↩ Accueil

Vue normale

index.feed.received.today — 15 mars 2025The Guardian

‘He’ll have a blast’: Nigel Mansell, the lion of Ferrari, has high hopes for Lewis Hamilton

15 mars 2025 à 13:00

The former world champion enjoyed two epic seasons in the scarlet car and believes his fellow Briton will be similarly inspired

Regardless of how Lewis Hamilton’s hugely anticipated debut for Ferrari pans out at Melbourne in Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix and whether his glorious adventure to cap a remarkable career is a success or not, for one former driver, his countryman has made the right decision.

“The experience I had at Ferrari, money can’t buy,” says Nigel Mansell with a fond smile. “Money can’t buy those emotions, or feelings or accolades. It made me all round a better person and driver. They treasure their drivers. It’s something incredibly special.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Claudia Greco/Reuters

© Photograph: Claudia Greco/Reuters

‘As long he is breathing, I’m not safe’: romance fraud victim flees UK after jailed conman is freed

15 mars 2025 à 13:00

As cases of romance fraud soar by 27%, tricked woman tells of her £115,000 ordeal

The first time Yvonne met Gary Rogers he arrived at her house in a shiny black Range Rover smelling of Armani Code perfume, with neatly gelled silver hair. It was August 2017, and Yvonne’s ex-husband had suggested she ask the motor dealer, known locally as the “Jag man”, to fix her car.

Yvonne* says their relationship developed slowly. “Gary” boasted he had been spending time on his 42-ft boat, claimed to own two houses, and once turned up in a Porsche to take her for a drink. As they began to see more of each other, he would arrive at Yvonne’s house with freshly cut fruit and smoked salmon, always with a wad of money on him.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sussex Police/PA

© Photograph: Sussex Police/PA

This is how we do it: ‘I’d distract myself to avoid climaxing – until the time I said out loud, “I need to take the bins out”’

15 mars 2025 à 13:00

Ana Sofía was coming out of a sexless relationship; Alfredo had never had a girlfriend. That made things ‘extremely exciting’ at first, but now they’re happy to slow it down
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I knew I would have some kind of baggage around sex due to my previous relationship, but I didn’t quite know how it would manifest

Now that I have sex consistently, it’s like it’s fallen down on my priority list, because in theory we can have sex whenever we want

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Ryan Gillett

© Illustration: Ryan Gillett

Russian ship captain charged with manslaughter appears at Hull court

15 mars 2025 à 12:38

Filipino national killed during collision between Vladimir Motin’s vessel and a US oil tanker in the North Sea

The captain of the Russian container ship that crashed into a US oil tanker in the North Sea, killing a crew member, has appeared in court.

Vladimir Motin of Primorsky, St Petersburg, in Russia was charged with gross negligence manslaughter over the collision earlier this week.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/AP

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/AP

‘Spreadsheets of empire’: red tape goes back 4,000 years, say scientists after Iraq finds

15 mars 2025 à 12:37

Ancient Mesopotamian stone tablets show extraordinary detail and reach of government in cradle of world civilisations

The red tape of government bureaucracy spans more than 4,000 years, according to new finds from the cradle of the world’s civilisations, Mesopotamia.

Hundreds of administrative tablets – the earliest physical evidence of the first empire in recorded history – have been discovered by archaeologists from the British Museum and Iraq. These texts detail the minutiae of government and reveal a complex bureaucracy – the red tape of an ancient civilisation.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alberto Giannese/The Girsu Project/British Museum

© Photograph: Alberto Giannese/The Girsu Project/British Museum

British Council accused of forcing gig economy teachers into ‘feeding frenzy’ for work

15 mars 2025 à 12:09

With regular teaching hours unavailable, agency tutors must compete for lessons

The British Council has been accused of exploiting hundreds of agency teachers on zero-hour contracts forced to compete for lessons in a “feeding frenzy” every week.

An open letter from teaching staff reveals the prestigious government-funded public body does not offer regular hours to tutors on its popular English Online platform, which provides lessons to more than 45,000 students worldwide.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: fizkes/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: fizkes/Getty Images/iStockphoto

‘We’re going to talk about death today – your death’: a doctor on what it’s like to end a life rather than extend one

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

I used to focus on maternity and newborn care, but when Canada legalised assisted dying in 2016, I began helping people with a different transition

The patient referral comes through my reliable old fax machine on a single sheet of paper. “Thanks for seeing this 74-year-old gentleman with end-stage liver failure. He’s been following the news carefully and is eager to make a request for an assisted death. I hear you’ll be providing this service here in Victoria – courageous! I look forward to your assessment. Summary of his file is below.” I read it twice to myself before sharing it with Karen, my office manager. We look at each other for a short moment before I break the silence. “His name is Harvey. I’m going to need a chart.”

While Karen makes a chart for Harvey – demographics on the front sheet, blank request forms in the back – I dial his number. His wife, Norma, answers. As Harvey isn’t mobile, I agree to meet them at their home.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rachel Pick/The Guardian

© Photograph: Rachel Pick/The Guardian

‘Trump tariffs are reshaping our politics’: Canadians on their election

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

Voters reflect on their priorities and mood shifts in their communities before a crucial contest

When the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned in early January, after months of pressure to quit, the approval ratings of the progressive firebrand had dropped from their peak of 65% in September 2016 to 22%.

At the end of last year, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, described by many as “Trump Lite”, was the clear favourite to win Canada’s next general election, and the top pick of 45% of Canadians for prime minister. At the time, the three biggest issues for voters were all economic: reducing the cost of everyday items, inflation and interest rates, and access to affordable housing.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Trump’s tariffs will be paid by the poor – while his tax cuts help the rich | Robert Reich

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

The math doesn’t work in the president’s economic promises, which will create a giant upward transfer of wealth

Donald Trump apparently believes his tariffs will bring so much money to the US treasury that the US will be able to afford another giant Trump tax cut.

But Trump’s tariffs – and the retaliatory tariffs already being imposed on American exports by the nation’s trading partners – will be paid largely by the American working class and poor.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Judgy kids, road-trips and ‘epic scenes of female masturbation’: welcome to the new midlife crisis novel

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

Coined to define the ennui of mid-30s men, the midlife crisis has evolved, says Benjamin Markovits, bringing a boom in sharp writing about messy middle age

What’s the age limit for a midlife crisis? I wanted the protagonist of my latest novel to have two kids, a son old enough to judge him (maybe in grad school?), and a daughter just about to set off for uni. The story starts when he drops her off in their old Volvo station wagon and keeps driving. His father has died, his wife has had an affair … You need to find the point in life at which various pressures converge: of marriage and ambition, of ageing and dying parents, of children leaving home.

Luckily, from a novelist’s point of view, our definition of midlife seems to be expanding. When the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques coined the term “midlife crisis” in 1965, the age he had in mind was our middle 30s; average UK male life expectancy was 65. Now it’s 80, but there have been cultural shifts, too. These are harder to measure, but it feels as though the emotional distance between generations has shrunk. Parents now argue with their children over the family Spotify account. All of which means that the literature describing midlife has also expanded – and allowed writers to bring a new range of experiences into its orbit.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Copyright 2022, FX Networks. All Rights Reserved.

© Photograph: Copyright 2022, FX Networks. All Rights Reserved.

How Pete Hegseth is pushing his beliefs on US agency: ‘nothing to prepare forces’

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

As defense secretary shifts focus to culture war, some fear he is neglecting ‘future of warfare’ for US military

More than 50 days into Donald Trump’s second administration and his Department of Defense is already rapidly transforming into the image of its secretary, Pete Hegseth.

Now, many of the rants and opinions common during Hegseth’s Fox News career are coming to policy fruition in his new Pentagon.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

‘It’s happening fast’ – creative workers and professionals share their fears and hopes about the rise of AI

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

Photographers, translators, academics and GPs are among those whose jobs are either threatened or aided by the tech

Oliver Fiegel, a 47-year-old photographer based in Munich, was reading a German national Sunday newspaper recently when he saw a front-page image that looked strangely off. The image showed a boy chasing a football on a pitch. But some of the wildflowers on the grass floated without stems. Half the goal net was missing. The boy’s hands were misshapen.

In previous years, many of Fiegel’s photography clients had been newspapers and magazines. But that work has dried up recently. This image, he felt, showed one reason why: “generative illustration”, the supplied caption said.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

© Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

A graduate’s arrest and Trump’s ‘pincer attack’ on higher education

15 mars 2025 à 12:00

The administration is cutting funds and threatening what it sees as liberal bastions, such as Columbia University, where it detained Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activism

If Donald Trump thought few Americans would care about the deportation of an Arab student protest leader accused of supporting terrorism and antisemitism at an elite university then he was wrong on several counts.

Trump accused the student, Mahmoud Khalil, of being “pro-Hamas” and hailed his detention by immigration officers, in front of his pregnant American wife as she waved her husband‘s permanent residence card, as the “first arrest of many to come”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Ultra-processed babies: are toddler snacks one of the great food scandals of our time?

15 mars 2025 à 11:00

For time-poor parents, straws, sticks, pouches and powders can seem like a quick, convenient and even healthy option. But these oversweetened, mushy foods are creating a generation of choosy consumers whose teeth are already rotting

What to feed your baby instead

A couple of years ago, nursery manager Melanie Smith, who runs Portland Kindergarten in Lincoln, noticed that many children were eating in a new way. Or rather, they were not eating in a new way. A significant percentage of the toddlers in her care were now refusing to try any element of the nursery’s small morning meal (which always includes fresh fruit) or their lunch, which might be something like spaghetti bolognese, fishcakes with vegetables, or mild chillies and curries. This new generation of infants “just don’t seem to like texture”, comments Smith, who has been involved with the nursery for 35 years (before she took over, her mother ran it for 25 years). In the most extreme cases, Smith and her staff found themselves feeding three-year-olds who vomited at the very sight of a cooked lunch.

During the 10 years that Smith has been in charge at Portland, there have always been a fair number of picky eaters. A degree of “fussiness” about food is nothing new for this age group – it can be an entirely natural developmental stage. It’s called neophobia: fear of the new. Smith says it was a normal part of nursery life to have children who struggled with certain vegetables or ones who “liked dry food but not wet food”. The difference now, Smith says, is that the nursery is seeing a lot of three-year-olds for whom follow-on milk plus commercial baby food and other packaged snacks form “100% of their diet”. At the same time, Smith says there has been a “massive increase” in toddlers with tooth decay, as well as a rise in the number of children reaching the age of three who are more or less nonverbal. She attributes this speech delay to the fact that the skills and muscles needed for chewing are related to those needed for speech.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Just Metz/Justin Metz

© Illustration: Just Metz/Justin Metz

‘I like Nigel Farage’: Runcorn and Helsby byelection could be big test for Starmer

Labour won the seat last year with more than 50% of votes – now polls suggest it will just hang on or lose to Reform UK

On a weekday morning, an advertising van is weaving its way through the narrow streets of Runcorn town centre. On the side is a black and white picture of Nigel Farage with a quote from the Reform UK leader: “We are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”

The starting gun has been fired in the byelection that has been on the horizon since the sitting MP Mike Amesbury announced his intention to resign, and which could prove a huge test for Keir Starmer’s government.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

‘I feel conflicted when I see navy recruits’: Spiro Bolos’s best phone picture

15 mars 2025 à 11:00

One afternoon, as he passed a train station bench in Chicago, the street photographer spotted young men in uniform …

On his way to work at a north Chicago public high school, Spiro Bolos has been making a photo series of people on this train station bench. On the way to visit his partner one Sunday afternoon, he saw these young men. The US navy’s largest training camp is about an hour away; home to the force’s only boot camp and 20,000 sailors, marines, soldiers and Department of Defense civilians.

Bolos thinks these men had been given a weekend pass to visit the city. He says they were looking at their phones and preparing their backpacks when he took this shot. As one stood up to stretch, Bolos captured their image.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Spiro Bolos

© Photograph: Spiro Bolos

Notable Tesla investor says he hopes Musk’s government role is ‘short-lived’

15 mars 2025 à 10:00

Christopher Tsai retains faith in carmaker’s earnings potential despite backlash that has seen its shares take a hit

A devoted investor in Elon Musk’s Tesla – and once a close childhood friend of the US president’s eldest son and namesake – says he hopes the world’s richest man’s role in cutting federal spending for Donald Trump’s administration is “short-lived” and that he returns to managing his businesses.

Investment manager Christopher Tsai, whose firm has tens of millions of dollars tied up in Tesla, said the stock market had demonstrated clear signs of displeasure with Musk’s activities at the so-called department of government efficiency. And, in an interview with the Guardian, Tsai said: “I hope his involvement with [Doge] is short-lived so he can spend even more time on his businesses.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Bryan Tarnowski/Bryan Tarnowski for The Guardian

© Photograph: Bryan Tarnowski/Bryan Tarnowski for The Guardian

Olly Alexander: ‘The worst thing anyone’s said to me? You have a face like a crumpled napkin’

15 mars 2025 à 10:30

The actor and singer on a very special kiss, being noisy and an embarrassing moment with Girls Aloud

Born in North Yorkshire, Olly Alexander, 34, joined Years & Years as lead vocalist in 2010. Their hit singles included King and Shine, and in 2023 Alexander won the Brit Billion award for 6.5bn streams. He was Bafta-nominated for his role in the TV miniseries It’s a Sin, and recently appeared on stage in White Rabbit Red Rabbit. His new album is Polari and he heads out on a European tour later this month. He lives in London.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Jill Nalder. Lydia West played her character in It’s a Sin. She was on the wards with nurses caring for patients who were dying [of Aids] when lots of people wouldn’t go near them.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alan West/Hogan Media/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Alan West/Hogan Media/Shutterstock

Russia-Ukraine war live: Keir Starmer holds press conference after summit on Ukraine peace proposals

British PM calls on world leaders to support Kyiv in lead-up to any peace deal

Few resonant phrases are repeated in politics without a deliberate reason, and Keir Starmer’s use of “coalition of the willing” could well have been intended as a reminder to the US diplomatic and defence community: we helped you out; now return the favour.

The most famous, or infamous, coalition of the willing was the 30 nations who publicly gave at least some support to George W Bush’s US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Absolutely we are not against sending Italian troops to help a population, but I think at this moment probably there are no troops that are able to solve the problem in Ukraine.

We can only send troops if there is a clear UN mandate and for now, this is impossible.”

I think it is too early and we have to wait for it. After a decision from UN headquarters, there is no problem for Italy, but now it’s really, really too early for us.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Leon Neal/PA

© Photograph: Leon Neal/PA

On this day of protest, Belgrade is a powder keg, but just as important is how the president reacts – now and tomorrow | Brent Sadler

15 mars 2025 à 10:00

Amid anger over dysfunctional politics and alleged corruption, Aleksandar Vučić faces a harsh spotlight, inside and outside Serbia

From the streets of Belgrade, the cracks in President Aleksandar Vučić’s near-decade-long authoritarian grip on power have become impossible to ignore. After more than four months of largely peaceful student-led protests, frustration with the regime appears to have reached breaking point.

The country is gearing up for a massive anti-government protest today, as thousands of students and citizens prepare to rally against the Serbian administration. Many residents describe the capital as feeling “under siege”, with the authorities implementing extreme measures that critics argue are designed to intimidate and prevent people from attending the demonstration.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Armin Durgut/AP

© Photograph: Armin Durgut/AP

‘They’re on. They’re off. We can’t plan’ – bourbon makers dazed by Trump tariffs

15 mars 2025 à 10:00

The president’s chaotic policy on import duties makes planning impossible, says the CEO of a Kentucky distillery – and state Republicans are unhappy, too

Brough Brothers Distillery is in the midst of a big expansion. A fifteen minutes’ drive from its small distillery in the West End neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, workers are toiling away on its new site, seven times the size of the old one, in the heart of Bourbon City.

This has been a long time coming for Brough Brothers, which opened its first location in 2020 and had drawn up ambitious plans for international growth in 2025. Then Donald Trump returned to power.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Andrew Cenci/The Guardian

© Photograph: Andrew Cenci/The Guardian

Specs appeal: why are ‘slutty little glasses’ suddenly everywhere?

15 mars 2025 à 10:00

Barely-there, wire-frame glasses are comfortable, unisex and a design classic – and all over the high street

Jurassic World Rebirth may be the most anticipated film of the summer, but it’s not the dinosaurs that are piquing our attention. Images of its star, Jonathan Bailey, in character wearing a pair of tiny metal-frame spectacles are breaking the internet. But is it Dr Henry Loomis or the frames themselves that are causing the hysteria?

Commonly referred to as “slutty little glasses” on X, along with Drew Starkey as Eugene in Queer and Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher in Reacher, Bailey’s professor specs are suddenly everywhere. From Ace & Tate to Calvin Klein and Gentle Monster, small wire frames are dominating the high street.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment/Universal Studios

© Photograph: Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment/Universal Studios

‘New York plows ahead’: how the English invaded and changed a city

15 mars 2025 à 09:49

Russell Shorto returns to fascinating history of a unique city in Taking Manhattan, a book showing how New Amsterdam became New York

In lower Manhattan, at Pearl Street and Coenties Alley in the oldest part of New York City, walls and a cistern are visible under the sidewalk, through pains of clouded glass. Next to them, the outline of a 17th-century building is marked in colored brick.

“That is the footprint of the original Stadt Huys, which was first the city tavern and then became” the city hall of New Amsterdam, the author and historian Russell Shorto said. “When they were excavating to put in that skyscraper [85 Broad Street, built for Goldman Sachs in the 1980s], the archeologists identified and marked out those little bits.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation

© Photograph: Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation

Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for Lebanese moussaka with five-garlic-clove sauce | The new vegan

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

The Lebanese take on moussaka is a simple vegetable stew of aubergines, chickpeas, spices and herbs, here spruced up with a lively garlic sauce

There’s a sizable Lebanese community in London and, thanks to them (and their many restaurants), I’ve eaten plenty of great Lebanese food in my time. A recent discovery was the Lebanese take on moussaka at Maroush on Edgware Road, which is very different from the Greek version made with lamb and bechamel. This version is a simple but delightful stew made using aubergines, chickpeas, spices and herbs, which I’ve perked up with aan adaptation of the Lebanese garlic sauce, toum. Toum is usually made with raw garlic, oil, lemon juice and salt, but I thought I’d ease you in gently by tempering the garlic with tahini.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones.

© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones.

‘Isak is exactly the same person’: AIK coaches on forward’s journey to top

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

Peter Wennberg and Johnny Gustafsson saw just how hard Alexander Isak worked to reach the top level

Peter Wennberg laughs as he describes a recent under-11s training session where focus had drifted. Were his young charges going to treat the session as a laugh or take their opportunity seriously? He called a halt and asked where their priorities lay. “Then one of the boys, a sharp one, said: ‘What did Alexander Isak choose?’” Wennberg remembers. “After that it was easy for me. He’s raising the standards without even being here.”

Inside AIK Stockholm’s academy building, Wennberg gives a tour of the uncompromising facility that forged one of the world’s best strikers. Isak will be Newcastle’s best hope of breaking a 56-year trophy drought when they face Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday. There is nobody quite like him: nobody who blends poise with unpredictability, rigour with boundless imagination, cool temperament with flashes of light. Talents from all walks of life have a home here, but this is no identikit production line.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/REX/Shutterstock

Behold The Mourinho Identity: maniacally self-serving but essentially unbroken | Barney Ronay

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

Despite defeat with Fenerbahce, history is being kind to flawed revolutionary and his two underdog Champions League titles

There was an early moment of excitement at the start of Thursday night’s meeting of Rangers and the José Mourinho industrial entertainment complex (Fenerbahce branch). As the players lined up on the Ibrox pitch Mourinho was caught by the TV cameras leaning forward on his bench, rubbing his hands, looking up to salute the watching world because of course being watched is always the game.

The most significant part of this tableau was Mourinho’s coat, which was ludicrous. This was a statement coat, a coat that looked as if it was given to him by the emperor of Sylvia with a ruby in each pocket. The key detail was its colour, a shade of grey so unnatural its only function is to tell you this garment cost as much as a tenement house, the whole thing finished in a weirdly natureless luxury fur, like a dictator’s dressing gown. Frankly, the coat was a brilliantly played opening gambit, a one-goal start on the night.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

© Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

The tussle between two firms says a lot about the difficulty of getting your baby to sleep safely | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

Wildly differing views about cosleeping and products like baby pods abound online. I admire those who offer clear, sensible support

The first night we brought my son home from the hospital to our empty flat, we sat up far longer than needed, unmoored by a new, overwhelming responsibility to keep him alive. That some babies stop breathing in their sleep, and scientists still don’t really know why, terrified me when I’d just been primally rewired towards his survival. All you can do, you are told, is try to minimise risk.

And so you commit the guidelines to memory: “For the first 12 months (adjusted for prematurity), the baby should be placed on its back in their own clear, flat, firm separate sleep space (eg a cot or moses basket) in the same room as you. They should not get too hot, and it should be a smoke-free environment.”

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author. She is the author of a novel, The Tyranny of Lost Things, and a memoir, The Year of the Cat

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Juice Images/Alamy

© Photograph: Juice Images/Alamy

Republican Russophilia: how Trump Putin-ised a party of cold war hawks

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

The idea of Moscow as a paragon of Christian nationalism has penetrated the party of Reagan – and the lurch in US policy has huge implications for the global order

In speech that ran for 100 minutes there was one moment when Donald Trump drew more applause from Democrats than Republicans. As the president told Congress last week how the US had sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, his political opponents clapped and unfurled a Ukrainian flag – while his own party sat in stony silence.

It was a telling insight into Republicans’ transformation, in the space of a generation, from a party of cold war hawks to one of “America first” isolationists. Where Trump has led, many Republicans have obediently followed, all the way into the embrace of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – with huge implications for the global democratic order.

Continue reading...

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

‘They killed him in cold blood’: the cycle of revenge in north-west Syria

Over 1,000 people – including 745 civilians – were killed in attacks last week that mostly targeted Alawite minority

Sipping tea on an unusually warm February afternoon on his veranda that overlooked the small Alawite village of Arza, north-west Syria, Mohammed Abdullah al-Ismaili said he trusted the new Syrian authorities to keep him safe.

“We believe what [interim Syrian president Ahmed] al-Sharaa says, but the problem is these unknown groups,” the 62-year-old official in Arza’s municipality told the Guardian on 4 February, four days after a group of masked men raided the village at night and killed eight men on their knees. “The government says the killings are individual cases, it seems like they are unable to control the cases.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/Reuters

© Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/Reuters

Five key takeaways from the Guardian’s House of Lords series

Two peers are now under investigation after undercover reporting on members of parliament’s second chamber

“Indefensible” was how Keir Starmer described the House of Lords three years ago when he proposed ambitious changes that would replace it with an elected second chamber drawn from the nations and the regions.

Now in power, Labour’s plans are somewhat watered down, and even the first step, abolishing hereditary peers, is being challenged.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/REX/Shutterstock

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/REX/Shutterstock

Streaming: A Real Pain and the best mismatched buddy movies

15 mars 2025 à 09:00

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin’s bickering double act follows in the footsteps of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, via Tom Hanks and his dog

Kieran Culkin’s mile-a-minute turn in A Real Pain was the single most lauded performance of this past awards season, winning pretty much every best supporting actor prize on offer, up to and including his Oscar two weeks ago. As an erratic, unfiltered loose cannon joining his strait-laced cousin, played by writer-director Jesse Eisenberg, on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland in honour of their familial roots, Culkin is rivetingly reckless and off-kilter in the part.

The awards are well deserved except for the key detail that it isn’t remotely a supporting role. An evenly weighted two-hander (now streaming, and on DVD from 17 March), Eisenberg’s second film behind the camera is a sharp and moving variation on the classic formula of the mismatched buddy movie, deriving all its comic and dramatic tension from the contrast between Eisenberg’s nebbishy neurosis and Culkin’s cocksure eccentricity. This personality conflict is ultimately neutralised by the gravity of their journey, as the history of the Holocaust weighs heavily upon them; most buddy movies aren’t quite so burdened. But the love-hate dynamic between the two men is poignant and funny, and squarely in the tradition of the genre.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Searchlight Pictures; Allstar; Alamy

© Composite: Searchlight Pictures; Allstar; Alamy

Cuba hit by widespread blackouts after national energy grid collapses

15 mars 2025 à 08:33

Large areas of western Cuba, including Havana, lose power in latest blackouts to hit island nation after substation fails

Cuba’s national electrical grid collapsed late on Friday, leading to widespread blackouts in Havana and across the country and leaving millions of people in the dark.

Officials from the energy and mines ministry said an electrical substation in the capital failed about 8.15pm local time knocking out power to a large swath of western Cuba, including Havana, and causing the failure of the national electrical system, SEN.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA

© Photograph: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA

Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter review – radical visions of gay 90s London

15 mars 2025 à 08:30

Memories of love and heartbreak during the Aids epidemic are brought vividly to life in this exhilarating, risk-taking debut

Halfway through his debut novel, Charlie Porter has a character ask the question that still haunts generations of British gay men: “What am I to do with this anger?” The book is Porter’s answer. The starting point is simple. Johnny is 19, and on the run from a small-town childhood; arriving in London, he falls in love with Jerry, who is 45 and HIV positive. Their affair coincides exactly with the last four years in which the virus was untreatable; Jerry dies of an Aids-related illness in the summer of 1995, just months before effective combination therapies began to be prescribed.

Twenty-six years later, Johnny is still living in Jerry’s flat. This is in the Nova Scotia House of the title, an oasis of public housing in one of the last pockets of unredeveloped land in London’s East End. Inevitably, a tower of flats is now being built right next to it. As the tower rises, light is gradually excluded from the garden that Jerry created and which the grief-stricken Johnny has lovingly maintained.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Steve Eason/Getty Images

© Photograph: Steve Eason/Getty Images

Exploited, recognised as a slavery victim, now facing deportation: one seafarer’s UK ordeal

15 mars 2025 à 08:00

After years of helping Scottish criminal investigations and despite fearing for his life in India, Vishal Sharma’s asylum claim has been rejected

When Vishal Sharma, an experienced merchant seaman, arrived in London from India in November 2017, he was looking forward to a good job on a Belgian tanker, the MT Waasmunster, assisting engineers. He had a 15-month contract and a transit visa, enabling him to travel to Milford Haven in Wales, where the 174-metre vessel was anchored.

But in a last-minute change of plan, his Mumbai agent told him to head to Southwick in West Sussex, England, to board a scallop trawler, the Noordzee.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

© Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

From profiteroles to moles: project uncovers gulls’ surprising diet

15 mars 2025 à 08:00

Salford University findings show gulls are predators – not just opportunists snatching people’s snacks

Gulls are renowned for snatching chips from tourists’ hands, but a scientific project has revealed the greedy birds also like to tuck into moles and quench their thirst with seal milk.

The discovery was among several surprising findings made by a University of Salford ecologist, Dr Alice Risely, after she set up a project asking the public to send her pictures of seagulls eating.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Gemma kellegher

© Photograph: Gemma kellegher

‘He nails it on the first take’: how the Beatles helped my autistic son find his voice

15 mars 2025 à 08:00

After John Harris’s son was diagnosed, conversation always seemed focused on the things he would struggle with. But a shared passion for playing music grew into something James could do – brilliantly

I start playing songs to my son James from the moment he is born. If I’m given the job of rocking him back to sleep, I usually put on reggae: Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves and Dawn Penn’s You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No) tend to do the trick. If my partner Ginny or I sing along to whatever is on the CD player, it brings him a gurgling kind of delight. In this, he is – obviously – no different from any other child. But not long after his first birthday, I get a sharp sense that music might speak to him in a particularly vivid, mood-altering way.

I play James the title track of Clear Spot by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band only once. Its mixture of discordant guitar, growling vocals and knock-kneed drumming, I suspect, might strike him as curious and funny, like a big, monster-centred production number from Sesame Street or The Muppet Show. But it has pretty much the reverse effect: within a few seconds, his face is suddenly filled with an expression of absolute panic, he screams in protest, and I instantly know I have to turn it off and never put it on again.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Guardian

© Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Guardian

Happy Face: this drama about a serial killer’s daughter is so mind-boggling it’s hard to tell if it’s real or fantasy

15 mars 2025 à 08:00

At times, this true-crime drama feels like a meta satire of an industry that milks private pain for entertainment. It is, however, no such thing

You know the feeling: you’re watching a shocking docudrama about a toxic waste scandal, or the baseless prosecution of 555 sub-postmasters, or the fraudulent founder of a blood-testing biotech company, and you start thinking – did this all really happen? So you do some digging online. Usually, it turns out there has been a mild massaging of the truth in the name of narrative efficiency: a couple of characters conflated, a timeline slightly rejigged. Only very occasionally (once?) will a case of dramatic licence result in a hysterical media storm, a global debate about the ethics of dramatisation and Netflix being hit with a $170m lawsuit. And yet it is almost unheard of to settle down to watch a series based on real events – or, in the case of Paramount+’s Happy Face (from Thursday 20 March), “inspired by a true life story” – and be confronted with an utterly mind-boggling fusion of fact and fiction.

First, the facts. This is a drama about a woman called Melissa Moore, daughter of the Happy Face killer. She is real (played here by Broadway stalwart Annaleigh Ashford) which means that, unfortunately, he is too. Keith Hunter Jesperson murdered at least eight women in the US in the 1990s, drawing smiley faces on the anonymous confessional letters he sent out to garner publicity for his crimes. Moore was frightened of her father growing up, especially when she witnessed him torture a set of kittens with inconceivable depravity, later finding their dead bodies. Moore revealed the truth on popular TV talk show Dr Phil – a decision that eventually led to a career in the world of true crime-based entertainment. In some ways, this is Moore bringing the jaw-dropping story of her own life to the screen: Happy Face is based on her 2009 memoir as well as a 2018 podcast series about her experiences (she is also an executive producer on this show).

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Victoria Will/Paramount+

© Photograph: Victoria Will/Paramount+

What links doorbell, Bath bun and nice-looking? The Saturday quiz

15 mars 2025 à 08:00

From device porn and organ ache to ball, clubs, hoop, ribbon and rope, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which star-crossed lovers had a son called Astrolabe?
2 What was stolen from Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, on 20 March 1966?
3 Which Disney princess is named after a vegetable?
4 What is claimed to be buried in Docksway landfill in Newport, Wales?
5 Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé make up which group?
6 In the night sky, what is scintillation?
7 Which gem is made from a type of coal?
8 Which Booker prize winner comes from a samurai family?
What links:
9
Harald Hardrada; James IV; Mary, Queen of Scots; Napoleon III?
10 Cumberland; Glamorgan; Gloucester; Lincolnshire; Manchester?
11 Ball, clubs, hoop, ribbon and rope?
12 Death’s cloak; Hades’ helmet; Sauron’s ring?
13 All sad, TX; device porn, RI; dottier, MI; organ ache, AK; salvages, NV?
14 3 or 11 (1/18); 4 or 10 (1/12); 5 (1/9); 7 (1/6)?
15 Bath bun; doorbell; irrepressible; nice-looking; outsider; sympathizer (in the OED)?

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Gregory Adams/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gregory Adams/Getty Images

❌