Post office says it ‘definitely’ won’t collect tariffs on Washington’s behalf and Hongkongers should prepare to pay exorbitant fees
Hong Kong Post said on Wednesday it had suspended goods mail services by sea to the US and will suspend its air mail postal service for items containing goods from 27 April due to “bullying” US tariffs.
When sending items to the US, people in Hong Kong “should be prepared to pay exorbitant and unreasonable fees due to the US’s unreasonable and bullying acts”, Hong Kong Post said in a statement.
Kilmar Ábrego García was deported, detained and flown to a notorious prison – before officials admitted they had made an error. Why is he still there? Maanvi Singh reports
Kilmar Ábrego García was 16 when he came to the US, after his family were targeted by criminal gangs in his home of El Salvador. He joined his brother in Maryland and started a new life.
In 2019, he was arrested by immigration officials and accused of being a gang member, but his lawyers argued there was no evidence for this, pointed out he had no criminal convictions and insisted he should not be sent back to a country where he was himself at risk from criminal gangs. A judge agreed and gave him protected status so he could not be deported.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has visited the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and declared “unwavering” support for Ukraine in the aftermath of a Russian attack on the northern city of Sumy that killed 35 people. Rutte said the military alliance was still strongly behind Kyiv, even as it also supported the ceasefire push by US president Donald Trump, who has issued fresh criticism of Zelenskyy, accusing him of starting the war. “Nato stands with Ukraine,” Rutte said at a press conference with Zelenskyy on Tuesday. “You and I know that this has been true all along. I also know that some have called Nato’s support into question in the last couple of months. But let there be no doubt: our support is unwavering.” Rutte also said: “Russia is the aggressor, Russia started this war. There’s no doubt.” Zelenskyy said the main focus of the talks was strengthening Ukraine’s air defence. “Absolutely everyone sees how urgent Ukraine’s need is for air defence systems and missiles for them,” he posted on X.
Ukraine’s military said it had hit a base belonging to the Russian rocket brigade that conducted the Palm Sunday missile attack on Sumy. The Ukrainian strike caused a “secondary detonation of ammunition” and the results “are being clarified”, the military said on Telegram on Tuesday. World leaders have condemned the Sumy attack, Ukraine’s deadliest of 2025, and Zelenskyy called it an act of deliberate terror. Ukraine moved on Tuesday to dismiss Sumy governor Volodymyr Artyukh after he made comments implying the Russian attack had targeted a military gathering.
Sweden said it had summoned the Russian ambassador to its foreign ministry to protest against Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s cities and civilian population. “Russia’s responsibility to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in accordance with international humanitarian law was emphasised to the Russian ambassador during his appearance,” the Swedish foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
China rejected what it called “manipulation and hype” around two of its nationals captured in Ukraine after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of dragging Beijing into the war and said hundreds of Chinese nationals were fighting on the frontline. “China is verifying the relevant information and circumstances,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said about the prisoners of war, urging “relevant parties to accurately understand China’s objective and impartial stance”. Ukraine held a press conference on Monday at which the two Chinese prisoners of war under armed guard said they hoped to be in a prisoner swap and warned other Chinese nationals not to go to fight.
A Ukrainian drone strike on the Russian city of Kursk killed an elderly woman and wounded nine others on Tuesday, local authorities said. Six of the injured were hospitalised for shrapnel wounds, burns and head injuries, they said. A Kyiv official alluded to the attack on social media but claimed a military target had been hit in the regional capital, about 90km from the Ukrainian border.
A Russian military court has sentenced five young people for up to 18 years in jail after finding them guilty of setting fire to railway infrastructure and a helicopter outside Moscow last year, the state news agency Tass reported. It cited state prosecutors as saying that the group – then aged 19 to 22 – had acted on the orders of people close to Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency. GUR posted video at the time purporting to show the helicopter – which it said belonged to the Russian defence ministry – on fire, but it did not claim responsibility for the attack.
In first speech since leaving office, ex-president spoke of ‘destruction’ current administration has wrought
Joe Biden on Tuesday accused Donald Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, Elon Musk, of taking a “hatchet” to the social security administration as part of their warp-speed effort to tear down the federal government.
In his first public remarks since leaving office, the former president avoided any mention of Trump – his predecessor and successor – by name but assailed the administration for threatening social security, which he called a “sacred promise” that more than 70 million Americans rely on each month.
All banking in the Pacific nation used to be done in cash but that is about to change on the main island of Funafuti
Tuvalu, one of the world’s most remote nations, has unveiled its first ever ATMs, at the headquarters of the National Bank of Tuvalu in the village of Vaiaku on Funafuti, the country’s main island.
Tuesday’s ceremony marked a historic shift for the island nation of 12,000 people, which has never before had access to electronic banking. Attended by prime minister Feleti Teo, the governor general, traditional leaders, members of parliament and representatives from the diplomatic and business sectors, the event celebrated a long-anticipated move toward financial modernisation.
Testimony that Instagram was ‘better’ seems to bolster allegations Meta used ‘buy or bury’ tactic to snap up rivals
Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram in 2018 in anticipation of a potential antitrust suit, documents unveiled at a trial in Washington showed on Tuesday.
“While most companies resist break-ups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they’ve been split up,” he wrote in an email at the time. He said there was a “there is a non-trivial chance” his company would be forced to spin Instagram and WhatsApp out anyway.
Consumption and production falls in almost every market as industry fears a ‘generational’ change in drinking habits
Worldwide consumption of wine fell in 2024 to its lowest level in more than 60 years, the main trade body has said, raising concerns about new risks from US tariffs.
The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) said on Tuesday that 2024 sales fell 3.3% from the previous year to 214.2m hectolitres.
Study of 420,000 Britons suggests going at speeds of at least 4mph can lower risks by up to 43%
Walking at a brisker pace could lower the risk of a wide range of heart rhythm problems, according to a study.
The peer-reviewed research, published in BMJ Heart, analysed data from 420,925 participants of the UK Biobank who had provided data on their walking speed. Of these, 81,956 gave more detailed data on the amount of time they spent walking at different paces.
A man who claims to be a “direct descendant of the Kings of France” has lost his legal bid to wrest control of the fleur-de-lis symbol from the New Orleans Saints, after a US appeals court found he had no standing to challenge the team’s decades-old trademark.
Michel J Messier of Rutland, Vermont, argued that his family held intellectual property rights to the fleur-de-lis due to their alleged royal lineage, citing ancestral ties to the monarchs of France, Scotland, Aragon, and Castille. The NFL franchise, which has used the stylized lily symbol since its inception in 1967, registered the trademark in 1974 for use in professional football entertainment.
In Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s brutal and immersive new film, memory informs the events that take place in real time to a unit of soldiers in Iraq
Warfare, Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s assiduous new film on a single episode of the American war in Iraq, opens with a title card typical to a war picture: date, location, barebones summary – 11 November 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq. Navy Seal team alpha one is supporting marines in insurgents’ territory. And then one final, unusual detail in place of the standard “based on a true story” – “This film uses only their memories.” The “only” is an ominous indicator: this is a film working against the Hollywood tide to gloss, simplify or narrativize. Warfare, based primarily on Mendoza’s memories of that day as a former Seal, as well as those of fellow soldiers and civilians present, is as much an experiment of translation as a cinematic achievement, a movie defined by both what it shows and what it does not.
Much of the press surrounding Warfare has focused on this exacting verisimilitude, its mission to create the “most accurate war film possible”. If something could not be double-checked by another account, it was not included. The intricate, fully immersive soundscape, designed by Glenn Freemantle, encompasses the vast volume spectrum of conflict – civilian chatter, a hand grazing a windowsill, burps of radio, destabilizing patters of gunfire and the sonic boom of a “show of force” military flyover that had nearly the same fetal-position effect on the theater audience as it did the characters. With the exception of a first scene observing the soldiers raucously dancing to the erotic music video for Eric Prydz’s Call On Me – underscoring just how young they are, how much pressure must be released – the movie proceeds in more or less real time. Ninety-ish minutes at a house the soldiers picked because one said “I like it”, at first tracking and then fighting nameless insurgents, with dialogue primarily in undiluted military jargon.
Merwil Gutiérrez sent from New York to El Salvador prison although family says he has no criminal history or gang ties
A 19-year-old Venezuelan in New York City reportedly was apprehended by Trump administration immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador despite agents’ realizing he was not whom they meant to arrest in a targeted operation.
Merwil Gutiérrez, whose family opened an asylum case after arriving in the US, was deported from the Bronx to the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador despite his relatives’ insistence that he has no gang ties or criminal history, according to Documented, a newsroom dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants in New York City. The Gutiérrez family says it has been left without information or answers.
Unai Emery will always shudder at mention of La Remontada. It came to define his time as the manager of Paris Saint-Germain, the crazy Champions League defeat to Luis Enrique’s Barcelona in 2017 after his team had held a 4-0 first-leg lead in the last 16. Barcelona would end up needing three goals with 88 minutes of the second leg gone at the Camp Nou. They got them for a 6-5 aggregate win.
On an epic night in the West Midlands, the roles were reversed; Emery the hunter with Aston Villa, Luis Enrique the hunted at PSG. It so nearly produced the ultimate moment of catharsis for Emery. His team were magnificent, absorbing the body blows of two concessions inside the opening half-hour that put PSG 5-1 up on aggregate and refusing to believe that this showpiece Champions League quarter-final was beyond them.
In the end, it was comfortable enough for Barcelona, despite Serhou Guirassy’s hat-trick. They were unable to hold the ball and command through possession as they might have liked but they always had clear water. There were spells, though, when they were distinctly uneasy and, but for an own goal that came at just the right time for them, this might have been a very awkward evening.
“I had a feeling something like that would happen today because I know the stadium well,” said the Barça manager, Hansi Flick, once of Bayern. “Things didn’t go too well for us, but Dortmund played very well. The things we played out weren’t what we normally do.” It was a tie, though, that raised doubts about Barcelona as potential champions. There is much to admire about Flick’s Spanish league leaders but theirs is a high-risk game and more precise opponents than Dortmund might have exposed them.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio also spoke with foreign minister about strengthening countries’ ties
The United States has removed sanctions on a close aide of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the state department said, adding that the punitive measures had been “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, spoke on Tuesday with his Hungarian counterpart, the foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, and informed him of the move, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
Dan Caldwell reportedly removed from building over ‘unauthorized disclosure’ amid scandal over recent leaks
One of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was reportedly put on leave and removed from the Pentagon on Tuesday following a Department of Defense investigation into leaks.
Caldwell was escorted out of the Pentagon after being identified during the investigation and subsequently placed on administrative leave for “an unauthorized disclosure”, a source told Reuters.
County to cut budget by almost $90m as it tackles nearly $2bn in fire-related costs and cuts to federal funding
Los Angeles county is experiencing unprecedented financial challenges amid growing costs from the historic wildfires that ravaged the region earlier this year and a $4bn sex abuse case settlement, the county CEO said this week.
The region faces roughly $2bn in expenses related to January’s fires, which killed 30 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures. Earlier this month the county announced it had a $4bn agreement to settle thousands of claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities dating back 1959 – the largest such settlement in US history.
UBC and others report spike in interest from US citizens as Trump withholds funds and revokes foreign student visas
More students living in the United States are applying to Canadian universities or expressing interest in studying north of the border as Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes foreign student visas.
Officials at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus said the school reported a 27% jump in graduate applications as of 1 March from US citizens for programs starting in the 2025 academic year, compared with all of 2024.
Court hands out sentences of over five years for extremism, accusing journalists of working for the late politician’s Anti-Corruption Foundation
A Russian court has convicted four journalists of extremism for working for an anti-corruption group founded by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and sentenced them to five and a half years in prison each.
Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger were found guilty of involvement with a group that had been labelled as extremist. All four had maintained their innocence, arguing they were being prosecuted for doing their jobs as journalists.
Sentenced with wife Nadine Heredia, Humala is third president of Peru imprisoned for corruption in past 20 years
A Peruvian court has sentenced former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for laundering funds received from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance Humala’s 2006 and 2011 campaigns.
The judges of the national superior court found that Humala and Heredia received several million dollars in illegal contributions for these campaigns from Odebrecht and the government of the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez.
Amy Schumer, Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn are among the famous names calling out the much-publicised space trip
The all-female Blue Origin rocket launch may have received plenty of glowing media coverage – but not everyone is impressed.
The stunt has drawn criticism from a number of female celebrities who were not keen on the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin NS-31 mission, which included Katy Perry, Bezos’s fiancee Lauren Sanchez, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn and, in a twist straight out of Apple TV’s The Morning Show, CBS Mornings host Gayle King.
Four women suing Tate over allegations of sexual violence and coercive control, with trial scheduled for early 2027
A civil case against Andrew Tate over allegations he subjected four women to sexual violence and coercive control is the first case of its kind, a judge has been told.
The influencer is being sued by two women who worked for his webcam business in Luton, Bedfordshire, in 2015 and two former girlfriends in 2013 and 2014.
There are four Aston Villa players who would miss the first leg of the semi-final should they pick up a yellow card. Marcus Rashford, Lucas Digne, Boubacar Kamara and Axel Disasi need to be on their best behaviour.
There is only one PSG player walking the disciplinary tightrope. Fabián Ruiz their only man on a yellow.
The US attorney general Pam Bondi declined on Tuesday to say whether Donald Trump’s suggestion of removing US citizens to El Salvador was legal, in alarming remarks about what experts think is an obviously illegal idea.
Trump proposed the idea on Monday in the Oval Office during a visit with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has been accepting people deported from the US and imprisoning them in a gigantic facility notorious for human rights abuses.
“Having a hard time building up any enthusiasm for either of these ties,” says Joe Pearson. “Sure, this Barcelona team isn’t Messi and Suarez, but this Dortmund team isn’t 2019 Liverpool, either. I just don’t see a dramatic turnaround here. And in the other match, this PSG team are not the bottlers of prior years. Might have to take a nap (I’m retired after all) instead. No offence.”
I’m with you. I think there’s an outside chance of a mad night at Villa Park, but I fully expect Barcelona and PSG to reach the final, never mind the semis.
1997-98: Uefa Super Cup Barcelona 2-0 Dortmund
Dortmund 1-1 Barcelona
2019-20: Champions League group stage Dortmund 0-0 Barcelona
Barcelona 3-1 Dortmund
Move follows Algiers’ expulsion of diplomats, after France’s arrest of man linked to abduction of influencer Amir DZ
France has expelled 12 Algerian consular and diplomatic officials and recalled its ambassador in Algiers, the French presidency said on Tuesday, in a retaliatory measure as a spat escalates between the two countries.
“The Algerian authorities are responsible for the sudden degradation of our bilateral relations,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
The trip leaned on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness
There are some spectacles of US decadence and decline that almost seem too on the nose – the sort of orgies of vulgar provocation or fantastic lack of self-awareness that exceed the limits of parody, so that if they were in a novel, you’d think the writer was laying it on a little thick. Among these is the all-female flight by Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-owned rocket tourism company, which on Monday launched a phallically shaped pod full of women – including the pop star Katy Perry and Bezos’s partner, Lauren Sánchez – on a brief trip into space.
The flight, which was promoted for months in advance, was touted as a triumph of feminism, a win for science and an embrace of the kind of expansive, curious human spirit of striving and possibility that once animated both. Instead, the flight served as a kind of perverse funeral for the America that once enabled both scientific advancement and feminist progress – a spectacle that mocked these aspirations by appropriating them for such an indulgent and morally hollow purpose.
Syngenta has been besieged by lawsuits from people claiming its product caused the neurological condition
Besieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.
A court filing on Monday confirmed that a letter of agreement between the parties had been signed. In a court hearing on Tuesday, one of the lead plaintiff lawyers, Khaldoun Baghdadi, said the terms of the settlement should be completed within 30 days.
Steve Witkoff’s switch from saying low-level production could continue seen as example of chaotic US foreign policy
Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has announced Iran must totally eliminate its nuclear programme, seeming to reverse the policy he had articulated on Fox News only 12 hours earlier that would have allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a low level for civilian use.
The switch to a more hardline policy is likely to make it much harder for the US to reach a negotiated agreement with Tehran, bringing back the threat of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
The Englishman says confidence within the squad of a Champions League comeback against Arsenal is ‘infectious’
Remontada, remontada, remontada.
“Honestly, I’ve heard it about a million times since last week,” Jude Bellingham said. No word has been repeated as often inside the dressing room or outside it either: on the front pages of the newspapers, on radio, TV and TikTok, where the Englishman apologetically admitted: “I get my education from these days,” or in the “million videos” he has watched. Bound into the mystique of Real Madrid, their never-ending story, it means comeback and it is written; it also means this isn’t over, even when it should be. Or so it goes.
The US is retreating behind chokepoints and tariffs. It remains determined to invent the future but is struggling to ensure its control
Globalisation is out; reshoring is the new realism. Intel’s half-built Ohio campus and Nvidia’s US supercomputer plan demonstrate the very different routes taken by Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the search for homegrown tech dominance. Mr Biden relied on institutions: grants, land and investment incentives. That approach has stalled after last year’s election, rendering Intel’s plant idle. Mr Trump prefers court politics: flattery, pressure and tariff threats. Nvidia’s move seems driven less by design than executive ultimatum. Industrial strategy lives on – but, and this is a concern, increasingly through presidential menace, not policy.
There’s another important message in the Nvidia announcement. In an era where ideas spread freely, power lies not in invention but in chokepoints, such as artificial intelligence supercomputer fabrication, that determine who can scale those ideas into global platforms. Remember that as the US braces for a backlash over the breakdown of the old trade order.
Tech giant stepped up production and chartered cargo flights with at least six jets to ensure sufficient inventory
Apple’s main Indian suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2bn worth of iPhones to the United States in March, an all-time high, as the US company airlifted devices to bypass Donald Trump’s impending tariffs, customs data shows.
The smartphone maker stepped up production in India and chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones to the United States to ensure sufficient inventory in one of its biggest markets based on concern that the US president’s tariffs would push up costs. At least six cargo jets were used in the operation, which one source described as a way to “beat the tariffs”.
The family of NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew listened in pain Tuesday as lawyers debated whether the men’s own drinking contributed to their deaths when they were hit by an allegedly drunken and enraged driver as they cycled at night.
After nearly two hours of argument, a judge agreed the issue was moot under New Jersey criminal law – upholding all of the charges against the driver, including manslaughter and vehicular homicide.
Video shows the herd forming a protective circle around youngster during powerful earthquake
As the ground shook from a 5.2-magnitude earthquake, a herd of elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park sprang into action to protect their young.
A video shot of their enclosure at the park on Monday morning shows the five African elephants standing around in the morning sun before the camera shakes and they run in different directions. Then the older elephants – Ndlula, Umngani, Khosi – scramble to encircle and shield the two seven-year-old calves, Zuli and Mkhaya, from any possible threats.
Slow TV is attracting viewers with hits such as a knitting marathon, burning firewood and swimming salmon
Most of the time, nothing much happens. A wide Nordic river, melting snow still lining its banks, meanders peacefully through a pristine forest of spruce and pine. But this spring, as every spring for the past six years, a lot of people will be glued to it.
When Den stora älgvandringen – variously translated as The Great Moose Migration or The Great Elk Trek – first aired on the public broadcaster SVT’s on-demand platform in 2019, nearly a million people tuned in. Last year, it was 9 million.
Four women suing Tate over allegations of sexual violence and coercive control, with trial scheduled for early 2027
A civil case against Andrew Tate over allegations he subjected four women to sexual violence and coercive control is the first case of its kind, a judge has been told.
The influencer is being sued by two women who worked for his webcam business in Luton, Bedfordshire, in 2015 and two former girlfriends in 2013 and 2014.
In two HBO documentaries, the acclaimed film-maker shines a light on corrupt political spending in America
When the Rev Robert Schenck saw Donald Trump secure the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2016, he turned to a fellow evangelical and asked: “Are we really going to do this? We’re going to choose this man who’s inimical to everything we believe?” The Christian leader looked at Schenck and replied: “I don’t care how bad he is. He’s going to get us the court we need.’”
This anecdote about the devil’s bargain struck between Trump and the religious right is told in The Dark Money Game, director Alex Gibney’s new diptych of documentaries investigating how untraceable political spending has corrupted America’s highest court, corroded its democracy and put oligarchs in charge.
Six hours of family time, two hours with friends, plus extra socialising, exercise and work ... Does it all add up to a highly satisfying 24 hours – or just a very tiring one?
From iPhone airlifts to Nintendo delays, Trump’s trade war has thrown the tech world into confusion
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Today’s news: Donald Trump’s tariffs spread confusion like a germ, tech takes two kinds of environmental tolls, Meta faces an antitrust trial, and I’ve been watching two excellent pieces of serialized fiction on Instagram and TikTok.
Dmitry Kalmykov is a Ukrainian scientist who has dedicated his life to investigating environmental disasters, first at Chornobyl and now in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan – formerly the Soviet Union’s primary nuclear weapons testing site. He teaches schoolchildren about how bombs were tested, and how – more than 30 years after the site was decommissioned – the community is only beginning to comprehend radiation’s lasting deadly effects. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and the long shadow of a nuclear conflict across the region, Dmitry debates Kazakhstan’s nuclear future with its next generation
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