised for renewing contract of David Tudor, despite being aware of his past abuse
The Church of England’s second most senior cleric has been cleared of misconduct over his handling of a priest who committed sexual abuse.
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, was criticised after he allowed the disgraced priest David Tudor to remain in ministry during his oversight from 2010, despite Tudor’s history of sexual abuse.
Minnesota housing project to draw energy from water stored deep underground, 45 years on from city’s initial research
Nearly half a century ago, the US Department of Energy launched a clean energy experiment beneath the University of Minnesota with a simple goal: storing hot water for months at a time in an aquifer more than 100 metres below ground.
The idea of the seasonal thermal energy storage was to tuck away excess heat produced in summer, then use it in the winter to warm buildings.
David Beckham – once the most famous footballer in the world, now its most famous parent – was in town to wingman Victoria Beckham as she became a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. But he was also there for the optics. The remaining kids flew in. So did their partners. Some wore Victoria Beckham, others wore Loewe, everyone looked demure and sober and matchy-matchy, what a celebrity astrologist might call “a united front”.
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