McLaren man’s win catapults him 10pts clear in title race
Max Verstappen pays price for first-lap penalty
Maintaining a focus and equilibrium under pressure has always been one of the hallmarks of Formula One’s greatest proponents and Oscar Piastri is demonstrating it with striking assurance for one so young.
His victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, beating the world champion Max Verstappen, was an object lesson in the 24-year-old’s calm and confidence and his potential to take the title in only his third season.
Sonia Bompastor accepted that her Chelsea team had been simply “not good enough” after they were taught a lesson by a technically superior Barcelona side who now hold a commanding position in their Women’s Champions League semi-final.
Chelsea were beaten for only the second time in all competitions since Bompastor took over last summer but in sunny Catalonia they were outclassed by the strongest team they have faced in her tenure so far.
A few minutes after Liverpool took potentially their penultimate if not final step towards the title, Virgil van Dijk gave the match-winner a gentle nudge, a little lumbar support.
For a moment Van Dijk’s duty as captain extended to ushering Trent Alexander-Arnold towards the fans who are resigned to him departing for Real Madrid this summer, but only after the club winning a 20th league title. Alexander-Arnold applauded and then clenched both fists overhead, a nod to the incoming crown.
Mark Williams was forced to dredge up every inch of his Crucible experience to sink rising Chinese star Wu Yize 10-8 and book his place in the last 16 of the World Snooker Championship for the 22nd time in his career.
Williams, who turned 50 last month, delivered two near-faultless final frames to hold off his opponent, who had missed a golden chance to seize a 9-7 advantage when he missed a frame-ball red with the rest.
Tessa Janecke scored the winning goal in overtime as the United States beat Canada to win gold
Canada 0-0 USA, 14:25 left, 1st period: It’s all Canada at the moment. They’ve taken the shots lead 6-3. So far, nothing has troubled Frankel too much, but “let them shoot a lot” is never a good game plan.
Social media alert: USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are both on BlueSky, but neither organization has posted. That’s no fun.
They’re off on the formation lap, through the twists and turns of this narrow street circuit. Lando Norris is starting on hard compound tyres; everyone ahead of him is on mediums.
And here’s pole-sitter and defending champ, Max Verstappen: “It’s going to be a battle with McLaren whatever the tyres or temperature … I hope our pace is a bit better today, a bit more consistency.”
The first leg of the second semi-final was contested between Arsenal and Lyon yesterday with Melchie Dumornay scoring an 82nd-minute goal to give the visitors a 2-1 advantage at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal are hoping to reach their first Champions League final since they won the competition in 2007 and will have their work cut out for them in France against the eight-time champions.
Bompastor was also just asked about James in her pre-match interview, who misses out due to injury:
A really important player, you know that. She is really talented. One of those players who can make a big difference when she is on the pitch but we need to adapt. She is not with us and I have a lot of quality in the squad so hopefully it will be enough for us to win.
Maura Healey says president targeting universities hurts US ‘competitiveness’ and affects research and hospitals
Massachusetts governor Maura Healey said on Sunday that Donald Trump’s attacks on Harvard University and other schools are having detrimental ripple effects, with the shutdown of research labs and cuts to hospitals linked to colleges.
During an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Democratic governor said that the effects on Harvard are damaging “American competitiveness”, since a number of researchers are leaving the US for opportunities in other countries. After decades of investment in science and innovation, she said: “intellectual assets are being given away.”
The EU is expected to push for special youth visas at next month’s summit. Sir Keir Starmer should say yes
Strong hints that a rebranded “youth opportunity scheme” will top the EU’s wishlist at next month’s EU-UK summit are good news for anyone who regrets the diminished travel opportunities that were one result of Brexit. Rising expectations of new European train routes – possibly including direct trains from London to Italy – can only add to the appeal of a potential rule change.
There were more consequential impacts of Brexit than restrictions on travel. The disruption of trade, which is predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility to cause a 4% reduction in long-run productivity, is far more significant economically. Drug shortages continue to create risks to people’s health, and cause problems for doctors and pharmacists. Cancer research and trials have also been badly affected, according to a new report, because of the increased difficulty of attracting scientists and funding.
Chris Van Hollen says ‘if we deny constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens constitutional rights of everyone’
Senator Chris Van Hollen, who travelled to El Salvador last week to meet Kilmar Ábrego García, the man at the center of a wrongful deportation dispute, said on Sunday that his trip was to support Ábrego García’s right to due process because if that was denied then everyone’s constitutional rights were threatened in the US.
The White House has claimed Ábrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang though he has not been charged with any gang related crimes and the supreme court has ordered his return to the US be facilitated.
British cancer patients are being denied life-saving drugs and trials of revolutionary treatments are being derailed by the red tape and extra costs brought on by Brexit, a leaked report warns.
Soaring numbers are being diagnosed with the disease amid a growing and ageing population, improved diagnosis initiatives and wider public awareness – making global collaborations to find new medicines essential.
The strange stories of the agents who lived apparently normal lives in the west as part of Soviet espionage programmes make compelling reading
One muggy afternoon in June 2010, Don Heathfield and his wife, Ann, were relaxing over a bottle of champagne with their two sons, Tim and Alex, when they heard a loud knocking at the door. The family was celebrating Tim’s 20th birthday at their comfortable home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after lunch in a restaurant. Tim’s mother went to answer the door, calling out as she did so that some of his friends must have arrived to wish him a happy birthday. Instead she found a group of men dressed in black waiting on the doorstep. Bellowing “FBI”, they barged their way into the house and handcuffed Ann and her husband, before marching them outside and driving them away.
Alex assumed that there had been a terrible mistake; his parents were much too boring to warrant such a dramatic arrest. But there was no mistake. His parents were not Don Heathfield and Ann Foley, prosperous Canadians living in the US, but Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, Russian spies who had assumed false identities before Alex and his brother were born. Together with their parents, the two boys were stripped of their Canadian citizenship and flown to Moscow. Alex was handed a Russian passport, identifying him with a name he could not even pronounce properly. “Typical high school identity crisis, right?” he remarks, with a wry smile but an undertone of understandable bitterness, while being interviewed by the author of this book, Shaun Walker, an international correspondent for the Guardian who was based in Moscow for more than 10 years.
IDF says it is dismissing deputy commander for giving ‘inaccurate report’ on shooting that caused global outcry
Israel’s military has admitted to several “professional failures” and a breach of orders in the killing of 15 rescue workers in Gaza last month, and said that it was dismissing a deputy commander responsible.
The deadly shooting of eight Red Crescent paramedics, six civil defence workers and a UN staffer by Israeli troops, as they carried out a rescue mission in southern Gaza at dawn on 23 March, had prompted international outcry and calls for a war crimes investigation.
The fine tidings for Manchester United are that they are safe from relegation, the grim ones are that this came despite a 15th defeat of a dismal Premier League campaign.
Wolves’ winner was simple: on 77 minutes Pablo Sarabia, on as a substitute only 120 seconds before, placed a 20-yard free-kick sweetly to André Onana’s left, Christian Eriksen having been culpable for the foul.
Mikel Arteta will have spent more arduous Easter Sundays hunting hidden chocolate eggs.
Aside from brief concern for Bukayo Saka’s raked achilles – an incident for which Leif Davis received his very early marching orders – this was as undemanding an afternoon as the Arsenal manager could have envisaged on the path to the more important matter of a Champions League semi‑final with Paris Saint‑Germain.
These are the moments that turn seasons. Credit goes to Enzo Maresca, whose substitutions altered the flow of this west London derby and provided Chelsea with the foundations to break Fulham’s hearts with a stunning turnaround at Craven Cottage.
Fulham were clinging on to their 1-0 lead when Maresca took off his only striker, Nicolas Jackson, and replaced him with Tyrique George with 12 minutes left. The 19-year-old winger soon conjured a fine equaliser and there was time for Chelsea, who had not won on the road since December, to revive their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League when Pedro Neto lashed in a firecracker of a shot in added time.
She lost the first trial in 2022, but she gets ‘second bite of the apple’ due to a judge’s procedural errors
When Sarah Palin arrived at a federal court on Monday, her appearance promised little in the way of legal fireworks.
Palin was in downtown Manhattan for a retrial in her defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. She lost her first trial against the newspaper in 2022 and the legal basis of Palin’s civil claim – that an incorrect editorial unlawfully smeared her – remains the same.
Australia’s biggest industrial climate polluter – Chevron’s Gorgon gas export plant in Western Australia – received the equivalent of millions of dollars in carbon credits from the federal government last year, despite increasing its emissions.
The revelation in government data last week has sparked calls for changes to the safeguard mechanism, the government policy applied to the country’s 219 largest industrial climate polluting facilities.
Twenty years ago, John Hancock had dinner with his mother, Gina Rinehart. He says it’s the last positive interaction he had with her. In an in-depth interview, he explains how his relationship with his mother fell apart and discussesa high-stakes legal case that could threaten the foundations of her empire
I was temporarily living in my home town of Wangaratta while caring for my grandmother, who had dementia. I got weekends off and on one of those occasions I met a girl called Marie. During that lovely early period of a new relationship where you’re still getting to know each other, I took her camping at Mount Buffalo in Victoria.
On the way home we stopped in Myrtleford, a small town at the foot of the mountain, to get petrol. I fuelled up and Marie stayed in the car while I went inside to pay.
US vice-president spends few minutes with pontiff whom he has publicly disagreed with over migration
Pope Francis and JD Vance, who have disagreed very publicly over the Trump administration’s attitude to immigration and its migrant deportation plans, met briefly in Rome on Sunday to exchange Easter greetings.
The meeting came a day after the US vice-president, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019, sat down with senior Vatican officials and had “an exchange of opinions” over international conflicts and immigration.
Ian Copestake emails: “All this talk of one-sidedness makes it feel like Liverpool are playing Wimbledon again in a certain fina of yore.. It also shows that people follow narratives rather than watch games as playing bottom feeders is exactly the sort of opponent Liverpool struggle against. You’ve been warned.”
If enacted changes would be one of the biggest reorganizations of department since its founding in 1789
A draft Trump administration executive order reported to be circulating among US diplomats proposes a radical restructuring of the US state department, including drastic reductions to sub-Saharan operations, envoys and bureaus relating to climate, refugees, human rights, democracy and gender equality.
The changes, if enacted, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the department since its founding in 1789, according to Bloomberg, which had seen a copy of the 16-page draft. The New York Times first reported on the draft.
Ukraine reports drone and artillery strikes over Easter weekend, while Moscow also claims ceasefire breaches by Kyiv
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s Easter ceasefire as a fake “PR” exercise and said Russian troops had continued their drone and artillery attacks across many parts of the frontline.
Citing a report from Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zelenskyy said Russia was still using heavy weapons and since 10am on Sunday an increase in Russian shelling had been observed.
Videos tagged #ElectronicMusic attracted more than 13bn views worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023
It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world’s stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.
Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app.
The idea that autism is some aberration that can be cured is typical of a movement that celebrates simplistic thinking and loathes human difference
In the recent past, Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that Donald Trump is “a terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath”. But in the US’s new age of irrationalism and chaos, these two men are now of one voice, pursuing a strand of Trumpist politics that sometimes feels strangely overlooked. With Trump once again in the White House and Kennedy ensconced as his health and human services secretary, what they are jointly leading is becoming clearer by the day: a war on science and knowledge that aims to replace them with the modern superstitions of conspiracy theory.
Nearly 2,000 members of the US’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have warned of “slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration”. Even work on cancer is now under threat. But if you want to really understand the Trump regime’s monstrousness, consider where Kennedy and a gang of acolytes are heading on an issue that goes to the heart of millions of lives: autism.
Numbers have plummeted in recent years, but the problem is no one really knows why nesting pairs fail to rear young
Reaching the vantage point is a tricky business.
First, there’s a hop across a fence into Scratch Arse quarry – the stone workers used to find it such a cramped space to work in that their backsides would bump into the rock face. Then, a tiptoe through the slopes of early spider orchids and wild cabbage before a dizzying scramble down to the edge of the cliff.
Police found 21-year-old at home after wellness check
Safety was a decorated high school player in Kansas
Missouri State safety Todric McGee has died at the age of 21 after what has been described as a possible accidental shooting.
A Springfield Police Department spokesperson said officers had gone to McGee’s home for a wellness check on Friday morning after receiving a call. They found McGee, who they believe had suffered a “possible accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound”. He was taken to a local hospital but died from his injuries.
A new E4 dating show brings the lies we tell while dating into the spotlight. But is bending the truth always a bad thing when looking for love?
In 1994, I went on a date. I had just arrived in a new country and I liked the guy: he seemed funny and confident. He took me to a hardware store (weird, but not a dealbreaker) and then for a Tex-Mex meal during which, at some point, I told him I drove a Land Rover.
It was a truly weird, dumb, lie – I knew nothing about cars and cared even less. Maybe I thought it made me sound grown up, tougher and more capable than I was, or maybe the margaritas went to my head? I’m sure I told him other lies (I remember giving the impression that I enjoyed clubbing), but that one was memorably stupid.
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
Are there more pips in lemons than their used to be? That’s definitely my impression. What’s going on? Andrea Wilson, Manchester
Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.
Laurie Lee and Robert Graves among ‘English-speaking Quixotes’ in new book celebrating literary love for all things Spanish
Almost 200 years ago, the pioneering British travel writer Richard Ford offered an observation that has been happily ignored by the legions of authors who have traipsed in his dusty footsteps across Spain, toting notebooks, the odd violin or Bible, and, of course, their own particular prejudices.
“Nothing causes more pain to Spaniards”, Ford noted in his 1845 Handbook for Travellers in Spain, “than to see volume after volume written by foreigners about their country.”
An Afghan exile’s account of life in war-torn Kabul and a Taliban-dominated refugee camp is an unflinching study of how radicalisation takes root, and his own renunciation of it
Born in Kabul, Maiwand Banayee aspired to become a Talib when he was 16. In 1994, living in a Pakistan refugee camp, there was little to do except sleep, eat, pray and dream of the afterlife: “Islam dominated every aspect of life in Shamshatoo. Even during the volleyball and cricket games the spectators were prevented from clapping because it was seen as un-Islamic.” Banayeejoined the camp’s madrasa when he was 14 in an attempt “to fit in”. The only educational opportunity open to Afghans at that time, the religious school offered structure and purpose, although “instead of teaching us to live, they were teaching us to die”.
In this illuminating book, Banayee, now resident in England, describes the circumstances that led to his indoctrination, and what eventually saved him.Brutalised by conflict, his Pashtun family lived through the Soviet-Afghan war, followed by the period of bitter infighting between warlords. As a child, Banayee saw his neighbourhood torn apart and corpses rotting in the street: “By the winter of 1994, Kabul had turned into a deserted place, as if hit by Armageddon – a place of daily bombardments, looting and arbitrary arrests. The savagery and violence had no limits.” Banayee, his siblings and brother’s family eventually sought refuge in Pakistan, while his parents remained in Kabul with his disabled sister, Gul, fearing she would not survive the journey.
Delusions of Paradise: Escaping the Life of a Taliban Fighter by Maiwand Banayee is published by Icon (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Ahead of the release of his spectacular second album, the Nigerian singer speaks of his recent songwriting epiphany and how he learned to best express his political rage
Right before he began work on his second album, someone told Obongjayar it was time to “start writing songs”. “I remember being really pissed,” laughs the artist, whose real name is Steven Umoh – though, in person, he goes by “OB”. “Like, what the fuck? What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?”
The incredulity seems fair. The 32-year-old Nigerian singer has been releasing work for more than a decade, running the gamut of genres from hip-hop to Afrobeat to experimental electronics to spoken word, alt-rock and soul. It has made him something of a critics’ darling, but if you’re not familiar with his solo music (his debut album, 2022’s Some Nights I Dream of Doors, was stunning), odds are you’ve heard his lithe, gravelly inflections on Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recordedproject, or warming up UK rap star Little Simz tracks such as 2021’s glorious Point and Kill, or sampled by super-producer du jour Fred Again on the 2023 behemoth Adore U.
Ignore the fuss: Paapa Essiedu is a brilliant actor who can bring his own depth and style to enrich the iconic character
After months of speculation, HBO has announced part of the cast of the latest round of Harry Potter IP-mining: the new TV adaptation of the original books will feature John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Hagrid – and Paapa Essiedu as Snape. As the Mail and Telegraph’s headlines were quick to inform their readers, yes, this means a “Black actor” in that iconic role.
There is a real concern that Essiedu is drinking from a poisoned chalice – that he will be associated with an author who is at the forefront of a gender-critical movement that has succeeded in redefining the rights of trans people to their detriment; that he will have to weather the racist storm of Potterheads enraged at the diversion from “book accuracy” (Snape is described as having “sallow skin”); and deal with opportunists looking to illustrate their next rant about how the world has succumbed to “woke orthodoxy”. All of this in a show that is slated to last a decade.
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Yorkshire-born cyclist won eight stages of Tour de France
Famously beat Eddy Merckx at Gent-Wevelgem in 1974
The pioneering British road sprinter and Classics rider Barry Hoban has died at the age of 85. Hoban was for many years the UK record holder for stage wins in the Tour de France with a tally of eight during his 17-year professional racing career, a total bettered only by the greatest sprinter of them all, Mark Cavendish, in 2009.
Hoban’s first stage victory in the Tour, in 1967, was not one he cared to remember – or that he felt was really a win – as it came the day after the sudden death of his friend and rival Tom Simpson on Mont Ventoux; he was “permitted” to escape and cross the line first by the grieving peloton.
Russia touted as possible destination for Iran’s uranium stockpile and could also act as arbiter of deal breaches
Russia could play a key role in a deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, with Moscow being touted not only as a possible destination for Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but also as a possible arbiter of deal breaches.
Donald Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers in 2018 during his first term, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Worshippers are frisked on entering temple in Kandy where relic is held and photography is strictly prohibited
Sri Lankan police have launched an investigation into a photo circulated on social media claiming to show a Buddha tooth relic, which has gone on display under tight security.
The Criminal Investigation Department was ordered to determine whether the widely shared image was taken during the rare display of the relic, police said.
Cuts to science, environmental and safety agencies are a rejection of hard-won knowledge gained from studying the disaster that occurred 15 years ago
Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.
In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.
Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel
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