Visiting delegation find ‘hostile atmosphere’ for LGBTQ+ people and say country heading in ‘wrong direction’

A delegation of EU lawmakers visiting Hungary has called on Europe’s top court to suspend a new law banning Budapest Pride, as they criticised a “very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ people in the country and urged a return to “real democracy”.

Tineke Strik, a Dutch Green politician who led a cross-party group of MEPs to investigate democratic standards in Hungary, said developments were going “rapidly in the wrong direction”.

A young Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the heaviest invertebrate on earth, was filmed in the Atlantic Ocean

The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time since it was identified a century ago.

Growing up to 23ft (seven metres) long and weighing up to half a tonne, the squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, is the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. The individual captured on film near the South Sandwich Islands, in the south Atlantic Ocean, is a baby, at just 11.8in (30cm) in length.

Socializing can be hard, especially starting a conversation with a stranger – here are some tips from experts

Humans are social creatures – we live in groups, rely on others to survive and gossip at parties. But socializing can be hard, even for social creatures. Especially the first part: starting a conversation.

“It can feel daunting to go up to a stranger and start a conversation because in some instances, we are not sure how we will be received,” says Elaine Swann, a lifestyle and etiquette expert, and founder of the Swann School of Protocol. Will the other person be friendly or standoffish? Will they try to pull you into a multilevel marketing scheme? Will it simply be awkward?

How to start meditating

How to start weightlifting

How to start budgeting

How to start running

Joshua Sullivan was abducted from his church by four gunmen, but is now recovering and in ‘excellent condition’

South African police have rescued an American pastor who was abducted last week while he was conducting a sermon, as kidnappings have soared over the last decade in the country.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during the “high-intensity shootout” on Tuesday in which Joshua Sullivan, a missionary from Tennessee, was rescued, the Hawks, the police unit that deals with serious crime in South Africa, said in a statement.

He was a gin-swilling Scottish-Italian heroin addict who set Argentina’s music scene ablaze – baffling the junta, who would arrest his audiences. As a biopic looms, we look at the fast life and early death of the frontman still worshipped today

In 1980, a tall, thin man landed in Buenos Aires airport, at the height of Argentina’s military dictatorship. His name was Luca Prodan, a Scottish-Italian rocker, and he had just finished the last of his methadone on the flight over. His arrival would soon send shockwaves through Argentina when he started a band called Sumo, acquainted the country with post-punk, and became a national legend who lives on, his music still earning hundreds of millions of streams. “When I saw Sumo in 1982,” says Prodan’s younger brother Andrea, “I thought, ‘This is more than just a band. This is like the Velvet Underground.’”

But, despite Prodan’s strong ties to Europe and his high esteem in Argentina, he is barely known outside of the country. That looks set to change – thanks to a forthcoming biopic called Time Fate Love, produced by Birdman co-writer Armando Bo. “Luca changed music history,” Bo says. “Here, he’s a god.”

Heist took place at Love Jewels in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday after thieves bore through levels of concrete

Burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to gain access to a Los Angeles jewelry store, making off with at least $10m worth of watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise, police said.

The heist happened around 9.30pm on Sunday at Love Jewels on Broadway in the heart of downtown, according to officer David Cuellar with the LA police department.

Authorities say suspect had a ‘lust’ for killing and used drugs to paralyse the respiratory muscles of victims

Prosecutors have charged a Berlin palliative care doctor with the murder of 15 patients, alleging he acted out of a “lust” for killing.

The 40-year-old suspect is accused of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 using a deadly cocktail of sedatives. German press reports identified the suspect as Johannes M, but prosecutors have not released a name.

Upheaval follows decision to shift timing of first debate over fears of clash with Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game

Canada’s Green party has been removed from the country’s two election debates amid accusations it would “undermine the integrity” of the events, just hours before leaders square off in Montreal.

The last-minute upheaval follows a decision to shift the timing of the first televised debate on Wednesday evening over fears the French language showdown would clash with a closely watched Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game.

Japanese-led team grow 11g chunk of chicken – and say product could be on market in five- to 10 years

Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in lab-grown meat after producing nugget-sized chunks of chicken in a device that mimics the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system.

The approach uses fine hollow fibres to deliver oxygen and nutrients to chicken muscle cells suspended in a gel, an advance that allowed scientists to grow lumps of meat up to 2cm long and 1cm thick.

Audio streaming app says it is rolling out an update, after users reported glitches with downloads and searches

Tens of thousands of Spotify users around the world have reported being unable to stream music on the app.

Downdetector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 48,000 outage reports for Spotify worldwide on Wednesday afternoon.

As tariffs raise the price of consoles, is it time for gamers to reevaluate our relationship with new releases?

Now is not a good time to buy a new games console.

The shock waves from Donald Trump’s will-he-won’t-he approach to trade tariffs were always going to hit video games, an industry that relies on incredibly complex global supply chains. On Monday, Nikkei Asia reported on analysis from a major electronics supplier suggesting that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be subject to Trump’s 145% tariff on goods imported to the US from China, despite his apparent decision to exempt smartphones and computers.

UK schools are coming under pressure to remove titles from their shelves. It’s not coming from the place you might think

For all its talk of free speech, the Trump administration seems remarkably comfortable with censorship. Earlier this year, children studying at Pentagon schools (serving US military families) were prevented from accessing libraries for a week while officials reviewed their shelves for titles that might be “related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. Trump’s presidency has injected new energy into the book-banning movement that has been simmering for years on the US right. You might think that censoring school libraries would be totally unimaginable in Britain. You’d be wrong.

I worked as a librarian for 10 years, and now I teach on the library and information studies master’s programme at UCL. After the pandemic, I began noticing signs of an eerily similar trend. It erupted in the spring of 2022, when a Catholic school in Croydon invited Simon James Green, a prominent gay children’s author, to give a talk. The US anti-LGBT website Catholic Truth ran a campaign encouraging readers to contact the school and protest against the event (one reader said, somewhat implausibly, that Green’s visit to the school was “100% as much of an issue as the ongoing war in Ukraine”). The commission responsible for the school released a statement suggesting the event should be cancelled, teachers went on strike, and the story reached the national press.

Alison Hicks is a lecturer in library and information studies at UCL

• Manchester United goalkeeper back in goal on Thursday
• ‘We need to improve every position. Keeper is the same’

Ruben Amorim will reinstate André Onana for Manchester United’s Europa League quarter-final second leg against Lyon but admits a new goalkeeper may be signed in the summer because “every position” will be evaluated.

Amorim rested Onana and selected Altay Bayindir for Sunday’s 4-1 defeat by Newcastle at St James’ Park after the Cameroonian was culpable for Lyon’s goals in last week’s 2-2 draw in the opening leg. However, the head coach will start Onana in Thursday’s return at Old Trafford as United seek to progress to a semi-final against Rangers or Athletic Bilbao.

• Ju beats Tan 6½–2½ to claim fifth world chess title
• 34-year-old Chinese grandmaster wins €300,000

Ju Wenjun has once again proven herself the undisputed queen of the chessboard.

On Wednesday in Chongqing, the 34-year-old Chinese grandmaster clinched the 2025 Fide Women’s World Championship, defeating compatriot and longtime rival Tan Zhongyi by a commanding score of 6½–2½. With the victory, Ju becomes only the fourth woman in history to win the title five times, joining a storied class that includes Vera Menchik, Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze.

President doubles down on cutting public funding for leading US university in fresh social media rant

US attorney general Pam Bondi on Wednesday unveiled legal action against Maine, in an escalation of Donald Trump’s conflict with the state for refusing to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

Reuters reports that the lawsuit comes five days after the administration tried to cut off all of Maine’s federal funding for public schools and its school lunch program over the issue, following a 21 February meeting of Trump and a group of US governors where he clashed with Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills.

Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams. Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds.

It was a compelling meeting. And toward the end, we actually came up with – I’m going to say ‘finally,’ but I don’t mean it in the way that we were waiting, I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place – what Putin’s request is to get, to have a permanent peace here.

Verónica Abad claims Daniel Noboa, her former running mate, used state power to tilt the vote

Ecuador’s vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused the country’s president – her former running mate Daniel Noboa – of “violating the democratic code” by using the state apparatus to gain an advantage over the other candidates in the country’s runoff election.

In Sunday’s vote, the rightwing incumbent defeated the leftist Luisa González by a considerable margin after narrowly beating her in the first round.

Although Abad said she did not support the opposition’s claim that electoral fraud occurred during the vote, she argued that the election was unfair because Noboa refused to step down from office while running – as required by the constitution.

As a new book skewers Spotify’s effect on music, two Guardian music writers spent a week assessing the limits of living with and without it

Laura Snapes, deputy music editor I was set the task of not listening to Spotify for a week, but Alexis, your task was much worse: only listening to Spotify-created playlists, and the songs it suggested to you based on your listening history. How did that go?

Alexis Petridis, chief rock and pop critic One day in the car I just listened to nothing instead of facing it again. When it plays me songs I like, it’s not what I want to hear at that moment. That’s not to say the music it was recommending wasn’t good. One morning it played Schizophrenia by Sonic Youth. I love that song but I didn’t want to hear it then. It played me Billie Holiday’s Riffin’ the Scotch followed by My Bloody Valentine, which clearly demonstrates the great breadth of my music taste – but just because I like it all doesn’t mean I want to hear it all together. I didn’t like that it was untouched by human hands. I always think that the amazing thing about a record collection is that it doesn’t make sense to anybody other than you. And yet when it’s presented like that, I find it really jarring and difficult – it’s all over the place.

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

World Trade Organization says trade between US and China is expected to plunge by 81% in ‘decoupling’

Donald Trump’s tariffs will send international trade into reverse this year, depressing global economic growth, the World Trade Organization has warned.

In its latest snapshot of the global trading system, the Geneva-based institution says it had previously expected goods trade to expand by a healthy 2.7% this year. As a result of Washington’s trade policy, it is now forecasting a 0.2% decline.

Three arrests were made as Maga representative’s meeting was repeatedly interrupted by protesters

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Police used a stun gun on two people, and arrested three attenders overall, at a town hall meeting hosted by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday.

Protesters repeatedly interrupted Greene during a town hall in Acworth, which is about 30 minutes outside Atlanta. One man, Andrew Russell Nelms, began booing Greene almost as soon as she began speaking, and was dragged out of the room by police officers, who used a stun gun on him, according to the New York Times.

Class action argues US tech firm charged more for advertising on its preinstalled apps than it could in fair market

Google is being sued in the UK for up to £5bn in damages over allegations it shut out rivals in the internet search market and abused this dominance to overcharge businesses for advertisements.

A class action filed at the competition appeal tribunal on Wednesday argues that the US company has taken actions that enable it to charge higher prices for the promotions that appear in search queries than it otherwise could in a fair market.

It is alleged that Google, which is owned by Alphabet, contracted phone makers to pre-install the Google search app and Chrome browser on Android devices and paid Apple to make it the default search engine on iPhones, with the intention of shutting out competition.

The claim is filed by a competition law expert, Or Brook, on behalf of thousands of businesses and alleges Google ensured its search engine had better functionality and more features for Google’s own advertising offering than that of its competitors.

A Google spokesperson said: “This is yet another speculative and opportunistic case and we will argue against it vigorously. Consumers and advertisers use Google because it is helpful, not because there are no alternatives.”

World Central Kitchen mobile bakery’s production limited by flour shortage as result of Israel’s blockade

Palestinians witnessed a large white trailer being laboriously towed through the bomb-pitted roads of southern Gaza by a red tractor earlier this month, though it is unclear how many realised it was one of their last humanitarian lifelines in the face of a total Israeli blockade.

The trailer contained Gaza’s last working bakery, forced by Israeli evacuation orders to move around the territory so it can keep functioning. Aid workers say the amount of bread it can produce is only a fraction of the needs of the people of Gaza.

Judges say Equality Act definition excludes transgender women, after gender-critical campaigners’ challenge

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in a victory for gender-critical campaigners.

Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

Donald Trump’s budget could gut Medicaid, cut food assistance for millions and lead to 40,000 kids losing childcare

Women and children are under threat in America.

Jocelyn Smith of Roswell, New Mexico, knows this too well. “I’m disabled, taking care of my disabled daughter. I work, and I volunteer to help feed and house my community,” she told me. “Yet I need assistance affording meals for my family. Something is broken.”

Karen Dolan is a federal safety net expert and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

‘Their lives were getting harder, even with help. They did not want to go to a nursing home and neither wanted to live without the other. So they left this life together’

This is a photo of my parents right after their deaths, in Assen, the Netherlands, on 1 May 2024. My father Klaas Roemers was 90, my mother Fenny Roemers-Visser was 86.

They had a good life and a very happy marriage, but the last years were difficult. They were both sick and exhausted. Both had heart failure, my mother had a lot of pain. Both were in a really bad shape. They still lived in their own house but life was getting harder and harder, even with help. They did not want to go to a nursing home and neither wanted to live without the other – they wanted to step out of life together. They were afraid one would die naturally and the other would be left behind. They were very close, and did everything together, really everything – so it made sense they would leave this life together.

Pierre Poilievre had hoped to be the next PM, but a sharp change in mood amid Trump tariffs has the party in turmoil

When the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, finally emerged from a holding room, excited shouts erupted in a tsunami-like wave throughout the banquet hall. Party faithful – some in the ill-fitting free T-shirts handed out by staffers – craned their necks for a glimpse of the man they hoped will be the next Canadian prime minister.

Hair perfectly parted and clad in his standard-issue crisp blue suit, Poilievre embraced the first supporter, a gesture that appeared to leave her overjoyed. Another supporter, wearing a red “Save Canada” shirt, was crestfallen when Poilievre seemed to miss him, before the leader turned and gripped the man’s hand in a firm shake.

Opposition leader also says ‘I’ll let scientists pass that judgment’ when asked if climate change impacts getting worse in second showdown

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Peter Dutton has admitted he made a mistake by wrongly claiming the Indonesian president had announced a proposal for Russia to base military aircraft in Indonesia, and declined to state whether the impacts of climate change were getting worse.

The opposition leader has also confirmed his plan to reduce the size of the federal public service by 41,000 positions by 2030 would not pay for the entirety of the Coalition’s policy platform, suggesting further cuts to government spending may be necessary.

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• French tennis player suggests Dove ‘collab’ on Instagram
• Dart apologises for telling umpire Boisson ‘smells bad’

French tennis player Lois Boisson has responded to Harriet Dart’s on-court claim that “she smells really bad” with a social media post that pokes fun at the incident.

During a change of ends in Tuesday’s match at the Rouen Open, Dart asked the umpire: “Can you tell her [Boisson] to wear deodorant because she smells really bad?” Her comments were picked up by a courtside microphone and quickly attracted attention and criticism on social media.

DNA study estimates brown bear population at 13,000 as minister promises law to make it easier to put them down

Romania may be home to as many as 13,000 brown bears, almost twice as many as previously thought, the country’s forestry research institute has said, as officials promised new laws to allow communities to deal with “crisis bear situations”.

The institute’s study of 25 counties in the Carpathian mountains was the first to use DNA samples from material such as faeces and hair. Previous estimates based on prints and sightings put the bear population at fewer than 8,000.

From northern soul to rugby league beef, here’s what I learned while writing We Were There

Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I’m Lanre Bakare and I usually cover arts and culture for the Guardian, but I’m taking over the newsletter this week to tell you about my new book, We Were There, a cultural history of Black Britain.

It’s set between 1979 and 1990, covering the rise and premiership of Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s first female prime minister, whose divisive but transformative remodelling of Britain is still felt today – and within that political upheaval, race dominated the headlines. But it was also a time when modern Black British culture was forged. I’ll talk you through five things I learned from my research.

Arakawa was shown to have been researching medical conditions related to Covid-19 and flu and police bodycam footage from inside the couple’s home released

Authorities on Tuesday released a lengthy investigation report detailing some of the last emails, phone calls and internet searches by Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa in the days before her death, indicating that she was scouring for information on flu-like symptoms and breathing techniques.

Arakawa died in February of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – a rare, rodent-borne disease that can led to a range of symptoms that include flu-like illness, headaches, dizziness and severe respiratory distress, investigators said. Hackman is believed to have died about a week later of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Pop the Balloon or Find Love is a YouTube sensation – but in a mainstream form, it’s terrible. Why does this keep happening?

If you threw Blind Date, the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan and the auction block into a blender, what you’d get is Pop the Balloon or Find Love, a weekly hour-long Black dating show on YouTube.

The show was created by Arlette Amuli, an African American of Congolese origins, and her husband, Bolia “BM” Matundu, a Black Brit also of Congolese descent (he had a previous life as a UK rapper and then as a Ndombolo musician). It has become an international sensation in an age where our fried attention spans have us addicted to short videos. The format is minimalist to the point of brilliance: each week, a line of eight or so balloon-clutching love hunters line up to court and be courted by a singleton of the opposite sex they have never met before.

Nels Abbey is an author, broadcaster and the founder of Uppity: the Intellectual Playground

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Mark Langdon and Lars Sivertsen as Aston Villa go out swinging in the Champions League

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

On the podcast today; so close for Aston Villa. At 2-0 down on the night and 5-1 on aggregate it all looked over before they rallied thanks to goals from Youri Tielemans, John McGinn and Ezri Konsa. Marcus Rashford played brilliantly and in the final 30 minutes the hosts had chances to take it to extra-time.

Experts warn that a specific brand of Christianity will be prioritized and lead to a ‘further dismantling’ of institutions

The Trump administration’s promotion of white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers to key government roles will lead to the “further dismantling of government institutions” and the chilling of free speech, experts have warned.

Donald Trump announced the creation of an “anti-Christian bias” taskforce and a White House Faith Office (WHFO) in February, saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias”.

Signs of discontent are appearing as the podcaster’s friends turn against him and Elon Musk. How long before he changes his mind?

Sam Harris is the kind of guest Joe Rogan loves to have on his podcast: he dresses awkwardly in a sport coat with jeans; he undertook a PhD in neuroscience after a transformative experience with MDMA; his tone is accessible yet patronising; he has a sense of academic authority which belies a set of controversial views that include calling Islam “uniquely uncivil” and almost unfettered support for Israeli attacks on Gaza; he made an app called Waking Up, which promises to be “a new operating system for your mind”. Rogan has hosted Harris on his podcast many times and the pair call each other good friends.

But even Harris seems perturbed by Rogan’s more wholehearted embrace of Musk and Maga. “He’s in over his head on so many topics of great consequence,” Harris told his listeners of his own podcast last week. “He’ll bring someone in to shoot the shit on ‘how the Holocaust is not what you think it was’ or ‘maybe Churchill was the bad guy in world war two’ … or he’ll talk to someone like Trump or Tucker Carlson, who lie as freely as they breathe, and doesn’t push back against any of their lies … It is irresponsible, and it’s directly harmful.”

Some aren’t even fraud but rather known attempts by states to protect victims of identity theft, former top official says

In a series of late-night posts on X last week, Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” revealed the seemingly startling findings of their “initial survey” into unemployment benefits.

They cited examples of claimants who were deceased, between one and five years old, or not born yet. They even cited one case of someone with a listed birthday in 2154 allegedly claiming $41,000.

This queen of hors d’oeuvres is enjoying a bit of a renaissance right now, so here’s how to make this comeback canapé in nine simple steps

The deliciously fussy-looking devilled egg and its pal, the vol-au-vent, were the ghosts of parties past for several decades before their triumphant revival as retro classics. Not only do these old-fashioned canapés look and taste great, but, as we’re belatedly remembering, the boiled egg, in particular, is a nutritional powerhouse far superior to a mere bowl of crisps. Make up to a day ahead, if necessary.

Prep 15 min
Cook 12 min
Makes 8

This three-part documentary about the attempt to steal hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of diamonds is pacey and stylish – but it definitely didn’t need to glamorise the real-life violence

I suppose the wonder is that it has taken Guy Ritchie so long to get around to telling the story of the Millennium Dome robbery, in which – way back at the turn of the century, children – a group of south-east London criminals ram-raided a national joke in pursuit of the 203-carat Millennium Star diamond worth £200m, which De Beers had unaccountably agreed to display in the capital’s gangster heartland.

Strictly speaking, Richie himself is not telling it; the three-part documentary The Diamond Heist comes from Oscar and Emmy award-winning company Lightbox and is executive produced by Ritchie. But the subject matter is so perfectly him that any meaningful separation in your mind as you watch it collapses quicker than a Greenwich exhibition venue’s shutters under the weight of a JCB driven at speed by a man intent on a multimillion pound payday.

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Albanese says Labor didn’t commission modelling on negative gearing

Anthony Albanese said Peter Dutton’s suggestion that the housing crisis is something that developed in the last two years is “nonsense”.

Everyone watching this program knows that this has been developing for a long period of time. We have not had enough homes been built. The former government did not bother to have a housing minister for half the time they were in office. What we’ve done since we came to office, is look towards the big issue which is supply.

The experts say that what that potentially [would] do is is diminish supply, not increase it. That’s why the key to fixing the housing issues is supply.

It certainly wasn’t commissioned by us to do so.

We need to do both. We need to particularly give young people a fair crack … The key is supply. That’s why only Labor is offering a plan at this election to increase supply of housing.

That is on the supply side a very significant benefit. The second part is we reduce migration by 25%, so that we can allow the housing stock to be built up again and by doing that – as well as stopping foreigners for two years from purchasing Australian homes – we give young Australians a go.

Presenting an award at the Breakthrough prize ceremony, the actor and writer allegedly accused the president of destroying American science

A pointed criticism of President Trump’s policies on science by Seth Rogen was edited out of the filmed coverage of an annual science awards show, it has emerged.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, which was one of the sponsors of the event, Rogen was one of the presenters at this month’s Breakthrough prize ceremony, a high profile and lavishly funded awards programme recognising “outstanding scientific achievements” co-founded by, among others, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and which describes itself as “the Oscars of science”.