Flight AI171 was carrying 242 people bound for London when it crashed into a residential area shortly after takeoff

• Air India plane crash – latest updates

There appear to be no survivors from a London-bound Air India flight carrying 242 people which crashed shortly after takeoff in the north-western city of Ahmedabad, a police commissioner has said.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was engulfed in a huge fireball after crashing into the Meghaninagar residential area minutes after taking off at 1.38pm local time.

Head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation says third site is ready to operate as UN watchdog finds Iran is not complying with obligations for first time in 20 years

The UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors has formally found that Iran isn’t complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years, AP reports.

It’s a decision that could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore UN sanctions on Tehran later this year.

• Updates from the opening round at Oakmont

• Official live leaderboard | Drop Scott an email

JJ Spaun can’t make his birdie putt on 13. But he’s now sole leader of the US Open, because Ludvig Åberg makes a mess of the par-five 12th, going for the pin with his third and finding sand, then only splashing out into the rough. After bundling his chip eight feet past the hole, he does extremely well to make the putt coming back and limit the damage to bogey. Meanwhile Adam Scott bounces back from an opening bogey at 10 with birdies at 11 and 12, while Eric Cole does the same with birdies at 12 and 14. All change at the top!

-2: Spaun (4*)
-1: Cole (5*), Åberg (3*), Scott (3*), McIlroy (2*), S Kim (2*)

Institute for Fiscal Studies says Treasury figures for projected efficiency savings are not credible

• UK on track to become a ‘National Health State’, says thinktank

Rachel Reeves is now on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Susannah Reid and Richard Madeley are interviewing her.

Q: You must be disappointed about the growth figures?

California governor has accused Trump of provoking unrest in LA, and a judge will hear arguments Thursday as part of lawsuit against president

A woman defiantly dances near police officers as protesters continue to march and chant in an approximately one-square mile area of downtown Los Angeles in response to a series of immigration raids.

Nerves are frayed in Los Angeles, as the second largest city in the US is flooded with more than 2,000 federal troops tasked with protecting immigration enforcement officials after thousands of people hit the streets to protest deportation raids.

• Brazil forward, a childhood United fan, joins from Wolves

• Jason Wilcox hails ‘exciting and productive’ signing

Manchester United have completed the £62.5m signing of Matheus Cunha from Wolves, with the forward intent on helping the club “back to the top”. The 26-year-old has a five-year contract with the option of a further year and will be paid about £150,000 a week.

Cunha said: “It is hard to put into words my feelings about becoming a Manchester United player. Ever since I was a child in Brazil watching Premier League games on TV at my grandmother’s house, United was my favourite English team and I dreamed of wearing the red shirt.

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

UK economy shrank by 0.3% in April, biggest fall since October 2023, as trade with the US slumped

• Full story: UK economy shrinks by 0.3% as as exports hit by Trump trade war

Nicholas Hyett, Investment Manager at Wealth Club, blames “a cocktail of headwinds to growth” for the 0.3% fall in UK GDP in April.

Hyett says:

In the very short term the change to Stamp Duty rules have put the legal and property services on ice - with legal activities down 10.2% month-on-month.

New barriers to trade with the US and changes to employment costs, from a higher living wage and increased national insurance contributions, are a longer term challenge.

“The 0.3% m/m fall in real GDP in April supports our view that the strength in Q1 was unsustainable. This won’t prompt the Bank of England to cut interest rates next Thursday. But it is one more piece of news pointing to another cut in August.”

We still expect the Bank Rate to be maintained at 4.25% in the June meeting, to allow still troubling earnings growth to continue to ease. We anticipate the next rate cuts to occur in the August and November meetings to 3.75%, prompted by mounting economic hardships.”

While there is little chance of any change at next week’s meeting, we see a strong possibility that the MPC ditches its hawkish bias, which could pave the way for an August cut.”

Dolphin Surf will start at £18,650 – among the cheapest new vehicles on sale in Britain

• Business live – latest updates

The Chinese manufacturer BYD has launched its cheapest model in the UK, in the latest stage of its efforts to overtake Tesla as the world’s biggest electric carmaker.

The Dolphin Surf will start at £18,650, a price that puts it among the cheapest new vehicles on sale in Britain.

Citizen Lab says it found ‘digital fingerprints’ of military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted using against activists

The hacking mystery roiling the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is deepening after researchers said they had found new evidence that two more journalists were targeted using the same military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted to using against activists.

A parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence confirmed earlier this month that Italy had used mercenary spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions against two Italian activists.

The passenger plane bound for Gatwick crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad

• Air India plane crash – latest updates

An Air India passenger plane bound for London’s Gatwick airport with more than 240 people on board has crashed shortly after takeoff from the north-western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

An Air India passenger plane bound for Gatwick airport with more than 240 people on board crashed shortly after takeoff from the north-western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The plane came down in the residential area of Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1.38pm local time. According to reports in the Indian media, the plane crashed into a building used as accommodation by doctors working in local hospitals. Footage shows burning buildings and debris scattered across the ground

• What we know so far about the Air India flight 171 crash

(Polydor)
The three LA sisters dwell on the bitter end of a relationship in tracks that range from replayable valley-girl rap to plodding country-pop

Haim’s 2013 breakthrough single The Wire was a swaggering, high-spirited breakup anthem. The slick, twanging pop-rock was correctly identified at the time by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as echoing the oeuvre of Shania Twain (though this wasn’t the sick burn he thought it was), over which the LA trio copped to commitment phobia, communication issues and having their heads turned, before skipping into the California sunset with their hearts intact. Well, to commandeer the title of Haim’s debut album: those days are very much gone.

I Quit, the sisters’ fourth album, still has plenty of breakup songs, but these are no cheerful odes to dumping dudes in your 20s. Instead, the record fixates on the bitter end of a deeply flawed long-term relationship; at least some of these songs are informed by the love lost between lead vocalist Danielle Haim and Ariel Rechtshaid, the garlanded producer who worked on all three of the band’s previous albums (I Quit is instead helmed by Danielle, Rostam Batmanglij and Buddy Ross). The mood is not desolate – the narrator instigated the split – but it is searching and pained. The ex is portrayed as careless and manipulative, and punches are not pulled (“I swear you wouldn’t care if I was covered in blood lying dead on the street”). There are many references to setting oneself free, reflected in the – perhaps too on-the-nose – sample of George Michael’s Freedom! ‘90, which is woven through the opening track, Gone.

The actor claims she was made to work 15-hour days without proper support and suffered a severe knee injury as a result of a scene where she was thrown into a wall

Kate Beckinsale is suing the producers of Canary Black, the 2024 action thriller in which she starred, over claims she suffered “severe and debilitating injuries” as a result of “unsafe conditions”.

In news first reported by Puck, Beckinsale’s legal complaint was filed anonymously in June 2024, but has now been refiled under her full name Kathrin Beckinsale.

DUP’s Gordon Lyons criticised for social media post about leisure centre before it was set on fire by masked attackers

A minister in Northern Ireland has rejected calls to resign, as the display of political unity amid three nights of violence fractured after a leisure centre in Larne was set on fire.

Staff and customers, including children learning to swim, were in the building at the time. The attack coincided with violent scenes amid tensions over immigration in the nearby town of Ballymena.

From coming-out fables and dancefloor make-outs to unsimulated sex and a madcap maternal quest, here is a feast of movies about LBGTQ+ lives

One detractor called it “a Shawshank Redemption for progressive millennials”. But the force of Céline Sciamma’s lesbian love story about an artist and her unwitting sitter on a remote island in 18th-century Brittany is undeniable. As is the integrity of its central dynamic, stripped of power imbalances, hierarchies – and men.

Sure, Rukmini Iyer’s recipes are not specifically aimed at queer people, but the first time I cooked one, it was with my girlfriend – and she is now my wife

Walk into a queer woman’s kitchen and the chances are that the lime-green spine of Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Roasting Tin will be poking out from a surface or a shelf – if it is not already on the counter and splattered with food. You are likely to find it in the homes of allies, too – this is the holy grail of what-to-feed-my-queer–vegetarian-offspring cookbooks.

Not only does The Green Roasting Tin play into stereotypes about gay and bisexual women – all vegetarian recipes, half vegan and supremely practical (the USP of The Roasting Tin series is that all the recipes are oven-cooked in one dish) – but it is also full of indulgence. The tarts, gratins, salads and bakes are dotted with pomegranate seeds or fresh herbs and drizzled with truffle oil or honey. One recipe even has an entire camembert plonked in a tray of potatoes. And that’s what makes it the perfect unofficial lesbian text: its unapologetic goal is pleasure.

Lebanon is one of the most ancient wine-producing regions of the world, so it’s well worth our attention

Lebanon has one of, if not the most ancient winemaking traditions in the world, so it stands to reason that we ought to drink more of it. This historic wine industry started way back with the Phoenicians, who spread viticulture throughout the Mediterranean, and then, in 1857, Jesuit monks planted vines from Algeria in the Bekaa valley, in an area that is today one of the country’s most prestigious wine-producing regions.

Today there are some 80 wineries in operation in the Bekaa, most of them with a decided focus on French grapes – cabernet sauvignon, cinsault, merlot, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay all get a lot of love – but native grapes such as obaideh, merwah, jandali and hamdali also feature in the production of wine and arak, a distilled anise spirit.

Resolution Foundation says half of all public spending will be allocated to the NHS and social care by the end of the decade

• Business live – latest updates

Britain is on track to become a “National Health State” where half of all public spending is allocated to the NHS and social care by the end of the decade, according to a leading thinktank.

Rachel Reeves used her spending review on Wednesday to prioritise billions of pounds for the NHS as she outlined Labour’s priorities up to the next general election, while squeezing funding for other areas.

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury’s assets frozen as authorities in Dhaka investigate alleged corruption of former regime

Britain’s serious crime agency has frozen UK property worth £170m belonging to the former land minister of Bangladesh amid a crackdown on former allies of Sheikh Hasina, the autocratic leader deposed in last year’s student-led revolution.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed it had frozen assets belonging to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who is among allies of Hasina whose sizeable UK real estate portfolios have come under scrutiny by authorities in Dhaka investigating alleged corruption.

Air India tragedy comes after firm agreed US justice department payment to avoid prosecution over 2018 and 2019 crashes

• Air India plane crash – latest updates

The Air India tragedy in Ahmedabad is the first time a Boeing 787 Dreamliner has crashed since the plane’s introduction in 2011.

While airlines using the Boeing plane have had widespread problems with engines on the 787 – resulting in many having to ground planes and reduce flights – its safety record in service has so far been good.

When a star dies, shows are left in a terrible quandary – carry on, use ham-fisted CGI or axe the thing entirely. As Payne appears in Building the Band, we delve into the unnerving world of posthumous television

At first glance, Netflix’s new series Building the Band comes off as a weird amalgam of every singing competition show you loved a decade and a half ago. There’s the core DNA of X Factor. The singers perform out of sight of everyone else, so it cribs from The Voice. Clearly, there’s heavy borrowing from Making the Band. Plus, this is Netflix, so everything looks a bit like Squid Game.

But this odd mishmash of a format isn’t what will keep you away from Building the Band. No, what will keep you away from Building the Band is the posthumous appearance of Liam Payne.

Millions of people are taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro. But with so many unanswered questions, are we in the middle of a giant human experiment? In this episode, journalist Neelam Tailor asks two doctors what these drugs are really doing to our bodies, our minds, and our society – from muscle loss and mental health to beauty standards and the blurred line between medicine and aesthetics.

A year after a student-led revolt unseated Sheikh Hasina, Muhammad Yunus is fighting to convince both sides of politics to agree to reform

A year on from the political uprising that swept the prime minister of Bangladesh into exile, people still see government as the enemy, according to the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus.

Rooting out corruption at every level, from village to government, is the only way for people to believe in a “new Bangladesh”, he says.

One of the world’s best strikers talks about being part of a revolution, moving to Gotham FC and the upcoming Euros

Esther González is at the top of her game. The 32-year-old striker’s list of accolades – World Cup winner, three-time Liga F champion, National Women’s Soccer League champion, Copa de la Reina victor and Concacaf W Champions Cup winner – is matched by few in the sport. But as a young girl growing up in southern Spain, her path was uncertain, rife with obstacles. “As a child, I dreamed of what I wanted to be when I grew up,” she says. “It was a soccer player. But, let’s say, circumstances didn’t allow me to see women’s soccer or anything close to women’s soccer.”

As she grew up with three sisters, González’s earliest memories of football were playing with her hermanas in their small village in Andalusia. She dreamed of being a footballer, but there wasn’t a path before her. The shy young talent with a nose for goals would play with the local boys: they needed a goalscorer and she stepped in. As González grew, her father took her on car journeys of more than four hours each way to get to training.

From the return of Mario Kart to smash-hit architectural puzzles, an emotional football game and monster-hunting, we look back at the best offerings from the past six months
• See more of the best culture of 2025 so far

• Tell us your favourite video game of 2025 so far

This unexpected smash-hit puzzle game has you exploring a mysterious mansion with rooms that are different every time. Faced with a closed door, you get to choose what lies beyond it from a small selection of blueprints, drafting as you go. Crammed with devilish logic problems, memory tests and other conundrums, it’s got thousands of players drawing their own maps on graph paper, just like the ZX Spectrum days. Read the full review. Keith Stuart

We are Jewish scholars who filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court on Harvard’s discriminatory assumption that being Jewish means supporting Israel

Harvard is suing to stop the Trump administration’s unprecedented interference in the operation of the university, supposedly to protect Jewish students from antisemitism. Harvard maintains it has already addressed a crisis of antisemitism on campus. The government is wrong in attacking Harvard, but so is Harvard in its defense.

We are part of a group of 27 Jewish scholars of Jewish studies who have filed an amicus brief in Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration. We submitted the brief, drafted by the civil rights attorney Yaman Salahi, because we support the university’s fight against government overreach. Yet in doing so, the institution has committed a different kind of discrimination – one that violates federal civil rights law. We reject Harvard’s troubling assumption that being Jewish necessitates supporting Israel, or that criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza constitutes antisemitism.

Product of decades-long process aims to restore Heiltsuk’s system of coherent governance destroyed by colonial powers

When outsiders arrived in the lands of the Heiltsuk people, they brought with them a rapacious appetite for the region’s trees, fish and minerals. Settlers and the government soon followed, claiming ownership of the thick cedar forests, the fjords and the abundance of life. Heiltsuk elders were confused. “If these are truly your lands,” they asked, “where are your stories?”

For the Heiltsuk, stories explain everything from the shape of a local mountain to the distinct red fur fringes on the sea wolves stalking shores. They tell of the flesh-eating monster baxbakwa’lanuxusiwe, whose entire body was covered with snapping mouths before it was destroyed by a shaman and became a cloud of mosquitoes.

The US president vowed to cut food costs, but experts warn metal tariffs may raise prices in a matter of months

Canned foods make up a big part of 20-year-old Cale Johnson’s diet: tuna, corned beef hash, beans, chicken soup, Spam and fruit. They’re affordable and have a long shelf life, which is essential for many people in the US like Johnson, who earns a low income and works two part-time jobs in addition to being a full-time student in Omaha, Nebraska.

In the days after Donald Trump’s recent decision to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, Johnson says he’s worried.

• Updates from the second day of the WTC final at Lord’s

• Read the latest edition of The Spin | And mail Geoff

25th over: South Africa 55-4: Bavuma 14, Bedingham 9 Aaaand smoked! Bavuma finally lays into one, after a very cautious innings yesterday. Through the covers for four. Then tucks up and drops a run to mid off, sprints and yells “Yep, yep, yep!” Positive batting. The team 50 comes up. Bedingham perplexingly reaches for a wide ball, looking to squeeze it into the turf, when he didn’t need to play, but gets a run from the next ball, tapped to mid off. Labuschagne there is the fielder they’re milking runs to: he’s a fierce pick-up-and-throw merchant if they get a call wrong. Round the wicket goes Starc, left arm, and Bavuma smokes him for four more! Through point this time, lofted but there’s a deep backward point, so no danger. And it beats that man on his square side. Ten from the over.

24th over: South Africa 45-4: Bavuma 5, Bedingham 8 Hazlewood now, from the Paviliion End, getting the ball to jag down the hill and tenderise Bedingham’s thigh pad. Nasty. Two slips, plus the extra lanky figure of Webster at gully, watching Hazlewood zip the ball past the outside edge.

Ahmedabad police commissioner says there appear to be no survivors from flight AI171, with passengers including 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian

• London-bound Air India plane crashes with 242 people on board

• What we know so far about the Air India flight 171 crash

Here are a couple of images coming in via the newswires:

Gatwick airport posted on X that it could confirm the Air India flight AI171, which had been due to arrive at 6.25pm in London, had crashed on departure from Ahmedabad airport. It added that more information would follow.

Mark Rutte says ‘we have to spend more’ as ministers discuss Weimar+ model ahead of Nato summit later this month

European foreign ministers are now arriving in Rome for their Weimar+ meeting on security and Ukraine.

Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said his country needs “at least 10 years” to raise defence spending and comply with new targets to be agreed by Nato, adding that a deal on them could soon be reached, Reuters reported.

Woman who risked life working for western government-backed projects can now stay on UK

An Afghan woman who risked her life defending human rights in her home country has been allowed to stay in the UK after a Home Office U-turn.

The Guardian previously reported on the case of Mina*, whose asylum claim was rejected by the Home Office despite her high-profile work in Afghanistan. She worked for western government-backed projects and was involved in training and mentoring women across the country, which put her in grave danger even before the Taliban took over in 2021.

A decades-long crackdown on organised crime is opening up Catania, with previous no-go areas now welcoming tourists and new businesses. Discover its restaurants and bars before the prices catch up

In 1787, Goethe wrote: “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.” I’d go one step further and claim it’s impossible to really understand what makes the island tick without visiting Catania.

Located on the east coast of the island, Catania is Sicily’s second-largest city and has been dubbed the Black City because of how prominently basalt features in its baroque architecture. Until recently this Unesco world heritage city, whose beauty can more than compete with its flashier neighbours, Palermo and Taormina, was blighted by organised crime and bad governance. But this is now changing, and fast. A decades-long crackdown on the Cosa Nostra has borne fruit, and previously no-go areas are now welcoming tourists and new businesses. My father’s family hails from San Cristoforo, the city’s poorest neighbourhood, and our conversations often centre on how the good times are finally arriving in Catania. But price points haven’t yet caught up with the city’s new-found buzz, especially in its many restaurants.

All the poor man wanted was fresh fruit from the tree in front of my flat. I would have needed a heart of stone to refuse him

I couldn’t understand what the food delivery bloke was saying to me. His accent was as heavy as his helmet and his words were getting lost in it. At the flats where I live, you’re never more than five minutes away from a weary rider like this turning up bearing someone’s tea, dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack, whatever. They’re not usually there for me, but it has been known.

As I parked near the entrance, I saw him hand over his goods to a neighbour, but, unusually, he seemed in no hurry to speed off. He stood there looking up at something, before getting back on his moped and making to leave. But then he looked up again, thought better of leaving and got back off his moped. It was then that he came over to me saying words I couldn’t quite catch. He pointed up at the tree we were standing beneath and then I heard him properly, saying: “Please, if I pick cherry, is that OK?”

I didn’t leave the Republican party lightly. I left because it left me

I’m writing this not as a Democrat or an Independent, but as someone who, for most of her life, was a proud Republican.

I voted for Ronald Reagan and admired his belief that “character counts”. I believed in personal responsibility, faith and country – and the Republican party seemed to reflect those values. I even rooted for George W Bush during the chaotic “hanging chads” recount in 2000, not because I thought he was perfect, but because I believed he would lead with decency and conviction.

Paolina Milana is a first-generation Sicilian American with journalistic roots and the author of several books, including the memoirs The S Word and Committed, and most recently, The Caregiver Chronicles

• Striker was upset at way he had captaincy taken off him

• Probierz says his departure is ‘for the good of the team’

Michal Probierz has resigned as Poland’s manager, days after Robert Lewandowski said he would no longer play for the national team under him.

Lewandowski, Poland’s record goalscorer, said his trust had been betrayed and that he was very hurt by the way Probierz told him he was being replaced as the captain. The 36-year-old Barcelona striker said on Monday he received a short call from Probierz as he was putting his children to bed and that a statement about him losing the captaincy appeared soon after on the Polish football association’s website.

Tonys viewership was up 44% this year, reflecting a surge of interest in a format many assumed was on the decline

The annual Tony awards, honoring excellence in American theatre, have never exactly been a TV ratings powerhouse compared to the Oscars or Grammys. Yet the most recent ceremony experienced a surprise surge in viewership, with broadcast viewership up 44% compared to the 2024 installment. It was the largest audience since the last pre-pandemic edition in 2019. That seems to sync up with the record-setting season that the awards were celebrating, where Broadway productions featured a number of movie stars drawing huge crowds (and ticket prices).

Yet apart from George Clooney and a few other familiar faces, it wasn’t a particularly starry Tonys; Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal and Kieran Culkin weren’t nominated, and there wasn’t a single crossover mass-culture powerhouse like Hamilton or The Producers (whose winning telecasts are still the highest-rated of the 21^st century). Moreover, Broadway isn’t alone; the Oscars experienced ratings growth (part of a four-year upward trend), and the left-for-dead Golden Globes have stabilized. This trend goes back nearly a year, to last fall, when MTV’s more specialized Video Music Awards saw an uptick and Emmy viewership jumped up 50% to a three-year high. Awards shows, so often derided as bloated, self-congratulatory ratings ploys, have somehow survived the streaming apocalypse to become broadcast TV’s last stand. (Apart from real sports, of course.)

The civil war transforms a young trainee doctor’s life as she copes with her feelings for a Tamil Tiger in last year’s Women’s prizewinning novel

Brotherless Night opens with 16-year-old Sashi Kulenthiren, who hopes to be a doctor like her eldest brother, making tea when the kettle slips out of her hand, causing her to pour boiling water on herself. When a neighbour, K, hears her screams, he rushes over to help, cracking raw eggs over the scalds to soothe the pain. “So I began as K’s patient though he ended as mine,” Sashi reflects.

Set in 1980s Sri Lanka, VV Ganeshananthan’s coming-of-age novel – which won the 2024 Women’s prize for fiction – is an epic and hard-hitting tale of family and survival as it documents life during the civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority that lasted three decades. Before fighting breaks out, Sashi’s most pressing problem is whether she will pass her exams at school. But soon violence and kidnapping become the norm, communities are left “brotherless” and ordinary citizens are turned into what the outside world calls terrorists.

Communities in the Salaquí basin face deepening food insecurity, armed conflict and the collapse of a way of life – while government schemes ignore the real problem

• Photographs by Antonio Cascio

Riosucio was established between rivers and swamps. For most of the year, the people of this Colombian municipality live above water and have developed ways to manage the fluctuating river levels. A network of makeshift wooden boards connects the houses in the town, allowing people to move between them.

Despite the resilience of these communities, their increasingly harsh environment is beginning to overcome all the methods and systems designed to tame it, causing crop destruction, hunger and deepening poverty.