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1 min: Italy win their first lineout and look to test the visiting defence early on, but cede possession and it’s with Ireland. Crowley, a big day for him, has it.
The referee Luke Pearce blows long and loud, we are under way at Stadio Olimpico!
Michael Faraday’s illustrated notes that show how radical scientist began his theories at London’s Royal Institution to go online
He was a self-educated genius whose groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry electrified the world of science and laid the foundations for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity nearly a century later.
Now, the little-known notebooks of the Victorian scientist Michael Faraday have been unearthed from the archive of the Royal Institution and are to be digitised and made permanently accessible online for the first time.
The comedian and former drama teacher was only expecting to do one series of HBO’s hit comedy-drama. Now, as Belinda, she’s stealing season three. She talks ADHD, big breaks and micro-resistances
Natasha Rothwell pops up on video from the US looking super-glamorous in a silvery-grey dress, with her hair and makeup on point. Did we miss a memo about a dress code for our interview? “I’ve just come from an event and thought, even though you’re not filming this, you could at least admire,” she laughs. “You know what they say: share the hair and never waste a face.”
Rothwell is currently stealing the show as spa manager Belinda in season three of HBO hit The White Lotus – reprising her role from season one, for which she was Emmy-nominated. Having endured the whims of Jennifer Coolidge’s needy heiress in Hawaii, Belinda has now travelled to the titular resort in Thailand to take part in its wellness training programme. She’s “cosplaying as a guest”, as Rothwell puts it – and in the process both finding romance and uncovering a potential crime.
Careers fair at Pinewood is among initiatives to lure young to an industry hit by cost inflation, writers’ strikes and an advertising recession
In a corner of a cavernous hangar in Buckinghamshire, a group of Jedi are honing their lightsaber skills, Deadpool and Chewbacca are posing for photos, while a squad of Imperial stormtroopers make their presence felt by arresting a passing reporter.
Pinewood Studios is pulling out all the stops – including a stunt display at the underwater stage famous for scenes including the sinking Venetian villa in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale – to wow young attendees at the third edition of Europe’s largest free careers fair for the film industry.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett head a starry cast to match the luxurious production design, but the director’s espionage yarn could do with some grit
In a world built on deception, populated by people who can lie as easily as breathe, strait-laced British intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) values the truth above all else. Which is probably why he’s given the task of unmasking a traitor suspected of stealing and selling a piece of potentially devastating technology. What complicates matters is the fact that one of the main suspects is his wife, high-ranking fellow agent Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). Others in the frame include in-house psychiatrist Dr Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), alcoholic maverick Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and junior agent Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela).
This knotty spy thriller from Steven Soderbergh attempts to distract us from a convoluted plot and baffling character motivations with fabulously chic interiors, impeccable tailoring and a general sense of dissolute luxury. And for a while it almost works: it’s always a pleasure to watch Blanchett slink expensively around a set, and Fassbender wears his serious, Harry Palmer-style thick-framed glasses with suitable gravity. But times have changed, and to audiences acclimatised to the grubby, malodorous whiff of frustration and professional disappointment that seeps out of something like the TV adaptation of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, this all feels about as authentic as a set of dental veneers.
New memo lists 41 countries – including Afghanistan, Cuba and Syria – that could face new restrictions, evoking first-term Muslim ban
The Trump administration is considering issuing travel restrictions for the citizens of dozens of countries as part of a new ban, according to sources familiar with the matter and an internal memo seen by Reuters.
The memo lists a total of 41 countries divided into three separate groups. The first group of 10 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea, among others, would be set for a full visa suspension.
Women’s League Cup final: Chelsea 2-1 Manchester City
Ramírez 8, Hasegawa 77og; Fujino 64
Sonia Bompastor won her first trophy in English football and continued her unbeaten first season as Chelsea manager as they triumphed over Manchester City in a well-contested Women’s League Cup final at Pride Park.
The result gave Chelsea a 26th victory from Bompastor’s 28 competitive matches in charge of the club so far in all competitions, while the interim Manchester City head coach, Nick Cushing, lost his first game back in charge of the club, after the sacking of Gareth Taylor.
The studio’s latest remake may need more than a magic kiss to survive its entanglements with politics, sexism and CGI dwarf trouble
Five years ago a $250m remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature film, must have seemed like a fine idea to corporate executives, who were going all out on remaking the studio’s dated classics into contemporary live-action movies.
But the film – its title trimmed to Disney’s Snow White, set to be released in cinemas this week – has turned into a massive headache for the studio. The press have barely been let near the remake’s stars, Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian-Polish descent and plays Snow White, and Israeli actor Gal Gadot, playing the Evil Queen. And there are no dwarves.
Eventim Apollo, London Touring his understated latest album, Small Changes, the Mercury prize-winner amplifies his gossamer grooves with no loss of charm or sophistication
We are in a drawing room, although it’s a more ample, rock’n’roll version than your great-aunt’s. Persian rugs litter the wide stage floor, while vintage lampshades cast a halogen glow over Michael Kiwanuka and his 10-strong band.
The singer-songwriter might be playing ever-grander venues since he won the Mercury prize in 2020 with his third album, Kiwanuka, but the touring setup for his most recent outing, Small Changes (2024), is a study in warmth, ease and natural fibres: wooden chairs, a statement cardigan for Kiwanuka, a felt hat.
A single strawberry flown in from Japan is selling for $20 in a hip LA grocery store. Does it symbolize the worst of American excess, or is it simply delicious?
In Los Angeles, a strawberry – yes, one individual berry – is selling for $19.99. The berries are flown in from Japan, and Erewhon, a luxury grocery store, claims they’re so popular it’s hard to keep them in stock.
The $20 strawberry, which has been labeled “dystopian” and a “social experiment”, went viral after a TikTok influencer filmed herself eating it and saying “wow”. That video – produced by an influencer who happens to be part of the family that owns Erewhon– quickly sparked a slew of copycats: from earnest reviews to parodies and pranks and even an on-camera taste test by ABC news anchors. In one TikTok video, a comedian in a blond wig eats the strawberry while crooning to the “poors” watching his video: “This is something you could never afford … I’m going to taste it for you since you never will.”
Trial will determine whether electrical pulses can control and decrease yearnings
Surgeons are to put implants into the brains of alcoholics and opioid addicts in a trial aimed at testing the use of electrical impulses to combat drink and drug cravings.
The significance of the Trump administration’s arrest and threat to deport the Palestinian activist cannot be overstated
It’s 2027 and you’re doom-scrolling in your apartment while eating a single egg for dinner. (Eggs are now $30 a dozen.) You fire off a few angry tweets about abortion rights and go to bed. In the middle of the night armed police break down your door and arrest you for destabilizing the security of the state. You are detained and then – if you hold citizenship elsewhere – deported.
Energy summit in Houston makes clear US is nowhere close to curbing fossil fuels, but tariffs are causing disquiet
This week, the world’s most influential fossil-fuels conference, which has been dubbed the “Coachella of oil”, featured an industry displaying outward glee but barely managing to conceal its anxiety.
As recently as last year, sustainability was a major focus at the annual Houston convention, known as CeraWeek, with fossil-fuel companies touting climate plans. But in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election, the industry is undergoing a vibe shift, forgoing talk of the energy transition and instead parroting the president’s focus on energy “dominance”.
Thomas Bach criticises ‘fake news campaign from Russia’
Two boxers under scrutiny won gold in Paris
A gender row involving two female boxers at the Paris 2024 Olympics was the result of a Russian fake news campaign and had little to do with reality, the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, said on Saturday.
Bach, who is stepping down in June after 12 years in the biggest job in world sports, said the IOC had needed to fight off many similar campaigns before and after the Paris Games.
The boxing competition in the Paris was run by the IOC after it stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of recognition last year over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance. But the IBA, run by the Russian businessman Umar Kremlev with close links to the Kremlin, accused the IOC during the Games of allowing two female athletes, who had been banned by the IBA after a chromosome test a year earlier, to compete.
A war of words ensued between the two organisations and dominated the headlines during the Games. “I would not consider this [Paris Games gender controversy] a real crisis because all this discussion is based on a fake news campaign coming from Russia,” Bach said at the southern Greek seaside resort where his successor will be elected on Thursday. “This was part of the many, many fake news campaigns we had to face from Russia before Paris and after Paris.”
Several such campaigns happened before Paris, including what the IOC said at the time were repeated hacking attempts. Bach said the dispute over the boxers would have been a non-issue were it not for the IBA, given the two boxers had competed for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, with no problems.
“It [the dispute] has nothing to do with the reality. These two female focuses were born as women, they were raised as women, they have been competing as women, they have been winning and losing as every other person.” The two boxers, Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, won gold medals in their weight classes.
The IOC does not have a universal rule on the participation of transgender athletes or athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD), with each federation drawing up its own regulations. Russian athletes competed as neutrals in Paris after the Russian Olympic Committee was suspended for conducting Olympic elections in Ukrainian territories occupied after the Russian invasion in 2022.
In response to the billionaire’s scorched-earth raids on US government agencies, Tesla chargers and showrooms are being targeted
In the early morning hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration day, a person wearing a long black cloak and face mask wheeled a cart down an Oregon sidewalk. He was headed toward a Tesla showroom in Salem, and his cart appeared to be loaded with molotov cocktails, according to court documents. One by one, he took out the handmade explosives, lit them on fire and lobbed them at the glass-walled dealership.
By the time Salem police arrived, the showroom window was shattered, a fire was burning on the sidewalk out front, a nearby Tesla sedan was ablaze and the alleged vandal had fled. The whole scene was caught by security footage, according to an affidavit from a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The showroom’s general manager estimated $500,000 in damages, with seven vehicles struck and one completely destroyed.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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
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 newway. 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.
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 firedin 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.
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.
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 aclose 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.”
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.
Representatives from numerous international militaries will meet in London on Thursday, says UK prime minister
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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