Ethel Caterham, who lives in a care home in Surrey and takes life in her stride, is first Briton to claim title since 1987
The secret of longevity is to do what you like, according to the 115-year-old British woman named the world’s oldest living person.
Ethel Caterham, born in 1909, is the first Briton to claim the title of world’s oldest person since 1987, when 114-year-old Anna Williams was the record holder.
The Trump administration is seeking to strip collective bargaining rights from large swaths of federal employees in a test case union leaders argue is part of a broader attack on US labor unions that could land before the US Supreme Court.
A Trump win would deliver a severe blow to labor unions in the US. Some 29.9% of all federal workers were represented by labor unions in 2024 compared to 11.1% for all US workers.
The US justice department says it did not fire a former pardon attorney, Liz Oyer, after she refused to recommend reinstating Mel Gibson’s gun rights.
But Oyer tells Jonathan Freedland a different story, one she believes points to a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on the rule of law in America
Archive: ABC News, Face the Nation, CBS News, CNN, PBS, NBC News, Fox News, WHAS11
Firm was navigating ‘toughest of market conditions’ when Trump’s tariffs worsened wallet pressures on consumers
McDonald’s posted a surprise decline in first-quarter global sales on Thursday, as demand from cash-strapped diners in its key markets faltered on uncertainty sparked by chaotic tariffs.
The company was navigating the “toughest of market conditions”, the company’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said, as global comparable sales fell 1%, while analysts on average had estimated a 0.95% rise.
Lawyers for hundreds of survivors filed a motion Wednesday to end the church’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a day before the fifth anniversary of a case that’s paid none of about 500 survivors but has cost the archdiocese around $45m in legal and professional fees.
Going back out on tour, the 13-time Grammy winner recalls stark inspirations and steamy studio sessions as she answers your questions
You’ve had a decades-long career. When did you first feel that you had “made it”?LondonLuvver I wasn’t expecting to do music for a job. I was into social activism in college, and I just had music as a hobby. My boyfriend managed a bunch of blues artists and I asked if I could open for some of them – just to have fun and hang out with my heroes. Unbeknown to me, there really weren’t any women playing blues guitar and doing the mix of songs [I was], and I immediately got more offers of gigs and even a record company offer within about a year. That first gig I got under my own name, when I was 19, was a total surprise: that’s when I felt I had made it.
How was it growing up with a father [John Raitt] who was such a big Broadway star?Abbeyorchards7 He had hits in the 1940s with Carousel, and in the 50s with The Pajama Game. By the time I was 10 or 11, he was on the road touring in the summer – he loved taking Broadway shows out to the countryside. That influenced me a lot later when I decided to veer off from college and go into music: his love of travelling, of every night being opening night, and putting everything he had into every performance. And he was on tour basically until his mid-80s, so I think that had a tremendous influence on me: like, we can’t believe we get paid, and this is our job.
Countries from Canada to Japan must take steps to isolate the United States in world diplomacy
Donald Trump and his political allies in Washington have undertaken far-sweeping actions to undermine the foundations of American democracy, while simultaneously pursuing policies that erode and disrupt eight decades of trust and cooperation with democratic allies in Europe, North America and Asia.
While leaders in these countries grapple with what is happening in Trump’s America, they must now ask themselves a new and critical question of immense relevance – one that has never been asked before in the modern era:
Exclusive: Fathers planning protest with babies in London on 11 June to highlight UK’s ‘rubbish’ statutory leave, least generous in Europe
British fathers are being urged to join the world’s first “Dad strike” to protest about the UK’s statutory paternity leave, which campaigners say is the least generous in Europe.
Fathers are planning to protest with their babies outside the Department for Business and Trade in London on 11 June in an effort to force the government to improve leave for dads and non-birthing partners.
The Next Big Story competition, run by writing school The Novelry, is encouraging entries from would-be authors ‘historically overlooked by the publishing industry’
A new competition is offering £75,000 to an aspiring writer based on just three pages of their novel.
Actor Emma Roberts, Bridgerton author Julia Quinn and Booker-winning Life of Pi author Yann Martel are among the judges for The Next Big Story competition, run by online fiction writing school The Novelry.
After watching my father’s struggle in a system that values profit over compassion, I wonder: how much longer will we accept a future where most of us lose our sense of human worth in old age?
The last time I visited my father, I walked into his $11,000-a-month room in a posh assisted living residence and found him curled up on the floor. My sister Amy and I knelt down, touched him, and asked if he was okay.
“I don’t know,” mumbled Dad, 96, a retired physician and lifelong outdoorsman. “I fell about 20 minutes ago and no one has come.”
As big companies and informal miners blame each other for the damage to rivers and forests, mining risks long-term harm to those living nearby
The small town of Muzo, nestled deep in Colombia’s emerald-rich valleys of Boyacá province, is a place where the soil holds great wealth. Brick-red homes and tin-roof shacks cling to the mountainside, their bases resting on black sand and dark mud. Below, the Río Minero weaves through the valley, its waters tainted by the silt and debris of continuous excavation.
The region’s natural beauty is marred by scattered waste and discarded mining materials, evidence of an industry that supports the town’s economy – but also harms its environment.
As the wrestler turned action hero turns 53, we count down his best movies – from Baywatch to Jumanji to that time he played the Tooth Fairy
Dwayne Johnson is about to violently switch gears. His next films include a Benny Safdie drama about an MMA fighter battling addiction and a true-crime drama produced by Martin Scorsese. The reason for this abrupt handbrake turn towards grownup film-making seems to be Red One; a duff Christmas action film. During its production, tales of Johnson’s backstage behaviour leaked out: the star was said to frequently be late, and would habitually hand his assistant bottles of urine rather than walk to the toilet. It was the biggest knock to The Rock since his career began. But onwards and upwards.
Selecting a new pope has always been an arduous process, but some conclaves seemed to suffer more than others
Modern-day conclaves are steeped in mystery: cardinal electors swear an oath of secrecy – and so do the cooks, drivers, medics and others who support their deliberations. Before the conclave begins next week, the Sistine Chapel will be swept for electronic bugs, jamming devices will be installed, and special coatings will be placed on windows to stop laser scanners picking up anything audible.
It wasn’t always this way: in the past, letters, diaries and other writings by cardinals and their attendants gave revealing accounts of what happened in the meetings convened in order to choose a pope.
Britain’s factories suffered a slump in export orders last month as Donald Trump’s globally unsettling tariff regime sent overseas demand for UK goods tumbling at the fastest pace in five years.
Manufacturers reported rising economic and trade uncertainties in April as some tariffs took effect and other threatened border taxes loomed, forcing them to lay off workers for a sixth consecutive month.
I support the Climate Paradox report from the Tony Blair Institute, but his foreword risks compromising what must be achieved
David King was chief scientific adviser to the UK government under Tony Blair, and is founder and chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group
I have always been proud of the progress the UK made between 2003 and 2007 in formulating a credible response to the climate change. Under Tony Blair’s leadership, the UK placed climate at the heart of global diplomacy. At the time, our understanding was based largely on scientific projections and models. Today, the crisis is in full view – faster and more devastating than many imagined. The world is now experiencing the daily impacts of climate breakdown, and our responses must reflect this escalating emergency. We need measured, strategic, sustained and, above all, urgent interventions to ensure a manageable future for humanity.
That is why I support much of the thrust of The Climate Paradox report from the Tony Blair Institute. It rightly recognised that the era of endless summits and slogans must give way to one of delivery and impact. But the comments I gave were prior to seeing the foreword, and while there has been some clear misinterpretation from elements of the media, I do believe it has removed the balance of the report in ways that risk undermining what still can – and must – be achieved.
The Lakers were thoroughly outmatched against the Timberwolves in this season’s playoffs. The team must now address the fixes that need to be made
Dorian Finney-Smith slams his hand in frustration against an empty chair on his way to the shower. The locker room is so silent you could hear a pin drop. In spite of every expert prediction, it was not “Lakers in five,” or, at least, not on the right end of five. The LeBron James, Luka Dončić, and JJ Redick-led Lakers were sent packing by the Minnesota Timberwolves on their home court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, in a five-game series whose final tally doesn’t tell the whole story.
Minnesota were decidedly the better team in the series, but with the exception of a decisive Timberwolves win in the opener, it was a sequence of games won on the margins. The final game between the two teams felt, for the most part, like a competition where neither opponent particularly felt like giving their all, which played into Minnesota’s hands as the roster with far more depth and, thus, margin for error. But, in all likelihood, the series was won and lost in Game 4, a classic, hard-fought battle that came down to the final buzzer. While it wasn’t technically the end of the series, it’s the kind of loss that’s almost impossible to come back from, both emotionally, and historically: teams who go up three games to one in a seven-game series go on to win 95% of the time.
The government’s claims against detainees were paper-thin and the process riddled with errors. Now history is repeating
Guantánamo is a horror Americans have tried to forget. But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deportation regime resembles so many of Guantánamo’s evils that it compels comparison. That comparison reveals significant differences but frightening similarities.
On 11 January 2002, the detention facility opened. The first detainees, in orange jumpsuits, hobbled along in a parade to show the press the success of the government in this battle of the “war on terror”.
The detainee admits he was a cook’s assistant for Taliban forces in Narim, Afghanistan under the command of Haji Mullah Baki.
Mark Denbeaux is professor emeritus at Seton Hall Law School and for 18 years represented four detainees held in Guantánamo who had endured torture by the CIA
For an estimated 30,000 Black people, the journey from enslavement in the US ended north of the border
Between the late 18th century and the end of the American civil war, tens of thousands of Black Americans escaped the bondage of slavery by fleeing plantations to go north. The Underground Railroad had stops in states in which slavery was illegal, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. But for an estimated 30,000 people, the journey continued beyond those states into Canada.
Early Black American settlers in Canada – people who became Black Canadians before Canada was a country – made an indelible mark on their new home. They created thriving communities across Ontario and Nova Scotia and as far west as the Manitoba border; they founded abolitionist newspapers and paved the way for waves of migration that would follow.
Wine snobs can be a bit sniffy about it, but New Zealand sauvignon blanc is one of the most widely drunk whites in the UK
Besides Provençal rosé (a column for another day), New Zealand sauvignon blanc has to be one of the most successfully marketed wines of the past century. This grape is, of course, planted around the world, and originally French, but it has become so wrapped up in the identity of New Zealand wine, and so at the forefront of our minds, that several people I know who have heard of New Zealand’s take didn’t know that sauvignon blanc also constitutes many appellation wines from the Loire and Bordeaux.
It was 1973 when the first sauvignon blanc vines were planted in Marlborough, and were initially intended to be blended with müller-thurgau, which at the time was one of the region’s more popular grape varieties. That’s almost unthinkable now, when Marlborough is by far the most famed region for sauvignon blanc, with about 25,000 hectares of vines, low rainfall and long, sunny days, as well as free-draining soil. In other words, ideal conditions for producing wine en masse.
Beijing suspected of putting pressure on Vatican to cut ties with Taipei
Next week, 135 cardinals will gather inside the Vatican for the conclave, a secretive meeting to decide who will succeed the late Pope Francis. Around the world, people are speculating: who will the next pontiff be? But in Taiwan, a more common discussion has been: who are we sending to the inauguration?
The former vice-president Chen Chien-jen recently returned from Vatican City, where he represented Taiwan at Francis’s funeral. But the committed Catholic hopes he won’t be asked to repeat the journey to welcome in the successor. Instead, he is pushing for it to be Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te.
On the podcast today: a brilliant semi-final in Barcelona as they draw 3-3 with Inter. Lots of brilliant goals and another world-class performance from the frighteningly young Lamine Yamal. Inter will take the draw, especially with the second leg at San Siro, but they were a small toe’s length away from a HenrikhMkhitaryan winner.
The two best players of their generation suffered same-day disappointments that show the game is starting to move on
Not long ago, the results might have been seismic. Or at the very least, worthy of an eyebrows-raised remark. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two leading lights of their generation, the dominant on-field forces for most of this century, both going out of continental competition in the semi-finals? Both in upsets? On the same day?
On Wednesday, it actually happened. Messi’s Inter Miami fell to Vancouver 5-1 on aggregate in the Concacaf Champions Cup, and Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr lost 3-2 to Kawasaki Frontale in the AFC Champions League Elite at a nominally neutral site in Saudi Arabia.
Most countries have no fossil fuel reserves, but no country in the world is without renewable energy resources. For a country such as Iceland, the world leader in renewables, this statement is clear to see. The island nation has made good use of its volcanoes and glaciers, which help provide 100% of its electricity and almost all its heat energy. But what about other countries that don't have Iceland's unique geology to rely on. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out how the world has managed to reach the impressive milestone of more than 40% of global electricity demand coming from clean power sources, and how other countries such as the UK are making this energy transition happen, despite a distinct lack of volcanoes
(True Panther Sounds/Dirty Hit) Inspired by Mariah and Kylie but full of jackhammer rhythms and noise, the quartet’s second album could attract a big following
You can see why Model/Actriz’s 2023 debut album Dogsbody attracted a lot of approving critical attention. In an era when rock music largely leans towards familiarity – where originality has essentially come to mean rearranging recognisable sounds from the past in a relatively fresh way – here was a band who genuinely didn’t seem to sound much like anyone else.
The Brooklyn quartet had released a handful of noisy singles pre-Covid, which attracted vague comparisons to the notoriously challenging clangour of the late 70s no wave movement or the frenetic dance-punk of Liars, an outlier band on the far left field of the early 00s New York scene that gave the world the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But on Dogsbody they honed their sound into something entirely their own.
Exclusive: Britain is key financial hub for destructive fossil fuel mega-projects, according to research
Banks in the City of London have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing “carbon bombs” – huge oil, gas and coal projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global consequences – according to a study.
Nine London-based banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds are involved in financing companies responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 – the year after the landmark Paris agreement was signed – and 2023, according to the study.
They were snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But their dedicated followers – from Bernie Sanders to Maroon 5 – know they exemplify a uniquely American tradition
Bernie Sanders has called them “one of the great American rock bands”. They’ve been together since 1983, selling out stadiums and hosting festivals where they’re the only band on the bill, drawing tens of thousands. Last week, they won the fan vote for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with 330,000 votes, beating the runner-up, the rock supergroup Bad Company, by 50,000.
Yet outside the US, Phish may be best known as the inspiration for Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food flavor. They’ve never had a significant mainstream hit. And when the Hall of Fame inductees were announced on Sunday, Phish wasn’t among them. Bad Company was. Many fans seemed unbothered: “Phish is too out there, too innovative, not mainstream,” wrote one on a fan message board. “Hall of Fame just isn’t a Phish thing.” Added another: “Let the disdain and misunderstandings continue.”
Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented assault upon the environment, instigating 145 actions to undo rules protecting clean air, water and a livable climate in this administration’s first 100 days – more rollbacks than were completed in Trump’s entire first term as US president.
Trump’s blitzkrieg has hit almost every major policy to shield Americans from toxic pollution, curb the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and protect landscapes, oceans, forests and imperiled wildlife.
After her announcement of her transition, the actor said: ‘I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter’
Robert De Niro has expressed support for his daughter Airyn after she came out as transgender.
In a statement to Deadline, De Niro said: “I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is … I love all my children.”
The politics of aid may be toxic, but the UK must realise that supporting the world’s poorest people is both a moral and pragmatic thing to do
David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee
In more than 10 years working in the aid sector, I have seen extraordinary innovations, from childhood education programmes for refugee children, to AI-driven flood warnings that alert farmers in some of the most vulnerable places on earth. Many of the initiatives I’ve seen are remarkably impactful and deliver serious value for money: it costs the International Rescue Committee (IRC) just £3 ($4) to deliver a life-saving vaccine dose in the midst of a conflict in east Africa, for example.
The politics surrounding international aid, however, are increasingly toxic. The UK’s Department for International Development and now the US equivalent, USAID, have been dismantled, despite the British public being more than twice as likely to say that aid has a positive rather than negative impact. Denmark has stuck to the UN target of spending 0.7% of its national income on overseas development, yet it is an exception rather than a norm among European nations. The UK government now needs to answer a number of hard questions about aid: what is it for, how should it be delivered, and who should pay for it?
David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Director Nisha Ganatra said she felt they ‘owed audiences to make it right’ in the new film
The director and leading cast member of Freakier Friday, the soon-to-be-released sequel to Disney’s 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, have criticised the “hurtful” Asian stereotypes of the older film and said they “owed audiences to make it right”.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Nisha Ganatra, a Canadian whose parents were first generation immigrants from India, said of the 2003 film: “I remember watching it and feeling torn, mostly about the Asian representation … It was something I brought up right away when I had my first meetings with the producers. I had a moment of the presentation that was like, ‘problematic Asian representation!’”
News comes as artists including Pulp, Paul Weller and Primal Scream defend Irish rap trio from criticism
Counter-terrorism police are investigating footage that appears to show Kneecap calling for politicians to be killed, and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”, while dozens of artists – including Pulp, Paul Weller and Primal Scream – have defended the Irish rap trio from staunch criticism from politicians on both sides of the Commons benches.
On Thursday, detectives said videos of the two incidents had been brought to their attention in late April, and had been referred for assessment by specialist counter-terrorism officers. They had “determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos”, officers said.
The once unsinkable ship of US higher education has hit an unthinkable iceberg
American higher education is living its RMS Titanic moment. The multi-trillion-dollar United States academic-scientific complex, led by the richest and most highly coveted universities in history, remains the envy of the world. “American University Inc” is one of the US’s top exports and among its most valuable stocks. Brands such as Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and so many others are revered worldwide as symbols of academic excellence, independent thinking, breakthrough innovation and prestige. No other university system in the world comes close to amassing as much capital – financial, human, cultural and social – as the mighty American one.
Tens of thousands expected at protests to take place in nearly 1,000 cities against Trump and his administration
Protesters are expected to rally nationwide on 1 May with a focus on workers’ and immigrants’ rights in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.
May Day, commemorated as international workers’ day, comes after two massive days of protests in April – 5 April’s hands off rallies and 19 April’s day of action – drew millions to the streets across the country.
Pittsburgh residents, workers and business owners react to the increasingly fraught trading reality now upending supply chains and hitting prices
“In a lot of ways it feels like Covid 2.0. So many things are getting disrupted so quickly.” Like so many businesses across Donald Trump’s America, Matt Katase’s craft brewery, Brew Gentleman, is having to contend with a bafflingly uncertain trading environment.
The brewery’s chief operating officer, Alaina Webber, says: “For the first time, as a company in operation going on 15 years, we’ve started to get explicit emails that say: ‘On this existing order, you are now going to see a 30%, then to a 130% increase.’”
The death of Virginia Giuffre - who accused the Duke of York of sexual assault - surely makes his desire to resume royal duties out of the question
Everyone talks about Prince Andrew’s “fall from grace” but that raises an awkward question. When exactly was his grace period? Admittedly, even the most cynical among us aren’t immune to royal wedding fever, and when he married Fergie the nation was still high on the fumes from Charles and Diana’s nuptials, so perhaps he was briefly popular in 1986. But other than that? Pretty confident recollections wouldn’t vary here. Nada.
So technically we can’t call the events that have transpired since that brief moment in the sun a fall from grace. It’s more accurate to classify them as many falls from “meh”.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Donald Trump has never been mistaken for an environmentalist, having long called the climate crisis a “giant hoax” and repeatedly lauding the supposed virtues of fossil fuels.
But the US president’s onslaught upon the natural world in this administration’s first 100 days has surprised even those who closely charted his first term, in which he rolled back environmental rules and tore the US from the Paris climate agreement.
Taken more than 140 actions to roll back environmental rules and push for greater use of fossil fuels.
Set about rewriting regulations that limit pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.
From a very-not-safe-for-work cartoon to a drag queen fever dream and a puppet show that’s like Horrible Histories for grownups – networks wouldn’t dare air these online hits
Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, made by the same team, are as funny as anything on mainstream TV. Despite being animated, Hazbin Hotel is very much a show for adults, with both the comedy and plot lines often very not-safe-for-work. It has queer-friendly, gut-busting laughs, with surprisingly moving storylines and songs Lin Manuel-Miranda would be jealous of. The great strength of this being a YouTube show is that it would be extremely hard to pitch to a network. As they control their own content, creators can push the humour and actually build story around compelling (but risque) issues around sex, gender and identity. The show is essentially set in a version of hell. Hazbin Hotel focuses on the daughter of Satan trying to run a hotel for demons with the aim of rehabilitating them so they can get to heaven. It’s extremely irreverent, silly and subtle – a rousing story of someone coming into their own. Will Green, 35, London
The Football Association has announced that it will ban transgender women from playing in women’s football from 1 June. It follows the ruling from the supreme court that the term “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman.
The decision comes barely a month after the FA ruled that transgender women could continue to play in the women’s game as long as they kept their testosterone levels below 5 nmol/L for at least 12 months.
The late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died on set, shows herself to be the saving grace of an otherwise poorly acted and overly long mess
Let’s put this upfront: the cinematography by the late Halyna Hutchins is gorgeous. Hutchins died in a horrific accident on the set of the movie Rust, when a prop gun, improperly checked before it was given to star and producer Alec Baldwin, shot a real bullet – prompting the reasonable question of whether the movie itself should ever be finished and see the light of day. Regardless of the moral quandary, the movie is here, primarily showcasing how good Hutchins was at her job. The first few minutes of Rust quickly accumulates half a dozen gorgeous images in establishing shots, and remains great-looking throughout – visually worthy, at least, of moments that imitate famous shots from classics of the genre like The Searchers and the True Grit remake. (If Hutchins worked on about half of the movie, it seems to have been finished following her visual lead.)
It’s not unusual for a contemporary-made western to work primarily in dusty browns, beiges and blacks in depicting the past (in this case, the Wyoming of 1882), but this movie’s dark tones have impressive richness; much of the imagery looks as if it’s been painted in deep-black shadows. It’s not just silhouettes on magic-hour landscapes that show off Hutchins’ obvious talent, either; in an early prison-break scene, a rescuer emerges from darkness, and the camera slowly pans over to the dead body of a lawman, as if in fearful apprehension.
ChatGPT’s embarrassing rollback of a user update was a warning about the dangers of humans placing emotional trust in AI
Nobody likes a suck-up. Too much deference and praise puts off all of us (with one notable presidential exception). We quickly learn as children that hard, honest truths can build respect among our peers. It’s a cornerstone of human interaction and of our emotional intelligence, something we swiftly understand and put into action.
ChatGPT, though, hasn’t been so sure lately. The updated model that underpins the AI chatbot and helps inform its answers was rolled out this week – and has quickly been rolled back after users questioned why the interactions were so obsequious. The chatbot was cheering on and validating people even as they suggested they expressed hatred for others. “Seriously, good for you for standing up for yourself and taking control of your own life,” it reportedly said, in response to one user who claimed they had stopped taking their medication and had left their family, who they said were responsible for radio signals coming through the walls.
Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App
To paraphrase Bishop Berkeley’s famous empiricist thought-experiment: if a legendary over is bowled in a game that isn’t televised, did it really happen? The answer is: yes, Bish, it happened. In fact, Geoffrey Boycott still remembers punching a 150kph throat ball toward Joel Garner in the gully. But, unless you happened to have been watching Tony Francis’ two-minute despatch on News at Ten on Saturday 14 March 1981, it would have slipped past your attention that Rishton’s new pro, Michael Holding, had relocated Geoffrey’s off stump 20 yards nearer the press box. Which, if you were one of the Lancashire League’s top-order batters, might not be a bad thing to have slipped your attention.
Nevertheless, if they hadn’t seen the recent Barbados bombardment, they will have had vivid memories of Andy Roberts’ and especially Mikey’s Old Trafford brutalism from five years earlier: Holding roaring in off the boundary, the 45-year-old Brian Close now jerking his combover away at the last second from the hard red missile, like a stuntman avoiding a punch, now chesting it away to point like Niall Quinn playing in Kevin Phillips after a long diagonal from full-back, eventually walking off with a torso resembling a Rorschach Test – heavily bruised, yes, but not out.
In an extract from his new book, Jared Beasley introduces the eccentric figure behind the Barkley Marathons, where runners are terrified and tested in equal measure
For over a century, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary was the end of the line. Built in the shape of a Greek cross, the pale limestone structure had housed the worst of the worst – murderers, madmen, monsters – its bulk hunched beneath a crown of scarred mountains the guards called the fifth wall.
Now it sits empty – cracking and molding and dying. But each spring around April Fool’s, on a cold, crisp day like today, a retired accountant appears at its gate. He carries a book with an ominous title and plants it against the back wall. Then sometime between midnight and noon the next day, he lights a cigarette, and the world’s most grueling footrace begins.
British government’s push for tournament to be at Trump-owned venue in Scotland is likely to seek favor with US
The British government’s attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump by nudging golf executives to host one of the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments at a Scottish venue owned by the US president could ultimately lead to a violation of the US constitution, ethics experts have warned.
The Guardian reported this week that officials in British prime minister Keir Starmer’s government have asked senior executives at R&A, which organizes the Open championship, whether they would host the golf championship at the Turnberry golf resort in 2028.
Young Kenyans have aired their disappointment in President Ruto by posting satirical images of him on X – leading to some being abducted, beaten and tortured
Billy Mwangi is a 24-year-old student who lives in Embu, 125km north-east of Nairobi. He loves watching football with his dad, likes to hang out with his friends and enjoys playing video games with his brother. He also ran a popular account on X which he used to post about politics from time to time. “I like to defend people” he says. “When Kenyans are not happy I always wanted to voice my concern, because I’ve had political ambitions for a while now.”
On 22 December 2024, as Kenyans prepared for the festive season, Mwangi had gone to get a haircut, before heading to church.
Get on a plane on either side of the Atlantic and you’re vastly more likely to find a man at the controls. Is it because of prejudice, the problems the job poses for family life – or something else?
Sometimes passengers congratulate Maria Pernia-Digings, 61, on her parking. When she tells me this, she tries to laugh it off as a tiny slight, barely worth commenting on. Others don’t bother to hide their shock, and greet her as they leave the plane with blunt amazement: “Oh, you’re a woman!”
“It’s lovely. People are very supportive,” she says, before conceding she finds some of the feedback extremely trying. Remembering the last male passenger to compliment her on her parking, she says: “It is a bit sad, isn’t it, if he thinks that because I’m a woman, I can’t park?”
Millie Bright and Aggie Beever-Jones have been among the stars, though it has not been a smooth season for all
Hannah Hampton The 24-year-old has made the No 1 shirt her own this season. Ever present in goal, she is second for clean sheets in the league and her distribution is a key asset. She might not always be the busiest given the team in front of her but, more often than not, she has stepped up in the big moments with memorable saves to ensure her side maintain their unbeaten run. 8
Motorist held in Osaka on suspicion of attempted murder after seven children injured, according to local media
Police in the Japanese city of Osaka have arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder after he drove his car into seven schoolchildren, according to local media.
The children were walking home from school when the suspect appeared to deliberately drive the car at them on a quiet residential street at about 1.30pm local time, the public broadcaster NHK reported.
Exclusive: British Caribbean artist Winston Branch was distraught at loss of paintings – taken because he could not pay rent
Twenty paintings by the Caribbean British abstract painter Winston Branch have been recovered after they disappeared without trace nearly five decades ago.
“Those works were stolen from his studio because he wasn’t able to pay the rent back in the 1970s,” his agent, Varvara Roza, told the Guardian. “This is shocking, isn’t it?”
After a grounding with genre greats, he fused jazz with rock to outrageously funky effect. Ahead of UK dates, he explains why two prosthetic hips aren’t slowing him down
Billy Cobham speaks the way he plays drums. Words pour out of him in a great, rhythmic rush, every sentence alive with energy and ideas – and so interviewing him can be as overwhelming as his music sounds. I ask about a recent sojourn to his birth nation of Panama and he’s still answering 15 minutes later, although the topic now is a huge 1973 concert at Yankee Stadium in New York where he played alongside salsa legends Fania All-Stars to 40,000 fans: “All the nations had their flags – and all the gangs were there too!” Cobham describes watching in awe as the greatest congueros alive all played in unison before the frenzied crowd invaded the stage. It’s fascinating, though I begin to fear our allotted time will be taken up by this single sprawling anecdote. “Don’t get me started,” he says, and laughs, kicking back in his book-lined office in Berne, Switzerland.
William Cobham Jr is one of history’s greatest drummers, who, alongside Miles Davis and John McLaughlin helped fuse jazz with rock and funk (he co-founded Mahavishnu Orchestra with the latter). Cobham became an influence on everything from Prince to prog, and has also backed icons across a huge spectrum of music – jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins but also James Brown, Roberta Flack, Peter Gabriel and more. At 80, he’s just been given a lifetime achievement award at the Jazz FM awards but is still a dynamic, muscular bandleader, with UK gigs coming up at Cheltenham jazz festival and Ronnie Scott’s. “The first time I came to Great Britain was in 1968 with Horace Silver,” he says, “and you know where we played? Ronnie Scott’s!”
Move seals a deal to create a fund the Trump administration says will begin to repay roughly $175bn provided to Ukraine
The US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share profits and royalties from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.
The minerals deal, which has been the subject of tense negotiations for months and nearly fell through hours before it was signed, will establish a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund that the Trump administration has said will begin to repay an estimated $175bn in aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Manchester United travel to the Basque Country for the second time this season. They can expect a tougher test in the semi-finals than they had against Real Sociedad in the last 16. United won that tie 5-2 on aggregate, Bruno Fernandes scoring a fine hat-trick at Old Trafford in one of their best performances of the season. In a season of many lows, the Europa League has given United some solace – and an opportunity to qualify for Europe next season.
The celebrated presenter warns of ‘modern day colonialism at sea’ as he highlights the destruction caused by overfishing and bottom trawling
When David Attenborough’s Blue Planet IIdocumentary aired eight years ago, its impact was so strong it was credited with bringing about a revolution in the way people use plastics. Now film-makers are hoping he can do the same for other destructive environmental practices that the world’s best-known living naturalist describes as “draining the life from our oceans”.
The industrial fishing method of bottom trawling is the focus of a large part of Attenborough’s latest film, Ocean, which airs in cinemas from 8 May, the naturalist’s 99th birthday. In a remarkably no-holds-barred narrative, he says these vessels tear the seabed with such force “the trails of destruction can be seen from space”. He also condemns what he calls “modern day colonialism at sea”, where huge trawlers, operating off the coasts of countries reliant on fish for food and livelihoods, are blamed for dwindling local catches.
Focus on overuse contributes to antibiotics reaching less than 7% of people with drug-resistant infections in poorer countries, say researchers
Less than 7% of people with severe drug-resistant infections in poorer countries get the antibiotics they need, a new study suggests, with researchers warning that not only is this causing suffering and deaths, but is also likely to be driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
With AMR forecast to cause 1.9m deaths a year by 2050, they are calling for urgent action, akin to the fight earlier this century to get HIV drugs to Africa’s virus hotspots.
Nearly 69 million Americans on average per month are set to receive Social Security benefits in 2025, consisting of retired workers, disabled workers, survivors and dependents. These benefits represent 31 percent of income for people over the age of 65 in the US.
Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as UK manufacturers report falling export orders and China signals openness to US trade talks
Fhaheen Khan, senior economist at Make UK, a lobby group for British manufacturing, said:
UK manufacturers are caught in the eye of a perfect storm, with rising costs and international trade uncertainty undermining growth prospects. While actual changes in trade have been limited, the unpredictability, particularly around US tariff policy, is doing significant damage and paralysing decision makers. Many firms are delaying major investment decisions until greater clarity emerges, while being forced in the meantime to cut costs through redundancies while pushing through price increases.
This has left manufacturing experiencing its most severe slowdown in years, with the UK at a competitive disadvantage compared to our European peers who are weathering current challenges relatively better. As a result, it is now vital that government delivers on its promise to bring forward a bold, ambitious and fully funded industrial strategy. This will be critical for businesses seeking an end to crippling uncertainty.
The start of the second quarter saw UK manufacturing buffeted by adverse global market conditions, rising cost pressures, deteriorating supply chains and increased trade uncertainty. April saw further contractions in output, new orders and exports, as well as a slump in business confidence to its lowest ebb since November 2022.
Although domestic demand remains soft, overseas demand is especially weak. New export business fell at the quickest pace for nearly five years, with demand from clients in the US, Europe and mainland China all declining. Surveyed manufacturers noted that US tariff announcements were having a noticeable impact on global markets as trading partners adapt to increased trade volatility.
Ukraine and the US signed a long-awaited minerals deal last night, signaling a major step forward in bilateral relations. But the full text of the agreement, including key details on the contentious small print issues that dragged out negotiations, has yet to be made public.
Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal suggested yesterday that the process of ratifying the agreement could start today, with party consultations. Expect more details to emerge.
Wall Street Journal article saying headhunters were contacted is ‘absolutely false’, says company chair
Tesla has denied a report that its board sought to replace Elon Musk as its chief executive amid a backlash against his rightwing politics and declining car sales.
Robyn Denholm, the chair of the board at the electric carmaker, said in a statement on Tesla’s social media account on X: “Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company.
Boxer spent two nights in hospital after points victory
Potential fight with Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez mentioned
Chris Eubank Jr says he underwent surgery after his gruelling points victory over bitter rival Conor Benn after being “headbutted”.
Eubank Jr spent two nights in hospital after his victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday evening, with his promoter Ben Shalom rejecting Benn’s claims the 35-year-old had suffered a broken jaw. Shalom said Eubank Jr had gone to hospital for “precautionary checks”, but the fighter has now revealed he had surgery on a damaged eye.
Erin Patterson said she spent a “small fortune” on buying eye fillet steak for her “special meal” of beef wellingtons, and was really disappointed that her estranged husband cancelled the night before the lunch, a Victorian court has heard.
Simon Patterson has started his evidence in Patterson’s murder trial in the supreme court, detailing the deterioration in their relationship about the paying of child support.
The Ghana international on how recent successes and his club’s feeling and culture fuel hope for their semi-final with Manchester United
Iñaki Williams, the fastest footballer in town, is accelerating again. The more the images come, the quicker he goes, flying through faces, flashbacks and feelings, everything they did and can still do. “It’s madness,” he says, eyes sparkling, the words chasing each other out, emotion building. And then the Athletic Bilbao winger pauses and laughs. “The other day they came to do tests. The cardiologist started to talk about it. He says: ‘That was wonderful; wow, the gabarra …’ And just him mentioning it, on the screen you saw my heart beating faster.”
The gabarra is a barge. Only that’s not all: there is something almost mythical about it, like a legend passed through generations. In an expression of Athletic’s identity, another idiosyncrasy of a unique club, the club’s trophies are celebrated by pulling the gabarra up the Nervión river with the players on board, or so they had been endlessly told, black and white pictures adorning the walls of seemingly every bar. Then, last April, they finally saw it for themselves, Williams leading them on board holding the Copa del Rey. It was the first time in 40 years. More than a million fans lined the river to see it: there were more people with them in Bilbao than live there.
A warming tundra has seen unexpected shifts, raising the alarm about fragile ecosystems and those who rely on them
Scientists studying Arctic plants say the ecosystems that host life in some of the most inhospitable reaches of the planet are changing in unexpected ways in an “early warning sign” for a region upended by climate change.
In four decades, 54 researchers tracked more than 2,000 plant communities across 45 sites from the Canadian high Arctic to Alaska and Scandinavia. They discovered dramatic shifts in temperatures and growing seasons produced no clear winners or losers. Some regions witnessed large increases in shrubs and grasses and declines in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shade created by taller plants.
A restoration project at Sharpham near Totnes aims to tackle the loss of the natural world while helping people build mental resilience
Two landscapes separated by a wide sweep of river tell a story of change. On one side is traditional farmland, close-cropped grazing, uniform grasses, neatly tended hedges and a sparsity of trees, a farmscape ubiquitous across England. On the riverbank opposite, rougher, less uniform grasses grow unevenly between trees, thistle and brambles, in a chaos of natural disorder swaying in the breeze towards the reedbeds below.
The land on the Sharpham estate side of the River Dart used to be a mirror of the traditional farmscape on the opposite bank. It hosted a non-organic dairy farm and a vineyard, within a tightly controlled 18th-century heritage landscape of deforested parkland.
This fantasia on the life of Lambert Simnel, who finds himself a claimant to the English throne, is a romp through late-medieval identity and historical uncertainty
One day in 1484, strange men arrive at the Oxfordshire farm where 10-year-old John Collan lives. They’ve come to carry him away to a new life, for he is not, after all, the farmer’s son; in fact, he’s Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, spirited away in infancy to keep him safe ahead of the day he might return to claim the throne of England. That day is now in sight. He can’t call himself John any more, but he can’t yet be announced as Edward, Earl of Warwick. In the meantime he’ll be given a third name: Lambert Simnel.
Over the course of this fantastically accomplished novel, the many-named boy will travel from Oxford to Burgundy then Ireland, and at last into the paranoid and double-crossing heart of Henry VII’s court. The tail end of the Wars of the Roses – with Richard III’s crown snatched from the mud of Bosworth by Henry Tudor – is a foment of plot and counter-plot, and our hero spends his adolescence being passed around scheming factions who go so far as to hold a coronation for him. What a painful life this is for a boy “so grateful for any amount of love” as he falls in and out of favour, uncertain of his own parentage, gaining and losing relatives as their interest turns to other plots and other pretenders.
A renovated lighthouse on the Bay of Biscay is the perfect base for exploring Asturias’s maritime delights
I have always longed to be a lighthouse keeper and now, at last, I am one. If only for the weekend. Look at my chunky-knit jumper! Feel the waterproof weave of my Donegal tweed cap! Truth be told, I am way too toasty in this quasi-nautical ensemble, having hoped and dressed for ominous fog, murderous gales and oceanic rainstorms. Instead, it is bright, calm and warm on an early spring afternoon in the famously pretty fishing village of Cudillero in Asturias, where the Costa Verde of northern Spain drops away into the deep blue Bay of Biscay.
Built in 1858, the local lighthouse – the Faro de Cudillero – stands on a shelf of rock just beyond the harbour, a short walk up stone steps and along a narrow cliff side service path. Its hexagonal beacon tower has been remodelled a few times over the years. The signal lamp inside was first fuelled by olive oil, then paraffin and petrol, before being electrified and eventually automated. With no further need for a human operator, its sturdy keeper’s cottage was left derelict decades ago. It’s sad to contemplate that absence, and the general obsolescence of the role itself. But if I can’t man the light, I can at least occupy the lighthouse.
From daredevil swimmers in Tunisia to a rope-tricking Mexican horseman and a family get-together at a Californian river bar, the magic of the everyday is celebrated in LensCulture’s New Visions awards
Latest satellite-free Sky TV is ready for primetime with better picture, sound and much-improved service
The latest version of Sky’s Glass smart TV is faster and looks better than its predecessor and offers a level of all-in-one convenience that makes the satellite-free pay TV one of the best on the market.
Sky Glass gen 2 is a straight replacement for the original model from 2021, which introduced Sky’s TV-over-broadband service that ditched the need for a satellite dish. The new TV comes in three sizes and you can buy the smallest 43in version for a one-off payment of £699 or £14 a month spread over four years, after which you own it.
As the trial over the deadly 2023 beef wellington lunch continues in the Victorian supreme court, here’s what you need to know about the people involved
A fatal family lunch in regional Victoria is at the centre of a high-profile murder trial that is under way in the state’s supreme court.
Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister and Simon’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson, by feeding them a meal of beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms in July 2023.
‘I always look for ‘perfect’ … I’m focused on the treble’
Chelsea’s manager, Sonia Bompastor, immediately turned her attention towards the prospect of completing a domestic treble as her side celebrated winning a sixth consecutive Women’s Super League title.
The Frenchwoman’s team, who had already won the League Cup in March, clinched the title in her first season in English football with Wednesday’s 1-0 victory at Manchester United as they capitalised on second-placed Arsenal dropping points earlier on Wednesday evening with their 5-2 loss at Aston Villa.
New service refers quarter of those seen for treatment
Concern over high numbers of participants dropping out
A significant number of former elite players who have participated in World Rugby’s new brain health service programme have been identified as being “at risk” of cognitive problems in later life.
So far 131 former rugby union players have registered to take part after last April’s launch, although only 65 have completed the process. Of those, one quarter were referred for specialist treatment. The service is not designed to provide a diagnosis, only to provide a risk assessment for former players.
A melt-in-the-mouth dish of fried tenderised chicken in a mushroom and sweet wine sauce
The term escalope is borrowed from the old French escalope, meaning “shell or carapace”, which is likely to be borrowed from the old Norse skalpr (“sheath”) or Middle Dutch schelpe (“shell”). This explains the shape, and why the word evolved to describe a slice of meat that has been pounded until it’s the same slimness all over.
This week’s recipe is inspired by the restaurant Bocca Di Lupo in Soho, which a few months ago, after a night at the theatre with my parents, was one of the few places still open and more than welcoming to walk-ins at 10.30pm. Sitting on the high stools at the end of the long, marble bar, Dad chose ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach, while Mum and I had scaloppine di pollo al marsala e funghi (thin chicken escalope with mushrooms in a soft, slightly thickened marsala sauce). The meal and wine would have been superb in any circumstance, but the feeling of relief combined with the particular thick atmosphere that fills some restaurants at that point in the evening – charged with work and pleasure but starting to wind down – made this a particularly enjoyable meal.
The broadcaster behaves like Starmer’s government: suppress the left, cave to your critics, and undermine your own survival
It’s no longer even pretending. Last week, the BBC, already the UK’s most prolific censor, instructed the presenter Evan Davis to drop the podcast he hosted in his own time about heat pumps. It was a gentle, wry look at the machines, with no obvious political content. But the BBC, Davis says, saw it as “steering into areas of public controversy”. Itshould cease forthwith.
So are BBC presenters banned from saying anything controversial? Far from it. Take an article published earlier this year by Justin Webb in the Times. It praised the “political genius” of Donald Trump, suggested that Democrats are now seen as the extremists, and claimed that Trump is widely regarded as “making [America] normal again”. The BBC was fine with that, and complaints about it were rejected.
Cybersecurity expert says group are ‘unusual but potently threatening’ coalition of ransomware hackers
If there is one noticeable difference between some members of the Scattered Spider hacking community and their ransomware peers, it will be the accent.
New work says novelist, who was a censor during second world war, may been employed to look for coded messages
It is an irony that she herself would have revelled in: Barbara Pym, the author who punctured the social strictures of 20th-century Britain, worked as a censor during the second world war.
But research suggests that rather than just poring over the private letters that must have helped hone her talent, she may have also been working for MI5.
The narrative of ancient tribes around the world regularly using ayahuasca and magic mushrooms in healing practices is a popular one. Is it true?
Beginning in 2001, the Austrian anthropologist Bernd Brabec de Mori spent six years living in the western Amazon. He first arrived as a backpacker, returned to do a master’s thesis on ayahuasca songs, and eventually did a PhD on the music of eight Indigenous peoples in the region. Along the way, he married a woman of the local Shipibo tribe and settled down.
“I did not have a lot of money,” he told me, “so I had to make my living there.” He became a teacher. He built a house. He and his wife had children. That rare experience of joining the community, he said, forced him to realise that many of the assumptions he had picked up as an anthropologist were wrong.
Politicians say Yoweri Museveni is prosecuting opponents on politically motivated charges before 2026 election
Ugandan opposition politicians have accused the president, Yoweri Museveni, of attempting to quash dissent by prosecuting opponents on politically motivated charges in military courts in the run-up to presidential and legislative elections next year.
The government is pushing to introduce a law to allow military tribunals to try civilians despite a supreme court ban on the practice.
Like The White Lotus without deaths, this brilliant tale of old college friends holidaying together is Fey’s finest work in years. Steve Carell and Colman Domingo are revelatory
In my next life I am definitely coming back as an affluent American. Whatever the risk of being murdered in a White Lotus hotel complex or a beachfront property by Nicole Kidman, the benefits far outweigh it.
The Four Seasons follows a year’s worth of the can-we-really-call-them-travails of three well off, beautifully clad couples in their 50s. They have been friends since their college days and now go for weekends away together four times a year, as we all would if we had the money, time and wardrobes. The eight-episode series is a remake and update of the 1981 Alan Alda film of the same name, by Tina Fey, Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher. It’s a creative triumvirate that promises much and – to the delight of Fey fans, who may feel it’s been a long wait since anything approaching the joy and genius of her Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt series – largely delivers.
Authorities are still trying to understand what triggered the massive power outage that left the majority of the Iberian Peninsula without electricity on Monday. To understand what might have been at play, and whether there’s any truth to claims that renewable energy sources were to blame, Ian Sample hears from Guardian energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose. And Guardian European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam explains what it was like to experience the blackout and how people reacted
When the gallery opened in 2000, it transformed the artistic life of Britain – and the world. We look back at spiders, splinters, sexual dependency and sunsets
Outage occurred between Maibara and Gifu-Hashima stations after the snake appeared to have climbed an electricity pole
Japan’s busiest bullet train line was brought to a halt on Wednesday after a metre-long snake wrapped itself around a power line, shorting the electricity supply and stranding hundreds of passengers.
Shinkansen trains running between Tokyo and Osaka were brought to a standstill by the snake, with news reports showing footage of people inside trains waiting for services to resume. Power did not appear to have been cut inside trains, with lights and air conditioning still functioning, according to passengers.
Connexion
