Activists had called for boycotting the company after it announced a roll back of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts

On Thursday morning, the Rev Al Sharpton met with Brian Cornell, the Target CEO, to discuss the fallout from the company’s decision to walk back its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts earlier this year. The meeting happened in New York at Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) headquarters, and also included the NAN national board chair Dr W Franklyn Richardson and the NAN senior adviser Carra Wallace.

In January, activists in Minnesota called for a boycott of Target following the Minneapolis-based company’s decision to eliminate their DEI initiatives. Though Sharpton, one of the most prominent civil-rights activists in the US, did not directly call for a Target boycott, he supported the efforts of others to boycott, and, prior to the meeting, indicated that he would be open to calling for such an action depending on how the meeting went.

Maybe Ange Postecoglou’s luck has finally turned? Having complained that the football gods were against him last week, Dominic Solanke’s penalty after an intervention from the video assistant referee – another of the Tottenham manager’s pet peeves – was enough to seal ­progress to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

Postecoglou may have regretted his decision to point out back in ^­September after a defeat to ­Arsenal that he “always” wins ­trophies in his ­second year at a club. But after their north London rivals eased past the might of Real Madrid 24 hours ­earlier, Spurs also still have ­something to hang on to in a ­season that has otherwise been filled with disappointment.

Rangers’ resistance lasted for over two hours and then a briefer rebellion brought hope that they could do something truly extraordinary but reaching the semi-final of the Europa League was a step too far. Instead, it is Athletic Club of Bilbao, hosts of this year’s final and still searching for a first continental trophy in their 124-year history, who reach the last four. Barry Ferguson’s side were still standing at the end of a first leg that finished 0-0, despite spending most of the night a man down, and they still hadn’t conceded 48 minutes into the second, but then a penalty finally gave the Basques a breakthrough.

Liam Kelly had been the hero seven days ago, saving from the spot; here though he could not stop Oihan Sancet’s shot. Rangers still might have been revived when Nicolas Raskin hit the post, but in the end Athletic were too good, racking up 21 shots here, 40 over the two legs, until the 41st was headed in by Nico Williams, the nerves finally gone at San Mamés, the stadium they call the Cathedral, and replaced by songs of praise.

Enzo Maresca is still not feeling the love. This was another uneven performance from Chelsea, who at times seemed intent on raising Legia Warsaw’s hopes of a comeback for the ages, and few at Stamford Bridge seemed minded to celebrate their side securing a Conference League semi-final.

It was not supposed to be this difficult. Legia were 2-1 winners on the night and there were times when Chelsea, who went through 4-2 on aggregate, toyed with humiliation. Filip Jörgensen, Robert Sánchez’s understudy, was jittery in goal and the worries for Maresca extended to Palmer failing to take an opportunity to end his barren run against meagre opposition. Palmer, who has gone 15 games without a goal, cut a frustrated figure in the final third. He was not alone.

Environmentalists warn new proposal from US wildlife agencies could lead to habitat destruction and extinction

The Trump administration is planning to narrow protections for endangered species, in a move that environmentalists say would accelerate extinction by opening up critical habitats for development, logging, mining and other uses.

The proposal is the latest deregulatory effort by Donald Trump, who has made it a priority to dismantle endangered species protections as part of a broader quest to boost energy extraction and industrial access, even in the US’s most sensitive and vulnerable natural areas.

Streaming firm reported a $10.54bn revenue in first quarter, though analysts say consumers could reconsider spending

Netflix exceeded Wall Street expectations for quarterly results and offered a bullish revenue outlook on Thursday, signaling confidence amid the economic uncertainty surrounding Donald Trump’s erratic tariff plans.

Netflix reported revenue of $10.54bn for the first quarter, edging past analysts’ estimates of $10.52bn, according to data compiled by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Shares of the company were roughly flat in after-hours trading at $970.10.

Toddler had wandered from his home in to mountain lion territory when Buford, out on his nightly patrol, found him

A two-year-old boy who spent a night alone in the Arizona wilderness was led to safety by a rancher’s dog and was recovering safely at home with his family on Thursday.

The toddler, identified as Boden Allen, disappeared from his home in Seligman, Arizona, at around 5pm local time on Monday, about 100 miles south of the Grand Canyon national park, prompting a large search operation. He was wearing just a blue tank top and pajama pants at the time, the Yavapai county sheriff’s office said in a missing person notice.

The actor will return for a follow-up series on Peacock rejoining the life of Cher Horowitz from the hit 1995 comedy

Alicia Silverstone will play Cher Horowitz once again in a new TV series follow-up to the hit 1995 comedy Clueless.

The 48-year-old actor has been set as star and executive producer of an episodic sequel at Peacock. The show will be written and produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, best known for Gossip Girl.

Wednesday’s outage the latest in series of blackouts to affect Puerto Rico in wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017

About 58% of Puerto Rico has has had power restored following an island-wide blackout on Wednesday, the government of Puerto Rico federal affairs administration said on Thursday.

It added that current generation stands at 1,439MW. A total of 31 generation units are online, with 16 additional units in the process of being brought back online, it said.

Two people injured after man took control of plane at knifepoint before being shot by another passenger

A US man has been shot dead after hijacking a small passenger plane and injuring two passengers in the Caribbean nation of Belize.

Fourteen passengers were onboard the aircraft when the hijacker, identified as Akinyela Sawa Taylor, took control of the flight at knifepoint. Two passengers were injured, including one who was stabbed in the back.

• Europa League updates, 8pm BST kick-off (first leg: 1-1)
• Live scores | Football Daily | Get in touch! Email Michael

The teams are out! The stadium is absolutely bouncing. Frankfurt in their all-white home shirt. Tottenham are in their slime green away kit.

It’s over eight years since we wrote this 2017 piece.

• Europa League updates, 8pm BST kick-off (first leg: 2-2)
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | And email Scott

2 min: A little smoke from the pre-match pyro party still floating about. A couple of early touches for Onana. Casemiro has the opportunity to send Dorgu into space down the left but overcooks the pass and clanks it out for a throw.

A blast of John Denver, then Lyon get the ball rolling, with the aggregate score 2-2 after the first leg. The hosts are kicking towards the Stretford End in this first half.

Police took in suspect Phoenix Ikner, 20, a Florida State University student and son of a sheriff’s deputy

Two people were killed in a mass shooting at Florida State University (FSU) campus on Thursday, and six others were injured, police said.

The 20-year-old suspect is a student and the son of a sheriff’s deputy who had access to one of her weapons, a handgun, which was found at the scene, Sheriff Walt McNeil said at a news conference.

• Quarterback insists he’s not holding teams hostage
• Rodgers, 41, was released by New York Jets last month

Aaron Rodgers isn’t in a hurry: not to retire, not to return and not to sign with another team.

The 41-year-old quarterback, released by the New York Jets last month, said Thursday he’s not ready to make a commitment for the upcoming NFL season. Appearing on the Pat McAfee Show, the four-time MVP stressed that his current focus is on matters off the field, including a serious relationship and close friends facing personal challenges.

Allegations of criminality have always been deployed to justify state violence but even ‘imperfect’ victims deserve basic rights

• US politics live – latest updates

Last month, the Trump administration flew 238 Venezuelan immigrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Federal officials alleged that the detainees were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, calling them “heinous monsters” ,“criminal aliens”, “the worst of the worst”. The federal government has also revoked visas for a thousand international students over their alleged participation in protests against Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Some were abducted, like Mahmoud Khalil, who has spent more than a month incarcerated in one of the worst jails in the US. Officials alleged that Mahmoud “sided with terrorists … who have killed innocent men, women, and children”.

Media reports quickly revealed that the Trump administration is lying about “innocent” people to justify abducting them. But this raises a more important question: if Trump’s victims weren’t “innocent”, does that make them disposable? I worry that emphasizing the innocence of victims creates a rhetorical trap. It’s like carefully digging a pit that the fascists can shove us into.

Company behind Truth Social accuses London-based hedge fund Qube of alleged ‘suspicious trading activity’

Donald Trump’s fledgling media firm has urged market regulators to investigate “suspicious activity” after a London-based hedge fund disclosed a vast bet against its stock.

Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the US president’s Truth Social platform, raised questions over trading by Qube Research & Technologies.

Scientists sound the alarm over substances such as arsenic and lead contaminating soils and entering food systems

About one sixth of global cropland is contaminated by toxic heavy metals, researchers have estimated, with as many as 1.4 billion people living in high-risk areas worldwide.

Approximately 14 to 17% of cropland globally – roughly 242m hectares – is contaminated by at least one toxic metal such as arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel or lead, at levels that exceed agricultural and human health safety thresholds.

One person seriously injured after accident at Monte Faito near Naples

Four people have died and one is seriously injured after a cable car crashed to the ground near Naples in southern Italy on Thursday.

A cable broke on the link taking tourists from the town of Castellammare di Stabia, on the Gulf of Naples, to Monte Faito, about three kilometres(1.8 miles) away.

• Serena Williams calls out hypocrisy of Sinner ban
• Williams says ‘I would have gotten 20 years’ if caught
• World No 1 Sinner twice tested positive for clostebol

Serena Williams says she would have been hit with a 20-year ban if she had failed drug tests like men’s world No 1 Jannik Sinner, who received a three-month suspension in February.

“I love the guy, love this game,” Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam winner, told Time magazine this week after being named one of its 100 most influential people. “He’s great for the sport. I’ve been put down so much, I don’t want to bring anyone down. Men’s tennis needs him.

• F1 world champion finished sixth in last race in Bahrain
• ‘I’m happy, I’m just not very happy with our car’

Max Verstappen played down concerns that he may leave Red Bull after the world champion was left frustrated and disappointed at the last round in Bahrain but reiterated that he was unhappy with the car and that as things stand it will be hard to defend his title this season.

Verstappen finished sixth in ­Bahrain, unable to make any impression against the frontrunners McLaren, Mercedes and ­Ferrari. The car struggles with balance problems and is proving a handful to drive, with the team identifying a disconnect between their data from the wind tunnel and its real-world performance.

Abolishing tariffs would be welcome, but not at the price of reducing high regulatory standards or a reset with the European Union

Looked at objectively, a bilateral trade agreement between Britain and the United States is of relatively small economic significance to this country. Back in 2020, Boris Johnson’s government estimated that a US deal “could increase UK GDP in the long run by around 0.07%” – a figure that is not exactly transformative. The view touted by some Brexiters that a US trade deal would fire up the entire British economy was always a fantasy, the product of deregulatory yearning for which there was little public support, even among leave voters. Any urge of that kind is clearly even more delusional now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff wars.

Hopefully, the right’s across-the-board deregulatory horror is now a thing of the past. But global trade has new traumas too. Mr Trump’s protectionism and bullying of US rivals are resetting the terms. There are nevertheless specific reasons why it is in Britain’s interest to pursue freer trade talks with the US. Chief among these is the threat posed by current tariffs, especially on cars and pharmaceuticals, as well as the prospect that a 10% tariff will be reimposed on all UK exports to the US after the current pause ends in July.

• Irish trainer set to have multiple Easter runners in UK
• Charlotte’s Web best bet on all-weather finals card

A single winner on Cheltenham’s final card of the season was enough to maintain Dan Skelton’s narrow lead in the contest for the National Hunt trainers’ championship on Thursday, ahead of a busy Easter programme weekend when Skelton and the defending champion, Willie Mullins, will send dozens of runners to tracks in all parts of the country as the title race goes into its final week.

Mullins, who was the first Irish trainer to win the British championship for 70 years when he edged out Skelton 12 months ago, equalled his own record of 10 wins at the track’s festival meeting last month.

Pope’s surprise public outings after serious illness show he is saying ‘I’m here, and I’m in charge’, a Vatican expert says

Lorena Araujo Piñeiro was putting the finishing touches to the restoration of the 17th-century tomb of Pope Urban VIII, a dark bronze and gold monument in St Peter’s Basilica, when she noticed a man wearing a striped poncho-like top, black trousers and no shoes, being pushed in a wheelchair towards her.

“It was around noon and the basilica was practically empty,” said Piñeiro, a restorer. “I struggled to recognise who it was … I thought he was a simple pilgrim. It was as if he’d just got out of bed.”

Missiles hit encampments for displaced Palestinians as talks on response to Israel truce offer ‘almost complete’

A wave of Israeli airstrikes on encampments for displaced Palestinians has killed at least 40 people across Gaza, as Hamas officials said consultations on response to Israel truce offer “almost complete”.

Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded.

Officials promise to track down and prosecute those who ‘tag’ city’s historic monuments, statues and grand buildings

In Paris’s central Place de la République, the magnificent lions at the feet of the statue of Marianne are once again covered in graffiti.

Along the nearby Boulevard Saint-Martin – part of the Grands Boulevards that bisect the north of the city – the trunk of every plane tree has been crudely sprayed with a name.

Federal judge deals blow to tech giant and paves way for government to break up company’s advertising products

Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.

The US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory. Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.

Aix-Marseille University generates interest amid a US crackdown and calls for a ‘scientific refugee’ status

Nearly 300 academics have applied to a French university’s offer to take in US-based researchers rattled by the American government’s crackdown on academia, as a former French president called for the creation of a “scientific refugee” status for academics in peril.

Earlier this year, France’s Aix-Marseille University was among the first in Europe to respond to the funding freezes, cuts and executive orders unleashed on institutions across the US by Donald Trump’s administration.

Probably illegal move against US’s richest university is latest in Trump’s attack on independence of higher education

• US politics live – latest updates

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status in what would be a probably illegal move amid Donald Trump’s concerted attack on the independence of US institutions of higher education.

Trump on Tuesday called for Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university and one of the most prestigious in the world, to lose its tax-exempt status, CNN first reported.

Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods

One afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.

Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisis called climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view.

As the first climate summit in the Amazon approaches, a gulf is opening between what the area’s farming lobby wants, and what the world needs

• Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again
• The life and death of a ‘laundered’ cow in the Amazon rainforest

Yellowstone in Montana may have the most romanticised cowboy culture in the world thanks to the TV drama series of the same name starring Kevin Costner. But the true home of the 21st-century cowboy is about 7,500 miles south, in what used to be the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, where the reality of raising cattle and producing beef is better characterised by depression, market pressure and vexed efforts to prevent the destruction of the land and its people.

The toll was apparent along the rutted PA 279 road in Pará state. Signs of human and environmental stress were not hard to find during the last dry season. Record drought had dried up irrigation ponds and burned pasture grass down to the roots, leaving emaciated cattle behind the fences. Exposed red soil was whipped up into dust devils as SUVs and cattle trucks sped past on their way between Xinguara and São Félix do Xingu, which is home to both the biggest herd on the planet and the fastest erasure of forest in the Amazon.

Equalities watchdog chair says code of practice will give clarity and adds trans people’s rights ‘must be respected’

Updated guidance for public bodies after the UK supreme court’s ruling that a woman is defined in law by biological sex is expected to be issued by the summer, the head of the equalities regulator said on Thursday.

Lady Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, described the ruling as “enormously consequential”, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are going to have a new statutory code of practice, statutory meaning it will be the law of the land, it will be interpreted by courts as the law of the land. We’re hoping we’re going to have that by the summer.”

The pivotal ‘barbarian conspiracy’ of AD367 saw Picts, Scotti and Saxons inflicting crushing blows on Roman defences

A series of exceptionally dry summers that caused famine and social breakdown were behind one of the most severe threats to Roman rule of Britain, according to new academic research.

The rebellion, known as the “barbarian conspiracy”, was a pivotal moment in Roman Britain. Picts, Scotti and Saxons took advantage of Britain’s descent into anarchy to inflict crushing blows on weakened Roman defences in the spring and summer of AD367.

The president’s penchant for the gaudy has been mocked but the menace beneath was clear when he met El Salvador’s leader

The Oval Office meeting of Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele on Monday was a grotesque spectacle. Both men, elected to lead nominally democratic countries, have described themselves as dictators, and they exuded that sense of smug impunity. While reporters sought answers on the fate of Kilmar Ábrego García, a 29-year-old father of three who was wrongly deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot mega-prison, Trump and Bukele disclaimed responsibility, joked about further deportations, and engaged in casual slander of Ábrego García, who is not, and has never been alleged to be, a terrorist.

And then there was the gold. So much gold.

British Transport Police amends policy in light of supreme court’s landmark ruling on definition of a woman

Trans women arrested on Britain’s railways will in future be strip-searched by male officers in an updated policy after a landmark ruling by the supreme court.

The British Transport Police said same-sex searches in custody would be conducted “in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee” under updated guidance for public bodies.

Actor to follow Oscar-nominated role in Emilia Pérez with Italian drama described as ‘perturbing, livid and hypnotic’, co-starring Vincent Gallo

Karla Sofía Gascón, the actor who made history earlier this year as the first trans performer to be nominated for an acting Oscar, has signalled her next project.

Gascón, whose hopes of securing the leading actress award (which eventually went to Anora’s Mikey Madison) were dashed after offensive social media posts were unearthed, will star as a psychiatrist who “embodies God and the devil” in Italian drama The Life Lift, reports Variety.

From bloomer-adjacent designs to full-on flounce, you’ll find ​this subversive undergarment everywhere this spring

We’ve had exposed thongs, pants as pants and boxer shorts as shorts. But now there is a new, arguably even more unexpected underwear as outerwear trend. Welcome to the spring of big, frilly bloomers.

The 19th century undergarment has been thrust into the 21st century spotlight with a string of celebrities and influencers channelling their inner Folie Bergere dancer - including the actor Lily James, Alexa Chung and Camille Charrière. Social media is peppered with gen Z and millennials styling Victorian bloomers, found on vintage sites or on the high street with band T-shirts, crop tops and cardigans. Free People’s £88 “forever young pants”, which come in six different colours and are bedecked in a dramatic lace trim, are proving particularly popular.

French weekly published pictures of Pelicot with a man, described as her ‘companion’, walking in the street

Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a decade of rapes by dozens of men, will sue Paris Match magazine for invasion of privacy, her lawyers said on Thursday.

In its latest edition, Paris Match published seven pictures of Pelicot accompanied by a man described as her companion walking in the streets in her new home town.

Elected leaders from across Europe should join us on the streets. It is critical to democracy – in Hungary, and the EU as a whole

Hungary’s parliament has given Viktor Orbán the tools to do what he has long threatened: ban Pride, silence dissent and strip political critics of their citizenship. A constitutional amendment passed on 14 April allows the government to label LGBTQ+ gatherings a threat to children and to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals deemed a risk to “national sovereignty”.

This is a purge disguised as law – another step in Orbán’s dismantling of democracy, where the constitution is degraded to a propaganda instrument. He calls it a “spring clean-up” to root out “bugs”, targeting LGBTQ+ people, journalists, critics, civil society and now, dual nationals. As one myself, I could be among the targets.

Katalin Cseh is a member of the Hungarian national assembly for the Momentum Movement and a former MEP

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Democrats press Trump administration to follow supreme court order to bring back Kilmar Ábrego García

• Who is Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador?

Cory Booker plans to travel to El Salvador, a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident.

Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday denied Van Hollen a meeting with the deportee.

Why is the great performance artist making pianist Levit play a Satie piece 840 times? And does he really have a screen to go behind should nature call? We enter another level of time and consciousness

Amid the experiments and cross-genre collaborations in this year’s Multitudes festival is one event that will challenge its performer as much as its audience – and the only one where specially appointed brow-moppers will be on hand. At 10am on 24 April in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, pianist Igor Levit will begin a performance of a single piece, Erik Satie’s Vexations, in a concert that will last at least 16 hours.

A few tickets (for the full duration or one-hour slots) are still available for this extreme pianist endurance event. What should the audience expect to get out of it? “I’d never tell an audience what they should experience,” says Levit. “But I would encourage people to just literally let it go. There is no agenda in this piece. There is no meaning to it. It’s just empty space, so just dive into that and let go. That would be the dream.”