Fire broke out during onboard cooking before wooden vessel capsized with 500 passengers aboard
The death toll from a boat fire and capsizing in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week has risen to 148 with more than 100 people still missing, officials said on Friday.
About 500 passengers were on board the wooden boat when it capsized on Tuesday after catching fire on the Congo River in the country’s north-west.
Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the ban
Virginia’s state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.
The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained that Gary Shapley had been chosen without his knowledge
Donald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.
According to a report from the New York Times published on Friday, Bessent believed that the Doge head “had done an end-run around him” to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, despite the fact that the IRS reports to Bessent. The report cited five anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation.
Internal mission statements from Harmeet Dhillon pivots division’s priorities away from marginalized groups’ rights
The justice department’s civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trump’s priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.
The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them only give glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trump’s executive orders as priorities for the section.
After cutting off $2.26bn in funding, the US president reportedly gave the IRS a potentially illegal order
Harvard University is in a standoff with Donald Trump after rejecting a series of demands from the president’s administration, which critics view as an attack on the elite college for its reputation among conservatives as a bastion of liberal thought.
After cutting off its funding, Trump has reportedly given the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a potentially illegal order to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status. Such a decision would mark an escalation in the Republican president’s weaponization of federal government agencies against the people and institutions that defy it.
Release of files, ordered by Trump, includes notes from killer, who said presidential candidate ‘must be disposed of’
About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy, including handwritten notes by the assassin, who said the US senator and Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.
The release continued the disclosure of national secrets ordered by Donald Trump after he began his second presidency in January. It comes a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of president John F Kennedy were disclosed. The earlier documents gave curious readers more details about cold- war era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, RFK’s brother.
Australian goes down 7-5, 6-3 against the world No 2
Victory gives the Spaniard a 4-0 record in head-to-heads
Alex de Minaur’s 50th tour-level quarter-final has ended in defeat, the Australian No 1 beaten 7-5 6-3 in 100 minutes by defending champion Carlos Alcaraz at the Barcelona Open.
De Minaur began well, breaking the top seed in the third game before taking a 3-1 lead, and breaking again in the seventh after Alcaraz had broken back. But the Spaniard took four of the last five games to claim the set.
The 2024 winner reflects on the emotional backstory to Crucible triumph amid major health concerns for his family
“‘I still believed in myself but it was quite soul-destroying out there,” Kyren Wilson says in a back room at Barratts Snooker Club in Northampton. The world champion once worked here as a barman because he had lost his place on tour after his first season as a professional in 2011. He was still only 19 and he had little idea that an avalanche of adversity would engulf him in the years ahead.
Wilson begins the defence of his world title, with a first-round match against Lei Peifan, in the venerable Crucible in Sheffield on Saturday morning. But it seems fitting that we should meet here, in the unpromising surroundings which once defined Wilson’s life, as he describes his extraordinary world championship backstory.
Recalcitrance appears to be product of Trump White House’s maximalist interpretation of executive powers
Faced with a flurry of adverse court orders it would rather not follow, the Trump White House is increasingly deploying a strategy of claiming or even manufacturing its own uncertainty to dodge their effects without appearing to outright defy them.
The Trump administration has faced several major legal setbacks in recent weeks, most notably in its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act or in spite of protective orders.
The awe-inspiring might of the government is pitted against the might of the revered US university: let the fight begin
Donald Trump attended the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event of his new presidency on Saturday, reveling off stage in a standing ovation from Maga supporters and on stage in the barely controlled violence of a sport he has long adored.
The previous day he instigated his own UFC bout, picking a fight with one of the US’s most formidable opponents: Harvard is not only the world’s richest university, with a $53bn endowment that is bigger than the GDP of almost 100 countries, it is also the oldest in the US.
Peep! Here we go, then. Leeds, making their first-ever visit to the Kassam Stadium, are in their navy third kit.
Gary Rowett: “Having won against Sheffield United, another top, top team, it gives us confidence, but this is a very different test. It’s a question of ‘how do you stop them?’” On survival: “We’ll keep going until it’s done. We’ve come too far to let it slip now.”
Enzo Maresca loves controlled buildup play while Blues fans tend to like forceful football. Conflict seemed inevitable
There was a news story this week about a team of a hundred scientists who have spent nine years analysing a single cubic millimetre of mouse brain. The one hundred scientists have finally published their results. And those results are basically: “Whoah, have you seen this stuff?”
What they found inside the cubic millimetre of mouse brain was an eternity of wiring, just miles and miles of tiny wire to be untangled, pictured in the accompanying article clumped into a single mass, like a pan of mouse brain vermicelli left overnight in the sink.
World-record holder Chepngetich ‘not in right place’
Defending women’s champion Jepchirchir has ankle injury
The women’s world-record holder, Ruth Chepngetich, and the reigning champion, Peres Jepchirchir, have withdrawn from the London Marathon, organisers said on Friday, less than two weeks before the race.
Kenyan Chepngetich broke the women’s record in Chicago last year, running 2hr 9min 56sec to become the first woman to break 2:10, and had hoped to improve on that time in London on 27 April. “I’m not in the right place mentally or physically to race my best in London and I am therefore withdrawing,” she said in a statement. “I am very sad to miss the race and I hope to be back next year.”
The Trump administration has replaced Covid.gov – a website that once provided Americans with access to information about free tests, vaccines, treatment and secondary conditions such as long Covid – with a treatise on the “lab leak” theory.
The site includes intense criticism of Dr Anthony Fauci, who helmed national Covid policies under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the World Health Organization (WHO) and state leadership in New York.
Contested discovery achieved by experiment firing laser pulses into eyes, stimulating retina cells
After walking the Earth for a few hundred thousand years, humans might think they have seen it all. But not according to a team of scientists who claim to have experienced a colour no one has seen before.
The bold – and contested – assertion follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes. By stimulating individual cells in the retina, the laser pushed their perception beyond its natural limits, they say.
Briton in cautious mood before Saudi Arabian GP but maintains Scuderia are ‘greatest team in F1 history’
Weathering the choppy waves of his new career with Ferrari it is still clear that every time Lewis Hamilton climbs into the car the seven-time Formula One champion believes he is taking a step forward, regardless of how it seems to others. He remains unfazed by the process of adapting, having long considered it would be an evolution, even given the weight of all the expectation and scrutiny.
This weekend at the fifth round of the season in Saudi Arabia, Ferrari and Hamilton are optimistic they will be making another stride in bridging the gap to the dominant McLaren.
Russian airstrikes in Sumy, a paediatric hospital in Gaza, Holy Week processions in Spain and Rory McIlroy winning the Masters: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
Stop Trump coalition to dust off blimp, hoping demonstrations will surpass those during US president’s 2019 visit
Donald Trump’s second visit to the UK later this year will be disrupted by “even bigger” protests than those that coincided with his state visit in his first term, campaigners have vowed.
On Thursday Trump let slip that he expects to visit the UK in September, after Keir Starmer handed him a personal invitation from King Charles III during his visit to the White House in February.
The judge, Paul Goetz, late on Thursday ordered that Weinstein, 73, be immediately relocated from the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex to the prison ward at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan so he can receive necessary medical treatment.
Order comes a day after the ‘efficiency’ team sent out orders to lay off 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 employees
A federal court has blocked the sweeping termination of staff at the top US consumer protection agency, a day after the Trump administrationmoved to axe about 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 workforce, while officials investigate whether the action violated existing judicial orders.
The ruling from the judge Amy Berman Jackson put a legal hurdle in front of mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Thursday, which came after a federal appeals court modified – but did not eliminate – an injunction limiting the agency’s ability to terminate employees.
Acquisition expected to be completed on 18 May after Federal Reserve and currency comptroller sign off on deal
The pending merger between Capital One and Discover Financial services received approval from several regulators on Friday, bringing the $35bn tie-up closer to completion.
The Federal Reserve and the office of the comptroller of the currency (OCC) signed off on the deal, which was first announced in February 2024.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man the Trump administration has admitted it mistakenly deported, expressed relief to learn he is alive after a Democratic US senator managed to meet with him in El Salvador – as the White House posted on social media that he is “never coming back” to the US.
“It was very overwhelming – the most important thing for me, my children, his mom, brothers was to see him alive, and we saw him alive,” Vasquez Sura told ABC in an interview.
The ambitions of two generals and the interests of other states have led to the massacre of adults and children already forced to flee their homes
Sudan has begun its third year of civil war in the bleakest manner imaginable: mourning the massacre of hundreds of civilians and relief workers in displacement camps in Darfur. What began as a power struggle between generals has led to the killing of tens of thousands of people and widespread sexual and ethnic violence. The International Rescue Committee says the result is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: 640,000 people face catastrophic hunger. Basic services and infrastructure, already woefully inadequate, have been destroyed.
“One thing that has been consistent since day one,” the Sudanese activist and commentator Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem observed this week, “[is that] it’s a war on civilians. Now, I think we’ve become so desensitised to it, that doesn’t make much of a difference any more. There’s no impact.”
For a large portion of this match – pretty much the bulk of the first half, in fact – any spectator would have been hard-pressed to identify the Premier League-destined team on the cusp of an all-time Football League record for clean sheets.
Not only did Watford find the rarest of routes past James Trafford, but the Burnley goalkeeper was forced to endure a torrid time to prevent the hosts from becoming the first team to score two goals against him in the Championship this season.
Doyenne of children’s literature has regularly utilised social media in support of women-only spaces
Cocktail in hand and puffing on a celebratory cigar onboard her superyacht, reportedly somewhere in the Bahamas, JK Rowling celebrated on social media after this week’s UK supreme court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” she posted on X, borrowing the catchphrase from the popular 80s TV series The A-Team.
US adults in the age group are using cannabis to treat pain and poor sleep – and they’re a fast-growing market
Polls suggest Americans aged 65 and older are trying cannabis for the first time more than any other group in the country. This trend is propelled by decreased stigma and increased legalization, with 24 states and the District of Columbia allowing recreational use (in the UK, recreational use is still illegal).
But there’s something else too. Getting older comes with its challenges, physically and emotionally. Some people are betting on cannabis as a way to navigate these hurdles. Research indicates older adults primarily use cannabis for health-related issues, like poor sleep, pain and mental health concerns such as anxiety.
Emergency strike duo reeling in Lyon was electrifying while also showing deep flaws in Ruben Amorim’s squad
Bedlam, pandemonium, ecstasy and simply wow: Manchester United’s three-goal, six-minute (and 34 seconds) blockbuster extra-time comeback from 4-2 down is one for the ages, and a thrilling advertisement for the heart-stopping drama football can generate.
Yet if the Harry Maguire header that KO’d Lyon was a last, heroic act of a pell-mell, childhood-like jumpers-for-goalposts victory, it should also clang alarm bells for the fragile unit Ruben Amorim oversees, and cause a serious reality check.
Joe Montemurro and Renée Slegers are reunited but can they find a way to stop each other’s array of attacking talent?
The former Arsenal manager Joe Montemurro, who left the club at the end of the 2020-21 season, returns to the Emirates Stadium when Arsenal host the eight-time European champions Lyon on Saturday in their Champions League semi-final first leg. Montemurro, who led Arsenal to a first Women’s Super League title in seven years in 2019, was previously back in N5 in 2023, where his Juventus team lost 1-0 in the Champions League. Arsenal look very different, on and off the pitch, to the club he left. They upped their investment in and commitment to the women’s side after a review towards the end of Montemurro’s tenure, but a face familiar to him sits in the home dugout. While with Arsenal Montemurro was paired with Renée Slegers on the Uefa coach mentor programme in the early stages of the former Netherlands international’s coaching journey. Montemurro describes her as “a perfect fit for Arsenal”: “She really has brought back a level of belief in the squad and who they are. It’s a reflection of her. She’s very confident in what she does. She’s very strategic in how she goes about things. I’m so happy for her, happy she was given the opportunity and took it because it’s a very big job but she seems to be handling it well.” He said with a laugh: “I must have taught her well.”
Wind power developer eyes legal remedies to order that blocks renewable energy projects and eliminates green job opportunities
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The buildout of renewable energy projects in downstate New York – the region that includes the Hudson valley and below – is often complicated. The space for these projects is limited, particularly in New York City, and they’re often expensive.
It’s one of Victoria’s favourite national parks for good reason. Hiking the park’s south reveals stunning coastlines and complex history, topped off by a night in a lighthouse
We left the Wilsons Promontory Lightstation with one last look out to sea, admiring the chain of islands leading like stepping stones across the Strait. They’re the remnants of a landbridge between the Prom and Tasmania’s Freycinet, a link easily seen in the areas’ shared beauty: fine white sand, rough granite and bright orange lichen contrasting with a startlingly blue sea. It’s the nature, the beauty and the walking that brought us here, as well as a sense of unfinished business.
My husband and I had been coming to Wilsons Prom for decades, for day walks and multi-day hikes. But we’d never made it to the lighthouse, or stayed in the cottages converted to walkers’ accommodation. To tackle the trip, we booked two bunkrooms and roped in the Schultz family. It would be the first time either of our families – four adults and five kids aged nine to 15 – had attempted a four-day walk, but there was a reward waiting at the end. After 30km of trekking around the Prom, on the last night we’d have luxuries: the cottages’ hot showers and comfy beds.
As a second-generation Persian immigrant, my connection with my roots has always been relatively surface-level. Admiring the intricate artworks adorning the walls of our homes, hand-loomed rugs crafted by my own grandmother, barberry-laden rice and saffron-infused stews, the music of Googoosh, Bijan Mortazavi and Susan Roshan blasting from dawn to dusk.
My parents spoke Farsi to one another and to me when I was a child and as such it was my mother tongue. But I was born in Australia, so it was only going to be a matter of time before I became more proficient in English. Now I stumble my way through conversations in broken Farsi, longing for the day when Iran will be safe enough to finally visit and I can hopefully scrub up my language skills.
Tequila blitzed with its traditional pineapple juice-based chaser will leave your tastebuds tingling
In Mexico, it’s traditional to serve a refreshing, alcohol-free chaser with or after tequila – that is, a red, pomegranate juice-based sangrita or a green, herby pineapple verdita. So we thought, why not combine the two in the same glass?
Suspect arrested and charged with attack on Florida State University in Tallahassee that also left six injured
Students at Florida State University (FSU) returned to a campus that was still in shock on Friday to retrieve the belongings they abandoned in their scramble to escape a gunman, including laptops, handbags and even shoes, and a vigil was planned for the evening, after a student killed two people and left six others injured.
Many had gathered on Thursday night, hugging and in tears, around a makeshift memorial on a sidewalk on campus, bringing candles, flowers, teddy bears and notes for the survivors. The impromptu memorials, dotted around the campus in the state capital of Tallahassee, came just hours after authorities arrested and charged a fellow student, Phoenix Ikner, 20, with the shooting.
Enthusiasts gathering on Good Friday – renamed Carfreitag – face curbs on unauthorised tuning, illegal races and pollution
Police in Germany have announced a crackdown on illegal racing and the unauthorised modification of cars as members of the so-called tuning scene meet across the country for the start of their annual season.
The Good Friday holiday marking Christ’s death on the cross, called Karfreitag in German – from the Old High German word kara, meaning sorrow – is otherwise known by the extreme car enthusiasts as Carfreitag (car Friday) for its unofficial gathering of the “tuners” and “car posers”.
Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family
As a young photojournalist living in Gaza, Fatima Hassouna knew that death was always at her doorstep. As she spent the past 18 months of war documenting airstrikes, the demolition of her home, the endless displacement and the killing of 11 family members, all she demanded was that she not be allowed to go quietly.
“If I die, I want a loud death,” Hassouna wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”
With the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, investors may find comfort in a trusted pair of hands
Two weeks after Donald Trump announced his “liberation day” tariffs, the fashion industry finds itself in turmoil as it tries to navigate the chaos unleashed.
Some are calling it the “tariffpocalypse”, with the sector bracing itself for a global trade war, snarling up supplies and hiking costs, alongside plummeting consumer confidence.
The authors of a new book explain why understanding the science of stress can help us manage it better
True (up to a point) The way stress manifests is very much bodily, centred around hormones such as cortisol and their effect on us. But this process is triggered by the brain (notably the amygdala and the hypothalamus) and the way our brains react to stress is often set in early childhood, even in the womb. Pregnant women who experience extreme stress can give birth to infants who react more strongly to stress hormones – with increasing evidence suggesting that this causes modifications to the baby’s DNA. Self-actualising your way out of stress is difficult – not least because the causes might be serious and inescapable – but not always impossible. Some studies have shown that if you tell people they are the sort of person who doesn’t feel stress, they experience fewer symptoms. One US study found that teenagers growing up with worries about violent crime in a deprived part of Chicago tended to fare better if they simply tried to not think about it.
A bigger, shareable, scoopable panna cotta with biscuity almond shards and a simple lemon syrup
Panna cotta is one of those desserts that looks more technical than it really is. But, in fact, it’s probably one of the easiest desserts you can make, and there are so many ways to infuse it with different flavours. Recently, I’ve been ditching individual moulds and serving it in large, sharing-style dishes, which means you can make it with a softer, silkier consistency, because it doesn’t need to hold its shape. Instead, you can just scoop and serve.
I’m a 40-year-old man and worried about my family. Since my sister (in her late 30s) became pregnant with her first child four years ago, there hasn’t been a period longer than a week without her and my mother getting into toxic fights.
A couple of days ago, after my sister had resorted (yet again) to calling our mother names, she also ended up grabbing her by the throat.
A record 10 Chinese players are in the main draw at the Crucible, where picking a winner is tougher than ever
It has been fairly common in recent years to discuss the winds of change blowing through the World Snooker Championship. But this year, with talk of the Crucible’s future being quieter than usual, it is on the baize where a significant shift might be poised to take place.
The usual suspects – for the most part – are still assembling in Sheffield for snooker’s most prestigious event. Some of them in quite imperious form, too. But whereas a case can often be made for no more than three or four players to take home the £500,000 top prize and world champion crown, this year there is a much more open field.
Even amid political chaos and rising prices, what matters most to his supporters is a macabre form of payback and vengeance
The stock market is plunging, prices are rising, federal workers are getting laid off, students are being snatched off the street by immigration agents. The US is many things at the moment, but stable is not one of them. So, amid all this turmoil, how are all the Donald Trump voters feeling? Has buyer’s remorse set in? Are they starting to wonder whether voting in a convicted felon as president – a man who has declared bankruptcy six times – might not have been the wisest move?
Not according to the polls. Rather, the US appears to be a nation of Édith Piafs: they regret rien. I’m not saying that disillusioned Republicans don’t exist; do enough digging and you can certainly find a few. And journalists have been doing a lot of digging. During Trump’s first term, there was a steady stream of media pieces profiling the regretful Trump voter. The genre has remained popular through the first few months of Trump 2.0. But, according to a much-discussed segment by CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten this week, polling proves that the idea of “regretful” Trump voters is “more of a media creation than anything else”.
Move reportedly came after drones over king’s residence sparked worries on weekend of Ukraine president’s arrival
A no-fly zone order has been put in place over the Sandringham estate after drones were spotted flying in the area last month while Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the royal residence.
Security services requested the restrictions, which were put in place to protect “members of the royal family and other dignitaries”, days after King Charles hosted the Ukrainian president on 2 March at the Norfolk estate. They came into force just over a week later on 10 March.
I find myself using the phrase “relative value” more and more these days. You know, when you buy something you think is a good deal, because you’re comparing it with something that’s infinitely more expensive, so it just feels as if you’re saving money. Buying Baylis & Harding hand soap because Aesop is £33. Renting a small room in London for more than £1,000 a month because at least you’re not paying £2,000 for a place to yourself. A few months ago, people tried to coin this school of thought as “girl math”’, but we are all equally guilty of this specific kind of economic reasoning.
Relative value is how you get what you want for less (but still spend the money anyway), and what I wantis affordable white burgundy. I’m not going to get it, of course, but I can certainly spend what little money I have on something that’s close enough.
Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution.
Since its 2010 release, Robyn’s downbeat hit has influenced Charli xcx and Taylor Swift, soundtracked films and TV shows, and been yelled in unison at club nights. What’s the secret of its longevity?
As the flirtation first begins to build between CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) and her twentysomething intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) in the recent erotic thriller Babygirl, the two find themselves at opposite ends of a dancefloor. Romy pulls away from her husband and stares – pouting – at Samuel, who embraces anotherwoman, a familiar staccato beat pulsing out around them. “I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her,” the lyrics narrate. “I’m right over here, why can’t you see me?”It’s the perfect needle drop, conveying Romy’s desire but also her sense of alienation. Gladly for her, their torrid affair begins nonetheless, and soon the pair are throwing shapes at a sweaty techno rave.
The song that plays is, of course, Dancing on My Own by Robyn, from her Body Talk Pt 1 album, a tune so familiar by now that I felt a Pavlovian urge to start caterwauling along in the cinema. Fifteen years on from its original release in April 2010, the track has established itself as pop’s great modern “sad banger”, in the vein of classics such as Donna Summer’s Last Dance and I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Like those tracks it is a song that gets you up and moving, while breaking your heart into several tiny pieces.
Inspired by ‘Hot Girls for Bernie’, a grassroots campaign is rallying behind the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani
“Hot girls” may not be a pollster-approved voting bloc in the way that young men or the college-educated are, but since the 2020 election the demographic has held a particular status – at least for the very online.
It started in 2020, when the model Emily Ratajkowski officially endorsed Bernie Sanders’s pre-pandemic presidential campaign. Inspired by Ratajkowski, self-professed hot girls piled on their endorsements, posting selfies with the hashtag #HotGirlsForBernie. Some saw it as a way to counter the persistent “Bernie bro” narrative, a rebuke of the idea that Sanders’s fandom consisted solely of obnoxious, socialist-in-name-only men who lived their lives on Twitter.
Semi-final against Athletic Bilbao now the priority
Amass, Obi and Heaven in line to get more game time
Ruben Amorim will use younger players in Manchester United’s next three Premier League fixtures as he prioritises the Europa League semi-final against Athletic Bilbao.
United play at Athletic on 1 May and host the return a week later. Matches against Wolves and Bournemouth precede the first leg and United go to Brentford in between the European fixtures.
First known such ‘pamflyt’ in English has contemporary resonance, with advice on food intolerances and eating cheese after a meal
They are 450-year-old words of wisdom but they will ring true with anyone rooting around the fridge for late night comfort: “A surfyte of cheese doth bringe payne.”
The warning for people to curb their enthusiasm is contained in the earliest-known book on cheese in English, a publication that academics say is both fascinating and nauseating.
Retailers and food producers offer to help efforts to reduce ‘unnecessary red tape’ costing industry billions of pounds
More than a dozen of Britain’s biggest retailers and food producers, including Marks & Spencer, J Sainsbury and Asda, have called on the EU to reduce checks on food and drink crossing the Channel and Irish Sea, which they say are costing billions of pounds.
Ahead of a summit on 19 May that is hoped to “reset” trade ties five years on from Brexit, they are urging politicians to hammer out a deal on sanitary and phytosanitary checks. They hope this would include a veterinary agreement and would harmonise food safety rules or recognise them as equivalent.
Big broadcasters are launching hit series on the video-sharing platform, while its stars are winning Emmys. Insiders discuss how YouTube became the TV of tomorrow
What’s the difference between YouTube and TV? Two decades ago, that would have been a very easy question to answer. TV was the stuff that was on – you guessed it – television, with its budgets, scripts, multiple camera angles and lights. The first video ever uploaded to YouTube, meanwhile, could never have been mistaken for it. “All right, so here we are in front of the, uh, elephants,” a pixelated young man told the camera. “The cool thing about these guys is that … is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks.” The video was uploaded on 23 April 2005 and marked the true launch of the video-sharing site.
This February, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan declared: “YouTube is the new television.” He was referring to the fact that more and more people watch YouTube videos on the big screen: apparently, users play 1bn hours of YouTube on their smart TVs a day. But at the same time, more and more people are watching TV on YouTube: Disney uploaded the first three episodes of its Star Wars spin-off Andorto the site in March, while ITV has been sharing its shows on YouTube since December.
Centre-left parties slam ‘racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic’ faked images posted on social media by League party
Opposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, calling them “racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic”, the Guardian has learned.
The centre-left Democratic party (PD), with the Greens and Left Alliance, filed a complaint on Thursday with Agcom, the Italian communications regulatory authority, alleging the fake images used by the League contained “almost all categories of hate speech”.
Analysis aims to solidify agreement on cannabis’s potential as a cancer treatment, lead author of research says
The largest ever study investigating medical cannabis as a treatment for cancer, published this week in Frontiers in Oncology, found overwhelming scientific support for cannabis’s potential to treat cancer symptoms and potentially fight the course of the disease itself.
The intention of the analysis was to solidify agreement on cannabis’s potential as a cancer treatment, said Ryan Castle, research director at the Whole Health Oncology Institute and lead author of the study. Castle noted that it has been historically difficult to do so because marijuana is still federally considered an illegal Schedule I narcotic.
PC, PS5, XBox; Don’t Nod The concluding half of this two-parter may be lacking in interactive challenges, but is profound, sensitively structured and emotionally resonant
One thing you realise as you get older is that memories are plastic and that the stories you tell about your life change with every recollection, depending on who you are at the time. This is one of the themes – and indeed the mechanics – of Lost Records, a narrative adventure about four teenage girls who develop an intense friendship in rural Michigan during the summer of 1995. In the first instalment, they form a band, discover an old shack in the woods to use as a clubhouse, and encounter a supernatural force emanating from a deep hole they discover nearby. But as autumn draws in and the girls plan a climactic rock gig, tragic secrets are uncovered.
Cleverly, the story is told mostly in flashback, as the characters meet again, decades later, in their long-abandoned home town – they’re older, wiser and with new perspectives on what happened to them as teenagers. Lead character Swann, a keen photographer whose video camera provides a key game interface in the first episode, is living a solitary life, while Autumn is still filled with anxiety and Nora is now an influencer. Missing is Kat whose terminal cancer diagnosis obliterates their world at the close of part one.
With one trophy and hundreds of millions up for grabs, league position means more than pride as TV payouts shape the financial future of every club
Points mean prizes. And money. Lots and lots of money. Only one trophy is handed out at the conclusion of the Premier League season, meaning the most tangible reward most teams are playing for over the final few weeks of the campaign is a bigger check.
Last season, each Premier League team received anywhere between £175.9m and £109.7m for their participation in the self-styled Greatest League in the World. These payouts take into account everything from league position, the number of matches broadcast on TV and commercial revenue among other factors.
It was an interesting night for Chelsea. They are through to a European semi-final … but they got booed off the pitch as it happened. From west London, Jacob Steinberg wrote:
Losing 2-1 to Legia Warsaw on the night was embarrassing. Chelsea, who seemed intent on giving the fifth-best side in Poland hope of pulling off a comeback for the ages at a disgruntled Stamford Bridge, were shambolic and easily could have crashed out.
No wonder Maresca is not feeling the love from the crowd. Nobody celebrated Chelsea squeezing into a Conference League semi-final against Djurgården after winning 4-2 on aggregate. The defending was miserable and the attack was poor. Filip Jörgensen, Robert Sánchez’s understudy, was jittery in goal and the worries around Cole Palmer’s slump are not going away.
It was a poor performance. We had a 3-0 lead – maybe that played a part in taking our foot off the gas. Maybe we disrespected the competition today. If you don’t prepare right, you will pay. It’s going to affect the mindset. It’s going to be in the back of people’s heads. I understand the frustration. Fans come to see excitement. We were frustrating to watch.
Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal, saying it will not accept a “partial” deal that does not guarantee an end to the war or a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, accused Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of putting forward an offer that “set impossible conditions for a deal that does not lead to the end of the war or full withdrawal”.
Chris Van Hollen of Maryland says drinks placed on table created hoax and neither he nor Kilmar Ábrego García touched them
The US is optimistic that it can end “the very brutal war” between Russia and Ukraine, Vice-President JD Vance said before a bilateral meeting with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday.
The meeting comes less than 24 hours after the pair met in Washington. Vance said:
I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine … even in the past 24 hours, we think we have some interesting things to report on.
Since there are the negotiations I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close.
Death toll reportedly hits 80 with 150 wounded in deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign
US military strikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port have killed at least 80 people including civilians and rescue workers, according to the Houthi-run health ministry, in the deadliest attack since Washington launched its campaign against the Iran-backed militants.
The rebels’ Al-Masirah TV, citing local officials, said the toll from the strike had “risen to 80 dead and 150 wounded”.
Hidden references and in-jokes in cinema can be an acquired taste, but here’s a festive selection of the best arch nods for aficionados to enjoy
One of Hollywood’s most durable Easter eggs debuted in Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday (1940) when Cary Grant’s character says: “The last man who said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat!” And in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) his character sits pensively in a cemetery where Archie Leach’s gravestone is to be seen. In Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called Wanda (1988), John Cleese’s character is called Archie Leach. Leach is, of course, the real name of Cary Grant – a very goofy and unglamorous sounding name compared with the sonorous “Cary Grant” – and a rare example of Hollywood alluding to the open secret of rebranding its stars and effacing the bland ordinariness of their origins. Peter Bradshaw
Paul went from talking about birdwatching to sharing videos of Tommy Robinson and embracing conspiracy theories. Who is protecting him?
April O’Neill is the winner of the 2025 Emerging Voices award (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing
Some people should never have a smartphone – and I want to tell you about one of them. For the past couple of decades, Paul* had a classic Nokia brick-style phone. He could make calls – even send the odd text if we were lucky. But, a few years ago, he got a smartphone. At first, nothing changed much. He was reconnecting with friends, discovering emojis – there were no concerns. It has only been recently that the phone has become a problem, and that’s because he has stumbled across social media. And he is on it constantly.
What do we know about Paul? He has time on his hands and, having grown up in an era when encyclopedias were the main source of knowledge, he has little media literacy when it comes to analysing sources and figuring out which ones he should trust. I can see why he probably takes it for granted that what he reads on his phone is true.
April O’Neill is the winner of The Guardian Foundation’s 2025 Emerging Voices Awards (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing
Due out in 2027, Starfighter will be directed by Deadpool & Wolverine’s Shawn Levy and will be separate from the nine-film Skywalker franchise
Star Wars producer Lucasfilm has officially confirmed that a standalone film in the series, starring Ryan Gosling, will go ahead.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni announced the news at the Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo, with the film’s title revealed as Star Wars: Starfighter and a projected release date in May 2027.
Fair Play by Louise Hegarty; All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman; This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen; The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie; Death and Other Occupations by Veronika Dapunt
Fair Play by Louise Hegarty (Picador, £16.99) Award-winning short-story writer Hegarty’s debut opens with guests arriving at an Irish Airbnb country house for a murder mystery-themed birthday party. Abigail has organised the celebration for her brother Benjamin, and old friends, including his former fiancee, are invited, as well as his colleague Barbara – but the morning after the festivities, he is found dead in his locked bedroom. So far, so run-of-the-mill, but the book then splits into competing storylines, with the action oscillating between a metatextual golden age narrative, complete with butler, gardener, maid and esteemed amateur detective, and a naturalistic and sometimes heartbreaking account of grief. With plenty of in-jokes for golden age aficionados and a remarkably assured handling of the necessary tonal shifts, this engaging, ingenious Möbius strip of a book is undoubtedly the most original crime novel you’ll read all year.
All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman (4th Estate, £16.99) Harman’s debut novel is set around west London private school St Angeles, where parents rich enough to be unperturbed by the imposition of VAT on fees fork out hefty sums for their little darlings’ primary education. Ageing party girl and failed singer Florence Grimes is very much the odd mum out in this glossy milieu, but when her 10-year-old son’s classmate Alfie, an entitled bully who is the heir to a frozen food empire, goes missing on a school trip and young Dylan becomes a person of interest to the police, she gets on the case. Whether you warm to this hot-mess-turns-amateur-sleuth tale rather depends on whether you find Florence enraging or endearing, with her habit of asking a neighbour to listen out for Dylan while she goes out for hook-ups, and a preternatural talent not only for self-sabotage, but also for landing other people in it up to their necks. That said, it’s funny, pacy and very readable, with the social satire absolutely on point.
With US visits down 11.6% in March compared with last year, people share their views and experiences on the US border
Last year, while Joe Biden was US president, Jenny and her husband booked a trip to Boston for June 2025.
The British couple had been to New York before and wanted to see more of the country. But after Donald Trump’s re-election in November, Jenny said a “shadow” began to fall on their travel plans.
Department of Transportation employees who provide support for Starlink and SpaceX launches safe amid job cuts
Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the Trump administration have spared the jobs of US Department of Transportation employees who provide support services for spacecraft launches by Musk’s companies, SpaceX and Starlink – a revelation that raises a new round of conflict of interest questions around Doge.
In its most recent buyout announcement, the transportation department did not note that the positions spared supported Musk’s and others’ space operations.
The actor, who took on the role in 2016 for box office let-down Batman v Superman, said the uncomfortable costume ‘made it difficult to make the movie’
Ben Affleck says that he “hated” the Batsuit, and that it was “horrendous to wear” and “made it difficult to make the movie”.
Speaking to GQ, Affleck said that the main issue with the elaborate costume was the heat it generated. “They don’t breathe. They’re made to look the way they want them to look. There’s no thought put into the human being. So what happens is that you just start sweating … So in that thing, you’d just be pouring water, because you have that cowl over it. Like, there’s one thing to wear the suit, but once you cover your head, I guess that’s where all your heat kind of escapes and you feel it.”
Lawsuit argues Kendrick Lamar’s half-time performance ‘further solidified’ public belief in allegations made in diss track Not Like Us, but UMG calls amendment ‘absurd’
Drake has expanded his lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us, alleging that he was defamed by Lamar’s half–time performance at the 2025 Super Bowl.
With lyrics including “Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young … certified lover boy? Certified paedophile,” Lamar’s track was one of a number of diss tracks issued by the rappers against each other in spring 2024. Not Like Us became the most commercially successful, reaching No 1 in the US and UK, and it also won Lamar five Grammy awards including record and song of the year.
Report finds over a quarter of Canadians exposed to ‘more sophisticated and more politically polarizing’ fake content
More than a quarter of Canadians have been exposed to fake political content on social media that is “more sophisticated and more politically polarizing” as the country prepares to vote in a federal election, researchers have found, warning that platforms must increase protections amid a “dramatic acceleration” of online disinformation in the final weeks of the campaign.
In a new report released on Friday, Canada’s Media Ecosystem Observatory found a growing number of Facebook ads impersonating legitimate news sources were instead promoting fraudulent investment schemes, often involving cryptocurrency.
Books include religious scriptures and scribbled jokes, giving glimpse of daily lives of early medieval Irish monks
More than 1,000 years ago, Irish monks took precious manuscripts to the European continent to protect them from Viking raids and to spread Christianity and scholarship – a glow of culture in what would be called the dark ages.
The monks did not know if the books, which included religious scriptures, linguistic analysis, scribbled jokes and a collection of tomes described as the internet of the ancient world, would survive, or ever return.
Britain’s national parks have warned of a “catastrophic” risk from wildfires this Easter after one of the driest early spring seasons on record.
Park rangers from the South Downs to the Highlands said the prolonged warm weather and breezy conditions had left large areas extremely dry despite recent rain.
Far too many academics are repeating propaganda about a ‘free speech crisis’. It’s time for a shared strategy
Harvard is refusing the plainly illegal demands by the Trump administration. That sends an important signal: resistance is possible.
But universities must realize that the government is adopting a divide-and-rule tactic: they should collaborate on a shared litigation strategy, take a common approach in getting the public on their side, and do everything possible to have Congress push back against Trump treating money allocated by the legislature as if it were a private slush fund to be used for political blackmail. Some faculty have already begun to unite. In principle, not just progressives, but self-respecting conservatives – if any remain – should be responsive to such a three-pronged strategy.
(Sub Pop) The TV on the Radio frontman’s sharp pop instincts kick in on a multifaceted synth-punk-funk set born out of deep personal loss
You would not know, on first listen, that this effervescent debut solo album by the sometime frontman of TV on the Radio was steeped in grief. Tunde Adebimpe’s sister died during the pandemic when these songs were taking hesitant shape in an LA studio that Adebimpe, now a successful actor, shares with multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Wilder Zoby.
Those difficult feelings – and others, about living in “a time of tenderness and rage” – became snaggle-toothed synth-punk cuts and bouncy synth-pop sounds. On Drop, there’s beat-boxing; on The Most, a Sleng Teng reggae riddim ambush; while on Somebody New, you can hear a punk-funk echo of New Order. Only ILY, a finger-picked folk song addressed to his sister, breaks character, adding “balladeer” to Adebimpe’s varied CV (former stop-motion animator, illustrator). “How’d you get so low?” asks God Knows, a perky, doo-wop-adjacent song about a flailing relationship.
Loamy soil is the holy grail, but all types can be improved by adding organic matter
I often mention my veg patch’s clay soil in this column, and that’s because soil type affects what we grow and how. Getting to know your soil is an essential part of becoming a great grower of edible plants. Soil type is determined by the size of the soil’s particles which, in turn, determine its characteristics.
Sandy soil has the largest particles, which means it is light, easy to work, lets water drain through it freely and warms up quickly in spring. This also means that sandy soil dries out easily, isn’t as water retentive as other types and tends to be low in nutrients as they wash through it.
Turmoil spreads at company over Israel’s extensive use of its AI and cloud computing services in Gaza war
For the second time in the last month, Microsoft employees disrupted high-level executives speaking at an event celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary on 4 April, in protest against the company’s role in Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza.
The AI executive Mustafa Suleyman was interrupted by the employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal. The two were fired within days. The Microsoft president, Brad Smith, and the former CEO Steve Ballmer were shouted down at Seattle’s Great Hall on 20 March by a current and former employee.
Joe Seiders in custody following search of home, vehicle and phone, after allegedly attempting to film child in California restaurant restroom
Joe Seiders, the American drummer with Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, has been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse imagery.
A statement made by the sheriff’s office of Riverside county, California, alleged that evidence has implicated Seiders in two incidents. On Monday 7 April, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man attempted to film him in a restroom of a fast food restaurant, and on Wednesday 9 April, police officers received another report from the restaurant, that a man was “entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males at the business”.
Donald Trump has said the US is ready to “take a pass” on brokering a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless a settlement is reached “very shortly”, as Kyiv announced it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.
“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘You’re foolish. You’re fools. You’re horrible people’ – and we’re going to just take a pass,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”
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