Latest international news, sport and comment from the Guardian
Yoon Suk Yeol impeachment verdict live: South Korea court votes unanimously to remove president from office
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 03:28:51 GMT

Court says its decision was unanimous, amid security high in capital months after Yoon imposed martial law and triggered country’s worst political crisis in decades

Yoon violated his duty as South Korean commander-in-chief by mobilising troops, says Justice Moon, the constitutional court’s acting president says. The president’s martial law declarations violated parliament’s rights, he says as the ruling continues.

Justice Moon says it is difficult to see the South Korean opposition’s actions as a severe national crisis to justify Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration, Reuters is reporting as he continues delivering the ruling.

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At least 27 killed in Israeli bombing of shelter in Gaza City, rescuers say
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:14:24 GMT

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee from southern city of Rafah in one of war’s biggest mass displacements

An Israeli bombing of a school turned shelter in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people, rescuers said, and hundreds of thousands in the Rafah area are fleeing in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war amid Israel’s newly announced campaign to “divide up” the Gaza Strip.

Three missiles hit Dar al-Arqam school in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood on Thursday afternoon, the civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said, killing several children and wounding 100 people.

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Asian markets drop further as IMF warns Trump tariffs ‘a significant risk’ to global economy – business live
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 03:20:00 GMT

Kristolina Georgieva warns against retaliation to US levies while US president insists ‘markets will boom’ after sweeping tariff announcement

New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative legal group, has filed what it says is the first lawsuit seeking to block Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports, saying the US president overstepped his authority. Reuters reports:

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, alleges that Trump lacked the legal authority to impose the sweeping tariffs unveiled on Wednesday as well as duties authorized on February 1 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” NCLA senior litigation counsel Andrew Morris said in a statement.

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Not that Norfolk! Mislabelled shipments led to Trump tariffs on uninhabited islands and remote outposts with no US trade
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 02:59:06 GMT

Exclusive: Aquarium systems, Timberland boots and recycling plant parts were mislabelled as coming from remote Norfolk Island or Heard and McDonald islands

Trade tariffs imposed on tiny Australian territories that are either uninhabited or claim to have no trading relationship with the US appear to have been calculated based on erroneous trade data.

The data relates, at least in part, to shipments mislabelled as coming from remote Norfolk Island, or Heard Island and McDonald Islands, instead of their correct countries of origin, the Guardian can reveal.

Among the erroneously-labelled shipments over the past five years from the island territories are shipments of aquarium systems, Timberland boots, wine and parts for a recycling plant.

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Pentagon launches investigation into Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal app after sensitive information leak
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 20:06:38 GMT

Defense chief and others discussed US military operations on messaging app that included journalist

The inspector general of the Department of Defense (DoD) is launching an investigation into Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen.

The investigation, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.

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US tourist arrested for landing on forbidden Indian tribal island
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:10:30 GMT

Police say man landed on island in attempt to meet the Sentinelese people – a tribe untouched by the industrial world

Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a US tourist who sneaked on to a highly restricted island carrying a coconut and a can of Diet Coke to a tribe untouched by the industrial world.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel – part of India’s Andaman Islands – in an attempt to meet the Sentinelese people, who are believed to number only about 150.

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Donald Trump ordered to pay £626,000 legal costs after Steele dossier lawsuit
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:59:47 GMT

US president had sued over denied allegations he took part in ‘perverted’ sex acts but UK case was thrown out last year

Donald Trump has been ordered by a judge in England to pay more than £620,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a company over denied allegations he took part in “perverted” sex acts.

The US president brought a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy founded by a former MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, in 2022.

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Musk to remain ‘friend and adviser’ to Trump after leaving Doge, says Vance
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:45:47 GMT

Vice-president makes remark after reports that president told cabinet members billionaire will be stepping back

JD Vance said on Thursday that Elon Musk would remain a “friend and an adviser” to the vice-president and Donald Trump after he leaves his current role with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

In recent days, several news outlets, including Politico, reported that Trump had told members of his cabinet that the tech billionaire, who holds the position of “special government employee”, would soon be stepping back from his role in the administration, and would take on a supporting role and return to the private sector.

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Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv solving its troop shortages, says top US general in Europe
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:45:13 GMT

Gen Christopher Cavoli says Russia has lost 4,000 tanks, comparable to whole US fleet; Kremlin goes to war against Elton John. What we know on day 1,136

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Mehmet Oz confirmed by US Senate to lead Medicare and Medicaid
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 22:10:03 GMT

Former TV pitchman has close relationship with boss RFK Jr but regularly encourages Americans to get vaccinated

Former heart surgeon and TV pitchman Dr Mehmet Oz was confirmed on Thursday to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Oz became the agency’s administrator in a party-line 53-45 vote.

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Murders of two female students prompt calls for a ‘cultural rebellion’ in Italy
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:16:36 GMT

Sara Campanella and Ilaria Sula were found within 48 hours of each other, bringing the number of femicides in 2025 to 11

There have been calls in Italy for a “cultural rebellion” amid outrage and protests over the murders of two female students found within 48 hours of each other, bringing the number of femicides in the country since the start of the year to 11.

Sara Campanella, a 22-year-old biomedical student, was stabbed at a bus stop in the Sicilian city of Messina on Monday afternoon and died while being taken to hospital.

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Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:38:55 GMT

‘Willing sycophants’ came up with simplistic formula that has thrown global economy into disarray

Waving a big chart as a prop in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump suggested his new tariff plan was simple: “Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get simpler than that.”

Perhaps a bit too simple. The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked.

Goods trade deficit: $291.9bn

Total goods imports: $438.9bn

Those figures divided = 0.67, or 67%

And halved = 34%

Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the US and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing.

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Trump’s chaos-inducing global tariffs, explained in charts
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 19:56:39 GMT

The US president’s announcement has caused market chaos and threatens a trade war and US recession

Donald Trump’s announcement of a long slate of new tariffs on the US’s trading partners has caused chaos in global markets and threatens a global trade war and US recession.

Long trailed on his election campaign, Trump’s plans were even more sweeping than many had predicted: a baseline 10% tariff on all imports and higher tariffs for key trading partners, including China and the EU.

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Canada to counter ‘unjustified’ US tariffs with 25% taxes on US cars, says Carney
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:12:16 GMT

Canadian prime minister says country will impose taxes on US vehicles not compliant with continental free trade deal

Canada will retaliate against “unjustified, unwarranted” tariffs imposed by the United States with a 25% tax on US vehicles, says Mark Carney.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs on dozens of countries, but did not add new trade levies to Canada or Mexico. Despite the reprieve, however, the US has placed 25% taxes on Canadian steel, aluminum and vehicles.

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Macron suggests pause on US investment as EU leaders condemn Trump tariffs
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:31:53 GMT

Von der Leyen calls tariffs ‘a major blow to world economy’ while calling for last-ditch negotiations

European leaders have condemned Donald Trump’s tariffs as “fundamentally wrong” and creating an “immense difficulty for Europe”, while appealing for last-ditch negotiations to avert an all-out trade war.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Trump’s decision to impose tariffs was “brutal and unfounded” and appeared to call for a suspension of French investment in the US until the tariffs were clarified.

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The Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timeline
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:32:48 GMT

On 23 March contact was lost with a team of Palestinian rescue workers and medics in southern Gaza. A week later their bodies were recovered from a mass grave

At 4.20am, a Red Crescent ambulance on its way to collect people injured by an airstrike in Rafah comes under Israeli fire in Hashashin. Two paramedics are killed.

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Both her home and school burned down during the LA fires. She’s just one of 700,000 uprooted kids
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:00:27 GMT

Los Angeles children suffered traumatic disruptions to their education and social lives from the wildfires

The Eaton fire that devastated Altadena in early January burned down Juan Carlos Perez’s family home and the school where his younger daughter attended sixth grade.

Losing both anchors at once, Perez said, has been traumatizing for the 12-year-old. As the family moved from hotel to Airbnb, his daughter has become increasingly withdrawn and too anxious to return to school, asking to finish the semester online. The only time she interacted with friends was during soccer practice, Perez said, but that routine was suspended last month when the family moved this month to a friend’s house in Connecticut.

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Cory Booker didn’t go to the bathroom for 25 hours. Is that … OK?
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:41:25 GMT

The Democrat delivered the longest Senate speech in history. We asked urologists one pressing question about it

On Monday evening, Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, took the floor to denounce the harm he believes Donald Trump and his administration have inflicted on the United States. “Our country is in crisis,” he said, decrying the economic chaos, mass layoffs and tyrannical acts of the administration’s first 71 days. He stopped speaking 25 hours and five minutes later, making it the longest Senate speech in history.

Many praised Booker for the rousing political act. Some were also impressed by a particular physical feat: namely, he seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.)

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Chaka Khan on Prince, poetry and wild, wonderful nights: ‘No one’s done anything but craziness at 4am’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:45:37 GMT

The singer answers your questions about her drum skills, friendship with Joni Mitchell and more – and reveals unheard music with both Prince and Sia

Can you remember the precise moment you realised you had a gift as a vocalist? SalfordRed64
I was doing a talent show at the Burning Spear in Chicago. My group, the Crystallettes, graced many a nightclub stage in competitions, and every time either us or [fellow Chicago girl group] the Emotions would win. But I remember singing some Aretha Franklin songs and people in the audience were throwing money on the stage, and they started calling me “little Aretha”. That’s when I connected the dots: “Oh, I see what this is all about.” I realised I didn’t have to become a teacher or a whatever I wanted to be when I grew up back then – I could be a singer!

You have so much confidence and you just knew you and [the band] Rufus were going to make it big. Where does that confidence come from? stifwhiff
When I was with Rufus, I knew I loved what we were doing, and I could only hope and pray everyone else loved it like I did. That’s all you can ask for. And that’s still how I am about the music I make. I have confidence in everything I do – all the time. And that is a necessary thing to have if you want success – if you’ve created something and you want everyone to love it, you have to love it first. And that’s applicable to everything in life, not just music.

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Dear Disney: don’t cave to Trump. We need you to shape dreams for kids everywhere | Jeff Yang
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:00:45 GMT

Maga is coming after the House of Mouse with a cynical attack on its diversity policies. Disney can – and should – fight back

I remember the moment I truly recognized the power Disney has to move young hearts and minds.

It was when I attended a sneak preview of Disney’s adaptation of the Chinese legend of Mulan, about a young woman who disguises herself as a man and takes up her wounded father’s sword to defend her nation.

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From android to assassin: Daryl Hannah’s 10 best films – ranked!
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:22:02 GMT

With the release this month of Coastal, her documentary about husband Neil Young’s 2023 solo tour, we look at Hannah’s greatest roles

Looking as though she has strayed from another genre, Hannah plays Mickey Rourke’s girlfriend, a leggy aerobics instructor who keeps getting undressed. At least she’s more fun than Rourke and an insanely posturing Eric Roberts as deadbeat cousins ripping off the mob: roles originally written for Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

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Trapped with a Tesla: my dream car has become a living nightmare | The secret Tesla driver
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:00:45 GMT

I bought it to be part of a greener future, but that was before Musk proved so awful. I’d sell it now, but prices have dropped

After our children left home, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves and buy a new car for a driving holiday in Europe. We’d been driving a family estate car for years, loading it up with kids and making trips to and from universities, but we wanted something for ourselves.

As a surprise, she booked a test drive for the Tesla Model S for my birthday. It was unlike any car I’d been in before. I thought “Wow, this is amazing.” It felt like the future: a computer on wheels that was constantly updating with new features. I can’t say I feel that way now – and many people seem to share that view. Tesla sales figures declined by 13% in the first few months of this year. Others feel even more uneasy: more than 200 demonstrations happened last weekend outside company facilities around the world to protest against Elon Musk and the wrecking ball he has taken to the federal government.

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Stephen A Smith v LeBron James turns NBA’s narrator into a main character
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:00:50 GMT

ESPN’s biggest name has never been shy about giving his opinion. But now he is part of the drama he so often comments on

Who would win in a fight between LeBron James and Stephen A Smith is a question only Stephen A Smith would think to ask. There has been little avoiding the question since the Los Angeles Lakers superstar confronted ESPN’s No 1 personality during a recent game against the New York Knicks. The player was venting his displeasure at Smith for his pointed comments about James’s eldest son, and Lakers teammate, Bronny – the 55th pick in last year’s NBA draft.

James approached Smith, a courtside spectator for the game, and appeared to tell him to “keep my son out of this shit” – a callback to Smith questioning whether Bronny deserved to be on a league roster. Smith went on TV the next day to make clear that he wasn’t actually picking on Bronny, the player; he was really calling out LeBron as a bad father for setting a high bar for his son’s pro career. Smith would come back to this point often while making the media rounds after signing a $100m ESPN extension. That should have been the end of the argument – but then last week LeBron sat down with Pat McAfee, whose show follows Smith’s on ESPN, and dismissed Smith as an ice cream-bingeing, couch-bound fanboy.

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My teenage son is just horrid, I hate him. How can I cope with the disgusting feelings I’m having? | Leading questions
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:00:06 GMT

You don’t need to feel wretched shame for having negative emotions, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Working through these feelings might be better for him too

I have a 15-year-old son and he is at that typical dreadful teenager stage filled with attitude, disrespectful behaviour and is just horrid. Despite being his mother, I hate him. I can’t stand to be around him and because of this I’m suffering from depression. Being his mother is the absolute worst experience.

How can I cope with the disgusting feelings I’m having about being a mother?

In Australia, Lifeline offers 24/7 crisis support available on 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233); in the UK, visit https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/ or call 0808 2000 247 (24 hours), or visit womansaid.co.uk

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‘Dead white men are what I’m legitimately interested in’: film’s foremost podcaster on resurrecting the classics
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:30:27 GMT

Karina Longworth, the host of You Must Remember This, on why people patronise Scorsese and Coppola, and her new season of late-career curios by the likes of Minnelli, Wilder and Hitchcock

‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So runs the most famous line from John Ford’s elegiac 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The 44-year-old historian Karina Longworth has other ideas. The former LA Weekly film critic launched her podcast, You Must Remember This, in 2014, setting out to tell “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”, as she puts it in the show’s introduction. Its title is lifted from the jazz standard As Time Goes By (“You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss …”) as featured in Casablanca. Hearing that wistful, timeworn lyric, it is easy to overlook the imperative hiding in plain sight. With each fastidiously researched and gloriously entertaining episode, Longworth seems to be telling us: you must remember this. To not do so, or to allow fact to curdle into legend, would be unconscionable.

“I don’t want to be a schoolmarm scolding people for forgetting,” she says from a sunny upstairs room in the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, Rian Johnson, director of the Knives Out whodunnits and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. “But I think we can only understand where we are at and where we’re going if we look to where we’ve been.”

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‘Not a good idea’: Uefa president Ceferin hits out at 64-team World Cup proposal
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:02:44 GMT
  • Fifa considering one-off expanded tournament in 2030
  • Ceferin: ‘We didn’t know anything before the Fifa council’

The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, has hit out at a proposal to expand the 2030 men’s World Cup to 64 teams, calling the concept a “bad idea” and appearing to criticise Fifa for not advising his organisation of the suggestion in advance.

Fifa confirmed last month that it would consider adopting the sprawling new format as a one-off in 2030 to celebrate the tournament’s centenary, after the idea was raised at a meeting of its council by the Uruguayan football association president, Ignacio Alonso.

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Big matchups and bigger bucks: Michael Johnson pledges Grand Slam Track will bring ‘fantasy to life’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:44:13 GMT

Athletics legend says his new four-part event, which launches on Friday, is exactly what the sport needs

Michael Johnson is one of the few true legends of track and field. Now, though, he is chasing the holy grail. Every four years, athletics is the biggest sport at the Olympics. In between, for most casual fans, it tumbles off a cliff. But Johnson, a four-time gold medallist across the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Games, believes he can change all that with a new big-money professional track league, Grand Slam Track, which launches on Friday in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Grand Slam Track is the equivalent of UFC and Formula One,” he tells the Guardian. “The research tells us that people watched track during the Olympics because of the stakes, the stars and the stories. So that is the recipe. And at the absolute heart of it is the head-to-head competition between the best athletes. Because that’s what people want to see.”

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Fernández lifts Chelsea into top four as Tottenham fans turn on Postecoglou
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 21:08:56 GMT

It was a typically incident-filled meeting between these sworn enemies but, really, there was only one place to start. Ange Postecoglou, the remorselessly under-fire Tottenham manager, had been barracked by his own supporters when he replaced Lucas Bergvall with Pape Sarr in the 64th minute. Like every other Spurs player, Bergvall had struggled to impose himself but the fans do like him.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” they informed Postecoglou. So just imagine how the fiercely proud Australian must have felt shortly afterwards when Sarr won the ball off Moisés Caicedo and unloaded a low shot from distance, which the Chelsea goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, inexplicably allowed to beat him.

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Grand National 2025: horse-by-horse guide to all the runners
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:36:27 GMT

Last year’s winner I Am Maximus heads to Aintree on Saturday bidding to make history. Here is a look through the chances of all 34 contenders

There was a lot going on in the spring of 1974. Abba won Eurovision, Manchester United were relegated and Red Rum became the most recent horse to win the Grand National under what was then the top weight of 12 stone. Just over half a century later, last year’s winner will attempt to emulate the greatest Aintree hero of them all and defy top weight, and though he is higher in the ratings, he won so readily 12 months ago that he would surely have done so with another 8lb on his back. Lacklustre in two runs this campaign but Willie Mullins will have been working backwards from here and he seems highly likely to leave that form behind now he is back at the scene of his greatest triumph.

Verdict: classy acceleration to seal victory last year, big chance to repeat from 8lb higher mark

Verdict: top-class at Haydock and when the mud is flying. Will not have either here

Verdict: loves spring ground and in the mix, but worse off with a couple of rivals on recent form

Verdict: decent form already and best days still ahead of him but not cut much slack by the handicapper

Verdict: the 2023 King George winner will love the ground and the trip but might lack a gear-change when it matters

Verdict: big run last year and can’t get classier than a Gold Cup winner but may have missed best chance

Verdict: outstanding novice over hurdles, yet to show same form over fences or at an extended trip

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ECB insists sale of Hundred teams will go through despite TV rights wrangle
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:30:58 GMT
  • Delays caused by negotiations around overseas rights
  • ECB launches review into crowded domestic schedule

The England and Wales Cricket Board insists that the sale of the eight Hundred franchises will be completed by the end of April, despite the delays to negotiations.

The governing body’s chief executive, Richard Gould, said that the high valuations were not one of the issues behind the delays, but admitted that future broadcasting rights were. “All the discussions are on a very, very sound footing,” Gould said, “we’re just trying to work out how to maximise value from sponsorships, tickets sales and broadcast revenues. They’re investing a lot of money into our game and we want to make sure that pays dividends.”

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Bunting ends Premier League darts drought in Berlin but Littler crashes out
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 22:15:49 GMT
  • Bunting beats Price 6-5 in final to break his duck
  • Littler beaten by Dobey in opening match

Stephen Bunting turned his Premier League form around in stunning fashion to claim victory in Berlin after Luke Littler crashed out early.

Bunting had failed to win a match in the first eight rounds of the series but he saw off Nathan Aspinall to break his duck then eased to victory over Luke Humphries before defeating Gerwyn Price 6-5 in the final.

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Mary Earps on life at PSG: ‘There was a lot of noise so it’s been nice to escape’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:00:52 GMT

England goalkeeper on how she has fine-tuned her game since moving to France and ‘loving the architecture’ in Paris

Many of us might perceive it as a bustling metropolis full of tourist hotspots. To Mary Earps, however, Paris is noise-free. Peaceful. Beautiful. It is very rare for anybody to spot the England goalkeeper in public – unless she is at the airport or waiting to catch the Eurostar from Gare du Nord – and, for a player who shot to fame so quickly that she was the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, such relative invisibility in the City of Light is a blissful feeling.

“It’s been more refreshing than I thought it would be,” Earps says of her move to Paris Saint-Germain, who she joined last summer. “The last few years have been unbelievable, a massive acceleration I could never have predicted, and what’s come with that is some incredible opportunities but also a lot of noise, and so I really wanted to get into a little focus zone and just totally concentrate on my development as a footballer. Careers are short and I really wanted to maximise mine. I’m trying to squeeze out every last bit of potential that I have in myself and put the blinkers on a little bit – it’s been nice to escape and just be totally all-in with trying to push myself to another level.”

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Spain could include Camp Nou final in bid to host 2035 Rugby World Cup
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:00:29 GMT
  • Real Madrid’s Bernabéu also offers appeal to federation
  • Italy expected to be Spain’s closest rival for tournament

The 2035 Rugby World Cup final could be staged at the revamped Camp Nou in Barcelona with the Spanish rugby federation in discussions with La Liga over using celebrated football stadiums as part of its bid to host the tournament.

Delegates from the Spanish federation met World Rugby executives last weekend to demonstrate their intentions to host the tournament in 2035 and discussions are said to have piqued interest.

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The Guardian view on Trump’s tariffs: a monstrous and momentous act of folly | Editorial
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:35:51 GMT

The US president has expelled his own country from the rules-based global trade system that America itself created

For the world’s already embattled trading system, it is as though an asteroid has crashed into the planet, devastating everyone and everything that previously existed there. But there is this important difference. If an asteroid struck the Earth, the impact would at least have been caused by ungovernable cosmic forces. The assault on world trade, by contrast, is a completely deliberate act of choice, taken by one man and one nation.

Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on every country in the world is a monstrous and momentous act of folly. Unilateral and unjustified, it was expressed on Wednesday in indefensible language in which Mr Trump described US allies as “cheaters” and “scavengers” who “looted”, “raped” and “pillaged” the US. Many of the calculations on which Mr Trump doled out his punishments are perverse, not least the exclusion of Russia from the condemned list. The tariffs mean prices are certain to rise in sector after sector, in the US and elsewhere, fuelling inflation and perhaps recession. Mr Trump will presumably respond as he did when asked about foreign cars becoming more expensive: “I couldn’t care less.

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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Israel has chosen military occupation over a ceasefire in Gaza. Where does this end? | Sanam Vakil
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:10:24 GMT

The latest escalation and attempts to dismantle the Palestinian leadership are utterly at odds with peace negotiations

  • Sanam Vakil is a senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House

Against the pleas and protests of hostage families desperate to secure the release of their loved ones, the Israeli government is moving ahead with the military occupation of the Gaza Strip. On 2 April, the defence minister, Israel Katz, announced plans to seize large areas of Gaza with the aim of eliminating Hamas’s remaining infrastructure and establishing new security zones that will split Gaza in two. This escalation, which began in mid-March with intensified airstrikes, is intended to encourage a mass exodus of the local population, and has led to substantial civilian casualties. ​

Despite the international outcry over more than 50,000 deaths, 110,000 civilian injuries and significant displacement of Palestinians, the Israeli government rationalises and justifies these moves as necessary for security against an undefeated Hamas. Ultimately, though, Israel’s actions imperil the fragile ceasefire negotiations, its broader credibility and wider hopes for a political process to end the conflict. In reality, this would be the only viable path to stability and security.

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What will Trump do when his tariffs backfire? | Nils Pratley
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:01:54 GMT

The US president’s tariffs are almost certain to have dire consequences and he is not impervious to market decline or public opinion

So much for the idea that “liberation day” would free financial markets from their fear of the unknown. Publication of precise tariff rates, went a cheerful line of advance thinking, would at least allow investors to assess the probable trade effects on the basis of hard information. True optimists clung to the idea that Donald Trump would not wish to risk a truly severe market reaction.

That narrative was blown apart when the president reached for his pub-style display of wares. This really was a case of going back to the tariffs rates of the 1920s or 1930s. Not even the penguins of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands were spared.

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The Guardian view on Israel’s killing of paramedics: a new atrocity in an unending conflict | Editorial
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:35:23 GMT

Impunity over Palestinian deaths in Gaza will lead to further cases like this massacre of rescue and healthcare workers

After 18 months of slaughter, it is still possible to be shocked by events in Gaza. More than 50,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. More are starving because Israel has cut off aid. The offensive is intensifying again – with 100 children killed or maimed each day since Israel resumed heavy strikes last month, the UN reports.

Even so, Israel’s killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers is particularly chilling. Though they died on 23 March, it took days for Israel to grant access to the site, the UN said. Another man was last seen in Israeli custody. Two grounds for seeing this not only as tragic but as a war crime stand out. The first is that the UN says the men were shot “one by one”, and a forensic expert said that preliminary evidence “suggests they were executed, not from a distant range”, given the “specific and intentional” locations of bullet wounds. Two witnesses said some of the bodies had their hands or legs tied. Prisoners are protected by the Geneva conventions. The second is that medics also enjoy specific protections.

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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Democrats’ deference to Biden was a disaster. They still haven’t learned their lesson | Norman Solomon
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:00:06 GMT

Conformity and fear of party leadership are impairing Democrats’ ability to fight Trump and drive a progressive agenda

Joe Biden’s insistence on running for re-election was certainly disastrous. It kept credible contenders out of the Democratic presidential primaries and prevented the selection of a nominee who had gained momentum in the winnowing process. Even after his stunningly feeble debate performance on 27 June last year, Biden took several weeks before finally opting out of the race. That left Kamala Harris a mere 107 days between the launch of her campaign and election day.

Ample evidence shows that the Biden team was riddled with obstinate denial and misrepresentation aimed at the public. But tales of tragic egomania in high places can take us only so far. What’s essential is to scrutinize how – and why – the Democratic party, its leaders and its prominent supporters enabled Biden and his inner circle to get away with such momentous stonewalling for so long.

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Britain can retaliate or negotiate with Trump – but there is no way we can win at this game | Gaby Hinsliff
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:31:48 GMT

Starmer will try to calm the situation and focus on May’s local elections, but one thing is clear: our ties with Europe are more crucial than ever

Nobody wins a trade war. You can lose it by greater or lesser degrees: you may be one of the luckier casualties. But that’s about as good as it gets. So, while there will have been initial relief in Downing Street on Wednesday night, a feeling even that Keir Starmer’s placating of Donald Trump looks vindicated, what followed was no victory lap.

How could it be, after that grotesquely swaggering show trial the president staged in the White House garden, all the better to jazz up an economic assault on what were once his country’s allies? Come on down, Britain, escaping with just the minimum 10% tariff on its exports to the US and no drive-by insults! Better than Taiwan (32% plus a lecture about how the US used to build all the semiconductors once), Vietnam (“They like me, I like them” but still a brutal 46%), the EU (“very very tough traders” and lucky to get away with 20%) or poor Lesotho, still reeling from the overnight collapse of US aid and now whacked by a 50% tariff. But even lucky Britain still emerged with a 25% duty on cars that the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates could cost 25,000 jobs, plus the grim realisation that this may be just the beginning of a long unravelling. Globalisation is dead, protectionism is back, and all to satisfy one man’s delusions that life was better in the 1800s before income tax was invented.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:41:10 GMT

Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.

The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.

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Our lives depend on seeds. Trump’s cuts put our vast reserves at risk | Thor Hanson
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:00:43 GMT

Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential – and requires constant work. It’s time for Congress to return to the seed business

From 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegetables. A century later, far fewer Americans till the soil for a living, but seeds remain central to our lives.

To understand the importance of seeds, try to imagine a morning without them. It would begin naked on a bare mattress, with no cozy sheets or pajamas, and there would be no fluffy towel to wrap up in after your shower. All of those things come from the seeds of the cotton plant. Stumbling wet into the kitchen, you would find no coffee, and no toast or bagel to go with it. There would be no eggs, no bacon, no cereal, no milk. All of those staples come from seeds or from livestock raised on seed crops. And if you thought you might console yourself with a chocolate bar, you can forget it. Cocoa powder, and the cocoa butter that makes it melt in your mouth, are both derived from seeds.

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Revealed: Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from data-center boom and green rollbacks
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:00:47 GMT

Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centers

Oil and gas barons who donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are on the cusp of cashing in on the administration’s support for energy-guzzling data centers – and a slew of unprecedented environmental rollbacks.

Energy Transfer, the oil and gas transport company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, has received requests to power 70 new data centers – a 75% rise since Trump took office, according to a new investigation by the advocacy non-profit Oil Change International (OCI) and the Guardian.

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Big, biodiverse and beautiful: can Romania’s centuries-old giant haystacks survive modern farming?
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:00:22 GMT

Traditional methods benefit hundreds of species but as new agricultural techniques take over, the distinctive haystacks mark a vanishing way of life

Golden haystacks shaped like teardrops have been a symbol of rural life in Romania for hundreds of years. The 3-metre-high (10ft) stacks are the culmination of days of hard work by families, from children up to grandparents, in the height of summer.

Together they cut waist-high grass, leave it to dry in the hot sun and stack it up to be stored over the winter, combing the hay downwards to protect it from harsh winds, heavy rain and snow. Throughout winter, clumps of it are removed from the haystacks and fed to livestock.

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Severe storms and tornadoes hit US south and midwest, killing at least seven
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 21:24:14 GMT

White House approves Tennessee’s state of emergency request as further fatalities expected to be confirmed

Violent storms and tornadoes have torn across the US south and midwest, killing at least seven people and downing power lines and trees, smashing homes and upturning cars across multiple states.

The outbreak of storms and tornadoes has resulted in at least seven deaths in Tennessee and Missouri, with further fatalities expected to be confirmed. One of the victims has been named: a 68-year-old man named Garry Moore who was a fire chief in Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. At least a dozen injuries have also been reported from the storms.

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Danish PM tells US ‘you cannot annex another country’ on visit to Greenland
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:15:34 GMT

Mette Frederiksen, who met island’s new and outgoing PMs, says she wants to cooperate with Trump on Arctic security

The Danish prime minister has put on a show of unity with Greenlandic leaders in her first visit to the Arctic island since Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire the territory, telling the US: “You cannot annex another country.”

Speaking onboard an inspection ship in front of a military helicopter, alongside Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and its outgoing prime minister, Múte B Egede, Mette Frederiksen switched from Danish to English to address the diplomatic standoff with the Trump administration.

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Deaths of British couple in France being treated as murder-suicide
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:02:56 GMT

Andrew Searle and Dawn Kerr were found dead in their home in Les Pesquiès in Aveyron on 6 February

The deaths of a British couple who were found in their renovated rural home in Aveyron, south-west France, are being treated as a murder followed by a suicide.

The bodies of Andrew Searle, 62, a retired fraud investigator, and Dawn Kerr, 56, a project manager, were discovered on 6 February at their home in the village of Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.

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Tate Modern given Joan Mitchell work in biggest donation since 1969
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:37:47 GMT

Miami billionaire couple part with triptych by late abstract expressionist that previously hung in their bedroom

Tate Modern has announced its most significant single donation in more than 50 years, a monumental triptych by the American abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell that she named after her German shepherd dog, Iva.

The huge 6-metre work, painted by Mitchell in 1973, was given to Britain’s national art collection by the billionaire Miami real estate magnate Jorge M Pérez and his wife, Darlene.

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Prince Harry attacks ‘blatant lies’ in charity row as watchdog opens inquiry
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:23:40 GMT

Duke of Sussex says he hopes Charity Commission will ‘unveil the truth’ about governance of Sentebale

Prince Harry has launched a thinly veiled attack on the chair of the Sentebale charity he founded two decades ago for telling “blatant lies”, as an inquiry was launched into claims about the organisation’s governance.

In a statement issued in response to the Charity Commission’s decision to open a “compliance case”, the prince said he hoped a “robust inquiry” would “unveil the truth”.

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Russia bans Elton John Aids Foundation over its support for LGBTQ+ rights
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:19:09 GMT

Designation as ‘undesirable organisation’ exposes nonprofit’s staff and partners to possible criminal prosecution

Russian authorities on Thursday banned the Elton John Aids Foundation (EJAF), which focuses on HIV/Aids prevention, citing its support for LGBTQ+ rights as a reason for the move.

Founded by the British singer and songwriter in 1992, the organisation funds HIV treatment programmes in countries including Russia. It also advocates for LGBTQ+ people, who have faced years of brutal persecution in Russia.

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Bonobos may combine words in ways previously thought unique to humans
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:00:30 GMT

Phrases used to smooth over tense social situations have meanings beyond the sum of their parts, study suggests

Bonobos use a combination of calls to encourage peace with their partner during mating rituals, research suggests.

The discovery is part of a study that suggests our close evolutionary cousins can string together vocalisations to produce phrases with meanings that go beyond the sum of their parts – something often considered unique to human language.

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LA wildfires death toll climbs to 30 after officials find more human remains
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:13:31 GMT

Discovery in Altadena months after fires brings deaths in Eaton fire up to 18, while 12 people killed in Palisades fire

Months after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities, officials announced this week they had discovered another set of human remains, bringing the death toll in the disaster up to 30.

Investigators were dispatched to Altadena on Wednesday to investigate possible human remains in the community, which was hit hard by the Eaton fire in January. The special operations response team confirmed that the remains were human, the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office said in a statement.

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Trans teacher in Texas resigns after online attacks: ‘I’m heartbroken’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:20:50 GMT

Rosie Sandri says her ‘hands were tied’ after slew of criticism, including death threats, led to her resignation

A trans teacher at a Texas high school has resigned after becoming the target of conservative backlash and online attacks.

Rosie Sandri came out as a trans woman about seven months ago. Her colleagues at Red Oak high school and the Red Oak independent school district were very supportive, she recalled to NBC News.

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Doge gained access to sensitive data of migrant children, including reports of abuse
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:00:26 GMT

Former officials question the reason for a Doge engineer’s access to the Unaccompanied Alien Children portal

A member of Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” gained access to a government system that contains the personal data of unaccompanied immigrant children, according to a recent court filing.

The database, called the Unaccompanied Alien Children portal (UAC), contains extremely detailed information about thousands of minors who enter the United States alone, including individual children’s mental health and therapy records, as well as immigration records, photos and addresses of their family members.

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First trailer for Liam Neeson’s Naked Gun reboot released
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:55:41 GMT

Neeson steps into the role of the bumbling detective made famous by Leslie Nielsen in the TV show and film series created by the Zucker Abrahams Zucker team

The first footage has been released of Paramount’s upcoming reboot of the much-loved Naked Gun series of spoof police movies. The new film stars Liam Neeson has Frank Drebin Jr – revealed to be the son of Leslie Nielsen’s bumbling detective from the original films.

The trailer introduces him a considerably slicker operator to his late father, disabling a baddie in a schoolgirl disguise with a sharpened lollipop. He is then seen tearfully addressing a photograph of Drebin Snr, as offspring of Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and, more controversially, Officer Nordberg (OJ Simpson) are seen following suit.

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‘How did this ever get made?’ Gen Z is falling in love (and hate) with Glee
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:38:22 GMT

A decade after the finale, new fans are flocking to Glee, causing its songs to shoot up the charts. The internet’s ablaze with TikTok dance homages, Reddit threads – and tons of hate watchers

The year is 2009, and Glee has hit like a cultural earthquake. Every week, millions of people around the world tune in to watch a group of American high school misfits belt out musical theatre and pop hits, turning show choir into mainstream entertainment. The cast’s cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ becomes an anthem, spending 37 weeks in the UK charts, catapulting its young stars to overnight fame. Glee clubs start in schools across the US and beyond, and Ryan Murphy’s show develops a devoted fanbase – myself included – who proudly call ourselves Gleeks. Online, we dissect every episode on Tumblr, trade theories and wear our fandom, plus the merch we bought to prove it, as a badge of honour.

But by the time Glee came to a close in 2015, all its magic had faded. The Guardian reported that “few will mourn its passing” as the show’s last season premiered. A string of increasingly absurd storylines and poor song choices left a dwindling viewership and even the most diehard fans drifting away. Or so we thought – because 10 years after its finale, the show is back with a vengeance.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

This article was amended on 3 April 2025 to state that Cory Monteith died of a drug and alcohol overdose rather than by suicide as previously stated.

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Elijah Wood says fees for Lord of the Rings actors were ‘not massive’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:35:35 GMT

Star says cast took a ‘gamble’ appearing in Peter Jackson’s hit trilogy and did not earn enough to ‘rest easy’ for life

Elijah Wood has said that his salary for The Lord of the Rings movies was “not massive” and that appearing in the films was “a real gamble”.

According to a report in Business Insider, which carried quotes from the star at the Texas film awards in March, Wood said the fact that the actors had to sign up for all three films at the start meant that their fees were not related to the film’s financial success. “Because we weren’t making one movie and then renegotiating a contract for the next, it wasn’t the sort of lucrative scenario that you could sort of rest easy for the rest of your life.”

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Meryl Streep in talks to play Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:38:08 GMT

Oscar-winner set to take on role as godlike lion usually perceived to be male in upcoming adaption of The Magician’s Nephew

Meryl Streep is in talks to play Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia film, according to reports. According to Nexus Point News, and confirmed by Deadline Streep, 79, is being lined up to star in Netflix’s film, which will be adapted from The Magician’s Nephew – the sixth of CS Lewis Narnia series of novels, but the first in chronological terms.

In the Narnia books, Aslan is a dignified and quasi-omniscient lion, generally seen to be male and usually interpreted as an allegory for Jesus. The Magician’s Nephew centres on two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, who discover the magical world through Digory’s uncle Andrew. Daniel Craig is also in talks for the film, with speculation rising that he will play the uncle. Charli XCX is also in line for a role, rumoured to be Jadis, the White Witch.

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Delivered to a Predator: Al Fayed’s Fixer review – this startling tale urgently needed telling
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 22:00:35 GMT

Dispatches, presented by Cathy Newman, talks to 16 survivors or witnesses of the ex-Harrods boss’s abuse, as well as tracking down his alleged enabler. The result is a raw, horrifying and invaluable watch

It is disturbingly easy to respond with little more than fatigue to reports of powerful men sexually exploiting women, because there have been so many. The part of us that should emit shock, disgust and righteous outrage becomes dulled through overuse. And so, when Mohamed Al Fayed, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, died in 2023 and was then credibly accused of being one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, the collective reaction felt like a shrug.

The new Dispatches investigation, Delivered to a Predator: Al Fayed’s Fixer, however, ought to sharpen our revulsion and our resolve to fight for change. Building on the 2017 Dispatches documentary Behind Closed Doors and the 2024 BBC programme Predator at Harrods, it outlines the scale of the tycoon’s wrongdoing: last year, the Metropolitan police said it believed Al Fayed may have raped or abused at least 111 women and girls, but here a lawyer working for survivors estimates the number to be more like 300.

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Stirrings of lust and a ginger bush: the Jilly Cooper sentence that sent me down a rabbit hole
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:00:05 GMT

I quoted a single smutty line by the queen of bonkbusters in the manuscript for my debut novel. I never expected the strange yet heartwarming journey that followed

“Wondering if she had a ginger bush, he felt the stirrings of lust.” It’s an electrifying sentence, penned by – who else? – the English novelist Dame Jilly Cooper in her 1985 novel Riders, appearing during a charged encounter between a flame-haired socialite and bad-boy aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black.

It’s a sentence I admire for many reasons. Starting in a ruminative, almost philosophical mood, it gains a thrilling momentum, before landing with erotic authority on that final, unholy syllable: lust. Impeccable stuff; classic Cooper. If you’ve watched Rivals, the recent TV adaptation of other Cooper books, you’ll be familiar with her world: puerile, horsey, abundantly filthy and terribly English.

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‘The leaves fall off – but I think that’s normal’: the houseplants you just can’t kill
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:00:23 GMT

Some indoor plants wither the moment you turn your back; others shrug off drought, darkness and even ‘watering’ by cats. Here’s how to choose the most hardy specimens. Plus, readers celebrate the greenery that survived against all the odds

There is a good reason that we treat certain houseplants as the green wallpaper of our homes: the odd splash of water and they seem to rub along fine. These are the species that have proved, over many decades, that they are best adapted to surviving in a vast range of situations. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt, so many of us dismiss snake plants, spider plants, Swiss cheese plants and dragon trees as uninspiring and basic, even though they are the species that are likely to thrive, whatever the conditions.

The key to making “bog standard” houseplants look good is to display them in an atypical way: an oversized trough of snake plants rather than a few leaves in a lonely pot; the silhouette of a mass of plain green spider plants in a huge hanging basket instead of a spindly cream-striped specimen on a shelf; or a forest of dragon trees in a huge barrel planter. If you love flowers, moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) are a great choice as they are incredibly tough, and unfazed by the centrally heated air of our homes. Again, think about innovative ways of presenting them: they can look amazing massed in a single container.

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Mythical creatures, beloved doctors and Facebook foul-ups – take the Thursday quiz
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:00:50 GMT

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

With impeccable timing, last week, when there was a very naughty miniature dachshund making the news, the quiz master decided to take the week off, meaning regular quizzers spent hours poring over every detail of Valerie’s exciting story trying to memorise it all in vain.

At least it meant First Dog on the Moon got a free run to do a cartoon about Valerie without cramping the quiz’s style. Back to the usual format this week, with mostly topical questions and a smattering of general and popular culture knowledge in the mix. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy it when you let us know how you got on in the comments…

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Looking at my late-90s high school diary, you would assume I was a regular horny straight teen girl. The reality was very different | Rebecca Shaw
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:00:04 GMT

The amount of time, brain space and energy it takes to live not as yourself is remarkable – and draining

A few weeks ago while living through hell (moving house), I stumbled upon my late-90s high school diary, the one that I would take to class every day in regional Queensland. It is an artefact of its time, before newfangled technology like laptops and having the internet in other places besides one room of your school. It’s also an artefact of its time in another important way: it is completely covered in images of hot guys of the time.

Looking at it, you would assume that I was a regular horny straight teen girl, cutting out photos of Leonardo DiCaprio and Will Smith and Hanson to plaster all over my diary so the world could see my very-normal-don’t-look-too-closely-ha-ha desire for men. Well, it may shock you to learn that I wasn’t a normal straight teenage girl. I was a deeply closeted and sad teenage lesbian. I knew that something was different about me from about 11, even though at the time I hadn’t met any gay people, there were no gay people in pop culture, and there was no Google to ask “why am I weird”.

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Dining across the divide: ‘He couldn’t see that we were actually disagreeing’
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:30:31 GMT

Can a Lib Dem voting engineer who is ‘dead against’ people arriving in small boats and a Zambian-born author agree to disagree on immigration?

Clive, 56, Manchester

Occupation Consultant engineer

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Paris’s rewilded railway line: the disused track turned into a green space for wildlife and walkers
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:00:25 GMT

Inside the French capital’s ring road, the Petite Ceinture, a disused circular rail line, now abounds with nature trails, shared gardens – and even urban farms

A rustle in the undergrowth sends birds wheeling above the trees and into the sky. I’m left alone and in near total silence as I look along the train tracks that disappear in either direction. It feels as if I’m in the heart of the countryside, but actually, the Boulevard Périphérique, the traffic-choked ring road that encircles Paris, is just a stone’s throw away. This disused rail route, the Petite Ceinture, offers wildlife and quiet solitude just moments from the roaring motorway, thanks to a plan that is turning parts of the line into walkable green spaces – the French capital’s less manicured (and less central) alternative to Manhattan’s High Line or north London’s Parkland Walk, a rewilded railway line that’s part of the Capital Ring walk.

Built on the site of the Thiers wall, the last defensive wall of Paris, and its surrounding shantytown, the eight-lane Boulevard Périphérique (known as the Périph) is used by more than a million cars a day. The 20-mile (32km) railway line just inside the ring road was created to supply the Thiers wall, carrying goods and then passengers as the city’s first metropolitan railway service.

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Why is your boss a narcissist? Blame the job ad that got them hired
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 16:00:08 GMT

The language used in many job postings appeals to people with ‘a grand view of self’, researchers find

Looking for an employee who’s ambitious, self-reliant and thinks outside the box? You might be fishing for a narcissist.

A study by behavioral researchers looked at the corporate speak used in job postings and found that certain turns of phrase are catnip for those with, as a researcher puts it, “a grand view of self”.

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Tell us how you might be affected by Trump’s global tariffs
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:14:06 GMT

We’d like to hear from people about the impact Trump’s tariffs might have on them and their businesses

Donald Trump has unveiled his global tariffs on US trading partners including 10% on UK exports to the US, 20% on the EU and 34% on China. However, the US’s closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, have been exempt from the latest round of tariffs.

Wherever you are in the world, we’d like to hear how you might be affected by the tariffs. What preparations or changes are you making to your business? Do you have any concerns?

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Invertebrate of the year 2025: vote for your favourite
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:00:31 GMT

Since February we’ve gone in search of the invertebrate of the year. Now it’s your chance to choose

Invertebrates – animals without spines – make up the vast majority of life on Earth. The Guardian’s invertebrate of the year contest celebrates the unsung heroes of the planet. Readers have nominated thousands of amazing animals, we’ve chosen a shortlist of 10, and now you can vote for your favourite.

1. The tongue-biting louse burrows in through a fish’s gills, clings to its tongue and eats what the fish eats.

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Tell us: what have you been reading this month?
Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:51:17 GMT

We would like to hear about the books you’ve particularly enjoyed this month

As part of The Guardian’s “what we’re reading” series, we would like to hear about the books you’ve particularly enjoyed this month.

Have you read a book in recent weeks – fiction or non-fiction – that you’d recommend? Tell us all about it below.

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Tell us: have you experienced any issues at the US border recently?
Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:37:13 GMT

Have you or anyone you know encountered any problems at the border, and are you changing your planned trip to the US?

Following a French scientist being denied entry to the US after immigration officers searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, we’re interested in finding out more about any issues that people have experienced at the US border.

Other reports at the US border include a German national, who is a permanent US resident and was detained by US border officials. A Canadian citizen was also detained by US border authorities for almost two weeks over an incomplete visa.

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‘Potentially historic’ flooding threat looms after almost 100 tornadoes hit US
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:37:12 GMT

Rainfall near Memphis, Tennessee, is expected to exceed 12in over the next three days

A prolific tornado outbreak will give way to a rare and widespread flooding threat across the midwest and southern US this week, stressing the nation’s short-staffed weather forecasting and disaster response efforts.

At least seven people have reportedly died so far as nearly 100 tornadoes struck on Wednesday.

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‘There’s an us v them mentality’: are young Australian men and women drifting apart politically?
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:00:06 GMT

In recent elections overseas more young men than women have shifted to the right, even the far right. But in Australia the gap between generations rather than genders seems much wider

After Grace Richardson broke up with her long-term boyfriend, she entered a period she affectionately refers to as her “rat girl summer”.

“I was using Hinge, I was going out, I was meeting people. I was 23, flirty and thriving,” the Sydney musician and podcast producer says.

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Top genome scientists to map DNA sequence of invertebrate winner 2025
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:05:00 GMT

Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life team say genomes offer invaluable insight into how species will fare under climate crisis

“We are following the ‘invertebrate of the year’ series with bated breath,” began the email that arrived in the Guardian’s inbox last week.

Mark Blaxter leads the Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life programme, a project that sequences species’ DNA to understand the diversity and origins of life on Earth. But far more importantly, Blaxter and his team are superfans of our invertebrate of the year competition and have offered to map the genome sequence of whoever wins this year.

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‘I begged them, my daughter was dying’: how Taliban male escort rules are killing mothers and babies
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 07:00:26 GMT

The need for women to be accompanied by a man in public is blocking access to healthcare and contributing to soaring mortality rates, say experts

It was the middle of the night when Zarin Gul realised that her daughter Nasrin had to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Her daughter’s husband was away working in Iran and the two women were alone with Nasrin’s seven children when Nasrin, heavily pregnant with her eighth child, began experiencing severe pains.

Gul helped Nasrin into a rickshaw and they set off into the night. Holding her daughter’s hand as the rickshaw jolted over the dirt road, Gul says she prayed they would not encounter a Taliban checkpoint.

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‘It’s really crude’: concern over mix of misogyny and Franco nostalgia among Spanish teens
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:25:50 GMT

Netflix drama Adolescence sharpens debate over toxic masculinity – and in Spain it is mixed with ignorance over dictatorship

Three or four years ago, the Spanish psychologist Jesús Moreno began to notice a difference in the drawings that the young participants in his workshops on masculinity produced when asked to sketch out their idea of what a man looks like.

The figures they drew were no longer merely the muscular and bizarrely well-endowed drug dealers, etched with prison tattoos and surrounded by guns, knives, cars, sex workers and bundles of cash, to which Moreno and his colleagues had long grown accustomed.

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‘We introduced avocado to the high street!’ How Pret conquered London – and began eyeing the rest of the world
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:00:49 GMT

The sandwich chain now has 274 branches in the capital. How did it grow so huge – and can anything stop it getting even bigger?

At 93-95 Victoria Street, Westminster, a blue plaque marks a piece of London history: the first ever branch of Pret a Manger opened on this spot on 22 July 1986. Nearly 40 years later, it is still going strong.

It’s a nice story – but it’s not the whole story. Look closer and the plaque states that the first Pret sandwich shop opened “near here”. In fact, it was down the road, at 75b, now a branch of Toni & Guy. Except … that wasn’t the first shop, either. The original Pret opened two years earlier and five miles to the north, in Hampstead. It went bust after a year and the founder, Jeffrey Hyman, sold the name, branding and logo to Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham, who reopened in Westminster.

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Trump’s tariffs – five key takeaways
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:02:17 GMT

Donald Trump has upended decades of US foreign policy by bringing in a vast array of tariffs that threaten to disrupt international trade. Here are some initial key points

Countries across the world are racing to absorb the new way of doing business with the US, after Donald Trump unveiled tailored tariffs that looks set to ignite a global trade war.

Trump has made clear the goals he wants to accomplish through the tariffs: bring manufacturing back to the US; respond to unfair trade policies from other countries; increase tax revenue; and incentivise crackdowns on migration and drug trafficking.

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‘We thought we could change the world’: how an idealistic fight against miscarriages of justice turned sour
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:00:22 GMT

When a no-nonsense lecturer set up a radical solution to help free the wrongfully convicted in the UK, he was hopeful he could change the justice system. But what started as a revolution ended in acrimony

The press conference began at 2.30pm on 2 September 2004 at the Wills Memorial Building, the grand neo-gothic home to the University of Bristol’s School of Law. Michael Naughton, a charismatic, fast-talking lecturer in sociology and criminal law, addressed the assembled media. If what he was attempting sounded radical, it was only a reflection of an increasingly dire situation, Naughton told a BBC reporter. There was no way of sugarcoating it, he said. The criminal justice system was failing the rising number of people who were claiming they had been wrongfully convicted, and who remained stuck in prison without any hope of exoneration.

Naughton was launching the Bristol University Innocence Project to address this crisis. The premise was clear enough. Idealistic law students, under academic supervision and with pro bono legal support, would investigate potential miscarriages of justice, with the goal of preparing cases for appeal. Though the concept was well established in the US and Australia, nothing so bold had ever been attempted in the UK. But Michael Naughton was no ordinary academic. Born in early 1960s Lancashire to working-class Irish parents, conflict was an essential part of his upbringing. Being a Naughton man came with certain non-negotiables, including: always buy your round, and never back down from a fight.

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Trump goes full gameshow host to push his tariff plan – and nobody’s a winner
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 23:35:27 GMT

There were charts and scores, as if The Price Is Right had come to Washington. The big prize? A global trade war

It was Jeopardy!, or The Price Is Right, come to Washington.

On an unseasonably chilly day in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump stood with a giant chart listing which reciprocal tariffs he would impose on China, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other hapless contestants.

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How the Beatles helped my autistic son find his voice – podcast
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 02:00:40 GMT

John Harris on how music helped him connect with his autistic son James

When James was a child, he loved playing songs over and over. I Am the Walrus, by the Beatles. Autobahn, by Kraftwerk.

“He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact,” James’s father the Guardian journalist John Harris tells Helen Pidd.

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Will Trump’s tariffs ignite a global trade war? Today in Focus Extra – podcast
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:59:23 GMT

Donald Trump has introduced eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world. Will they ‘make America wealthy again’? Richard Partington reports

Donald Trump is on a mission to ‘make America wealthy again’. Speaking outside the White House, he said for too long the country had been ‘looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike’. Now that would come to an end, he said, as he slapped eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world.

The Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, Richard Partington, explains why Trump has taken such action and how it could affect the global economy. ‘It could come at huge costs to consumers,’ he says, as markets around the world react with confusion. With prices in the US also likely to rise, will voters soon rue what the president has called ‘liberation day’?

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Liverpool close on title after derby delight against Everton: Football Weekly Extra - podcast
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:09:26 GMT

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Dan Bardell as Liverpool move one step closer to the Premier League title with a 1-0 derby win over Everton

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: Liverpool win a slightly nervy Merseyside derby at Anfield to send them 12 points clear of Arsenal in second place. Should the Diogo Jota goal have stood and should James Tarkowski have been on the pitch when it happened? Not the best night for VAR.

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‘Parasites should get more fame’: the nominees for world’s finest invertebrate – podcast
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:00:21 GMT

Invertebrates don’t get the attention lavished on cute pets or apex predators, but these unsung heroes are some of the most impressive and resilient creatures on the planet. So when the Guardian opened its poll to find the world’s finest invertebrate, readers got in touch in their droves. A dazzling array of nominations have flown in for insects, arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals and many more obscure creatures. Patrick Barkham tells Madeleine Finlay why these tiny creatures deserve more recognition, and three readers, Sandy, Nina and Russell, make the case for their favourites.

Invertebrate of the year 2025: vote for your favourite

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

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How will Myanmar’s earthquake impact the civil war? – podcast
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 02:00:19 GMT

Myanmar’s military junta has been losing territory for months. Will the earthquake and a new ceasefire help it turn the tide? Rebecca Ratcliffe reports

“It took around four to five minutes for the earthquake to shake and then it stopped and shook again. It is the most severe earthquake I have experienced in my life.”

Esther J is a reporter based in Bangkok, Thailand, more than 600 miles (966km) away from her home country of Myanmar – the epicentre of last week’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake.

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US senator Cory Booker delivers longest speech in Senate history - video
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 04:18:05 GMT

Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, spoke on the Senate floor for more than 25 hours, the longest speech ever given in Senate history. Starting his speech on Monday evening in Washington, vowing to remain on the Senate floor as long as he was 'physically able', Booker spoke in protest at what he called the 'grave and urgent' danger that Donald Trump's presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people. In 1957, Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina, gave an anti-civil rights speech that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes

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'We have to go on': Bangkok pushes on with quake rescue despite 'no signs of life' – video
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:58:25 GMT

Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said that although no signs of life had been detected, the search for survivors in the rubble of a skyscraper that collapsed during the 7.7 magnitude Myanmar earthquake will continue as experts 'still have hope'. He added that 12 bodies have been found, but that the search for survivors is the priority.

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How countries cheat their carbon targets – video
Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:54:28 GMT

Net zero is a target that countries should be striving for to stop the climate crisis. But beyond the buzzword, it is a complex scientific concept – and if we get it wrong, the planet will keep heating.

Biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield explains how a loophole in the 2015 Paris climate agreement allows countries to cheat their net zero targets through creative accounting, and how scientists want us to fix it

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South Korea's constitutional court strikes down prime minister Han's impeachment – video
Mon, 24 Mar 2025 04:11:30 GMT

South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo expressed his gratitude to the constitutional court after it ruled against his impeachment and to restore his role as acting president. When he arrived at the government complex in Seoul, Han said the court had made a 'wise decision'.

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How bottled water companies are draining our drinking water – video
Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:46:46 GMT

As droughts become more prevalent, corporate control over our drinking water is threatening the health of water sources and the access people have to them. Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores how foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from natural aquifers to sell back to the same communities from which it came – for huge profits

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Massive storm system brings tornadoes, wildfires and dust storms to US south - video report
Sat, 15 Mar 2025 21:21:05 GMT

Chaotic weekend sees blizzard warnings in midwest, wildfires in southern plains and dust storms in Texas. At least 26 tornadoes were reported but not confirmed as a low pressure system drove powerful thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri. The Storm Prediction Center said fast-moving system could spawn twisters and hail as large as baseballs, but the greatest threat would come from straight-line winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with gusts of 100mph (160km/h) possible.

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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on mission to replace two stuck Nasa astronauts – video report
Sat, 15 Mar 2025 17:35:14 GMT

A SpaceX mission was launched to replace two Nasa astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station for nine months. The stuck astronauts are scheduled to depart the station on 19 March after the Crew-10 astronauts arrive on 19 March

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How social media is helping catch war criminals – video
Thu, 13 Mar 2025 12:29:41 GMT

In Sudan, fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, appear to have filmed and posted online videos of themselves glorifying the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners. These videos could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions.

Kaamil Ahmed explains how the international legal system is adapting to social media, finding a way to use the digital material shared online to corroborate accounts of war crimes being committed in countries ranging from Ukraine to Sudan

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How China uses ‘salami-slicing’ tactics to exert pressure on Taiwan – video
Fri, 28 Feb 2025 09:14:05 GMT

China has dramatically increased military activities around Taiwan, with more than 3,000 incursions into Taiwan's airspace in 2024 alone. Amy Hawkins examines how Beijing is deploying 'salami-slicing' tactics, a strategy of gradual pressure that stays below the threshold of war while steadily wearing down Taiwan's defences. From daily air incursions to strategic military exercises, we explore the four phases of China's approach and what it means for Taiwan's future

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How scientists capture a polar bear – video
Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:45:13 GMT

Each spring since 2003, Jon Aars, senior scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute, and his team have conducted an annual polar bear monitoring program on Svalbard - collaring, capturing and taking samples from as many bears as they can across several weeks.

By studying polar bears they get a better understanding of what is happening in this part of the Arctic environment. The bears roam over large distances and, being apex predators, provide lots of information about what is happening lower in the food chain and across different Arctic species.

The Guardian accompanied Aars on an expedition to the southern end of Spitsbergen island, the largest in the Svalbard archipelago.

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No room left for negotiation with Canada and Mexico on tariffs, says Trump – video
Mon, 03 Mar 2025 22:19:11 GMT

Donald Trump has said there is ‘no room’ left for negotiation with Mexico and Canada on planned tariffs. He also said the US would institute tariffs at 20% on China. All Mexican exports to the US face a levy of 25% under the plans. Most Canadian exports will face a 25% tariff, with 10% for energy products

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'Why should we invite them?': Lavrov ridicules European presence at Ukraine peace talks – video
Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:03:29 GMT

Russia's foreign minister has dismissed the prospect of a place for Europe at talks between the US and Russia to end the fighting in Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference alongside his Serbian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov said: 'If they are going to weasel out some cunning ideas about freezing the conflict, while actually intending – as is their custom, nature and habit – to continue the war, then why should we invite them at all?'

European leaders have been unnerved by the willingness of Donald Trump, the US president, to engage the Kremlin directly over Ukraine and have been attempting to find a place for themselves in the talks

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Footage shows coral bleaching at Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef – video
Tue, 18 Feb 2025 04:01:17 GMT

Divers have documented evidence of what conservationists say is widespread coral bleaching at the Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia’s north-west coast. Waters off WA have been affected by a prolonged marine heatwave since September, with ocean temperatures 1.5C higher than average over a five-month period

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Parents of Alexei Navalny join hundreds of mourners on the anniversary of his death – video report
Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:34:14 GMT

The parents of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny joined hundreds of mourners at their son's grave on Sunday to mark the anniversary of his death. Navalny died aged 47 on 16 February last year while being held in a jail about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a ‘special regime’

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All the president’s pens and a baby mammoth: photos of the day – Thursday
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:58:27 GMT

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

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Suspended in time: ethereal photos that look like landscape paintings
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:00:23 GMT

Inspired by the landscapes of the French masters, Elger Esser captures the brooding seascapes and bucolic country scenes of his beloved countryside – with timeless results

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Val Kilmer – a life in pictures
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 05:41:58 GMT

The star of Top Gun, The Doors and Batman Forever has died aged 65. We look back over his career

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‘Their relationship has ebbed and flowed’: a father and son grow up – in pictures
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 06:00:04 GMT

Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born – she spent the next two decades capturing intimate moments between him and their father

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Matadors and madness: the poses of a visionary – in pictures
Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:01:09 GMT

She dressed up as a bullfighter, sat in a window with two magpies and flew colossal flags of warning. We go inside a fascinating new exhibition of photographs by multimedia artist Rose Finn-Kelcey

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Eid al-Fitr 2025 around the world – in pictures
Mon, 31 Mar 2025 14:40:15 GMT

Worshippers offered Eid al-Fitr prayers across the world, marking the culmination of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan

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