↩ Accueil

Vue normale

index.feed.received.today — 22 mai 2025The Guardian

England v Zimbabwe: men’s cricket Test, day one – live

“It looks to me that Zimbabwe have got it right, with five bowlers, and England are limited to four,” says John Starbuck. “They are a seamer short and, unlike some earlier selections, they have only one all-rounder (Root, a limited spinner) given that Stokes won’t be expected to exert his frail body just yet. Shoaib Bashir might have done a good job, even if we have a limited choice of possible seamers.”

John, John, John, over the next eight months we’re going to have a gazillion conversations about the balance of the England side. Let’s just enjoy ourselves for a few days – or until Zimbabwe reach 200 for 3 in reply to England’s 121 all out and Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue have gone off injured and Ben Stokes is into his 12th over of offspin because he’s pulled both hamstrings.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images/Reuters

© Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images/Reuters

Amorim gets almost £100m transfer budget to start Manchester United rebuild

22 mai 2025 à 12:10
  • No sales needed to pursue top targets Cunha and Delap

  • United will listen to offers for players including Garnacho

Ruben Amorim has a summer transfer budget of a little less than £100m and retains Manchester United’s firm backing despite Wednesday’s Europa League final defeat by Tottenham.

As the Guardian previously reported, the executive’s belief in Amorim was not going to be affected by the result at San Mamés in Bilbao. The football department, headed by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, wants the Portuguese to have a first pre-season with his team and to strengthen the squad.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

© Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

Romería review – Carla Simón’s gripping pilgrimage tackles Aids, parents and the legacy of secrets

22 mai 2025 à 12:07

Cannes film festival
A young woman arrives in a Spanish coastal city to meet the family of her dead father, who are hiding information about his life and death, in Simón’s distinctive drama

Is biology destiny? Spanish film-maker Carla Simón brings to Cannes her very personal and in fact auto-fictional project Romería (meaning “pilgrimage”) – about an 18-year-old girl, arriving in Vigo in Galicia on Spain’s bracing Atlantic coast. She is on a mission to find out more about her biological father who died here of Aids after he split from her mum, who has since died, too, and about her dad’s extended – and very wealthy – family.

Romería returns Simón (and her audiences) to the complex and painful subject of her mother and father, which she first approached in her wonderful autobiographical debut Summer 1993 although for me the more conventionally enclosed fictional transformation of the material there might have given that film a sharper arrowhead of storytelling power.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: QuimVives Elastica Films

© Photograph: QuimVives Elastica Films

If aid doesn’t enter Gaza now, 14,000 babies may die. UN peacekeepers must step in | Michael Fakhri

22 mai 2025 à 12:00

As a UN special rapporteur on the right to food, I have watched for 19 months as Israel starves children. The world must act now

On Monday, Israel launched an intensive ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots as part of its plan to cause as much pain and damage as possible to everyone in Gaza. Israel has announced its intent to gain full indefinite control over Gaza, in effect aiming for annexation. This was after the international court of justice found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and demanded it end its occupation as rapidly as possible and provide full reparations to Palestinians.

Israel’s increased violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory also comes after it denied all food, water and supplies from entering Gaza for over 75 days. In March, child acute malnutrition increased by more than 80%. The price of wheat flour has increased by 3,000% since February. The World Food Programme ran out of food for kitchens in Gaza on 25 April and the World Central Kitchen closed its operations on 7 May. If adequate aid does not enter Gaza immediately, 14,000 Palestinian babies may die.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters

© Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters

My signed tie is up for auction. I don’t think even my mum would buy it | Adrian Chiles

22 mai 2025 à 12:00

It dates back to the time when I was hot television property, but the embarrassingly low £10 starting price speaks for itself

Whenever I see a signed this or that for sale, I ask myself why anyone would want it. Apart from anything else, unless you were standing next to the celebrity when they wrote their name down, how can you know it’s genuine? With that in mind, I wish to vouch for the authenticity of one unique piece of memorabilia.

A friend, quite beside himself with mirth, has sent me details of lot 4238 in an auction next week. Though it was only a WhatsApp message, I swear I could discern the marks from the splashes where his tears of laughter fell.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: the saleroom

© Photograph: the saleroom

UK government urged to introduce GCSE in Ukrainian for child refugees

22 mai 2025 à 12:00

Children’s commissioner joins Kyiv in asking DfE to create new qualification to cope with ‘immense upheaval’ of fleeing war

The children’s commissioner has joined Kyiv in lobbying the UK government to introduce a new GCSE in Ukrainian to help child refugees cope with the “immense upheaval” of fleeing war in their country.

In December, the Guardian revealed that Ukraine was “deeply concerned” to discover many Ukrainian teenagers are being pressed into learning Russian in British schools because no GSCE in Ukrainian is available.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

Winners, resigners, guest dogs and royal losers – take the Thursday quiz

22 mai 2025 à 12:00

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

The Thursday quiz was listening to Hello by The Beloved the other day, in the hope of asking a question such as “how many people mentioned in the song are still alive” and getting the in-joke answer 30-50. But it soon realised it was going to be quibbles all the way down. Leslie Crowther? Died in 1996. Kym Mazelle? Still very much with us. But Zippy? Well, Roy Skelton, who voiced him (and the Daleks) died in 2011. But is Zippy dead? Or was Zippy ever alive? What about the LSO? Presumably some of the people playing in the LSO at the time the single came out in 1990 have subsequently passed. But does that count? Anyway, one thing we can all agree on, that was certainly some words to bulk out this article page so it gets indexed by search engines. On with the quiz … 15 questions, no prizes, have fun!

The Thursday quiz, No 211

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Martin Belam/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Belam/The Guardian

FBI whistleblower claims he tried to get to Musk to warn him he was being targeted by Russia

22 mai 2025 à 12:00

Johnathan Buma, who was arrested in March and is out on bail, claims in new interview that efforts to target Musk were ‘intense’

A former FBI counterintelligence agent turned whistleblower has claimed he tried to gain access to Elon Musk in 2022 to warn the billionaire that he was the target of a covert Russian campaign seeking to infiltrate his inner circle, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.

Johnathan Buma, who was arrested by the FBI earlier this year on a misdemeanor charge of disclosing confidential information, said in an interview that he tried – but ultimately failed – to gain access to Musk to personally brief and “inoculate” him against “outreach from the Kremlin”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Matt Martian Photography/The Guardian

© Photograph: Matt Martian Photography/The Guardian

Net migration to UK down by half in 2024 compared with year before

Office for National Statistics estimate shows fall from 860,000 in 2023 to 431,000 last year

Net migration to the UK has nearly halved over the year to 431,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, in figures which will bring some relief to Keir Starmer.

The drop from 860,000 in the year to December 2024 follows a series of policies implemented by the last Conservative government that have been continued by the present Labour government.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Justin Kase zfivez/Alamy

© Photograph: Justin Kase zfivez/Alamy

What would Russia’s peace deal demands really mean for Ukraine? – visualised

22 mai 2025 à 11:56

Trump on Monday again failed to persuade Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine as a first step toward a peace deal. But what might a deal even look like, and what would it mean for the Ukrainian people?

One of the few explicit peace proposals is a US outline reportedly seen by Reuters last month. It asks Ukraine to accept de jure recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of its occupation of large parts of several oblasts in the country’s east. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russia is demanding Ukrainian troops abandon five oblasts as a precondition not for peace, but for a ceasefire and the opening of negotiations.

Before the war, those oblasts were home to about 11 million Ukrainians. To put that into context, we visualised some broadly comparable populated areas in three European countries and one US state, in each case starting from the north-east corner. The shaded areas represent populations of about 11 million French, British, Italian and US citizens.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Prina Shah for the Guardian

© Composite: Prina Shah for the Guardian

‘Breath-stoppingly tense’: which Mission: Impossible film is the greatest?

As The Final Reckoning hits cinemas, Guardian writers pick their favourites of the action-packed series

Mission: Impossible’s slick and sensuous surface bears no trace of the drama behind the scenes making it. During production, the screenwriters of Jurassic Park (David Koepp) and Chinatown (Robert Towne) sent in duelling script pages for director Brian De Palma and producer Tom Cruise to wrestle over. The magnificent outcome is an intense tango between the modern blockbuster and a classic film noir, circling each other warily, and beautifully, like no Mission: Impossible that would follow. De Palma’s original is a sexy wrong-man thriller, a Hitchcockian affair that comes disguised as an action-heavy corporate product (or maybe the mask is worn the other way around?). In it, Cruise’s coiled IMF agent, framed for the murder of his entire team and surrounded by slippery allies, is constantly trying to play it cool through the plot’s knotty parlor games, all while feeling the noose tightening around him. If Cruise’s career up to this point was all about often leaving his relaxed boyish middle-American charm on the surface, Mission: Impossible pushed him to try on layers – not just the latex ones – while also pulling off those incredible high-wire stunts, which would only escalate but never improve on the hair-raising tension the first time out. Radheyan Simonpillai

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Allstar

© Photograph: Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Allstar

Romania’s top court rejects far-right candidate’s attempt to annul election

George Simion, a pro-Trump ultranationalist, had alleged foreign interference in rerun vote won by Nicușor Dan

Romania’s top court has unanimously rejected an application by the defeated far-right candidate in Sunday’s presidential election rerun, George Simion, to annul the vote on the grounds of foreign interference.

“Following deliberations, the constitutional court unanimously rejected the request … as unfounded,” the court said in statement on Thursday, adding that its decision was final and it would publish its full reasoning at a later date.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

© Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

Arteta wants Partey to stay at Arsenal and makes more goals a transfer priority

22 mai 2025 à 11:27
  • Manager wants ‘exceptional’ Partey to sign new contract

  • ‘We need a goal threat and we need the firepower,’ he says

Mikel Arteta has said he would like Thomas Partey to stay at Arsenal but admitted his squad needs more “firepower” to win trophies.

Talks are understood to have begun with Partey’s representatives over extending his contract beyond this season. The Ghana midfielder has been one of Arsenal’s best players as they finished as Premier League runners-up for a third season in succession. Arteta has won only the 2020 FA Cup during his five seasons in charge.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Paul Greenwood/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Paul Greenwood/Shutterstock

Is the Mets’ $765m slugger Juan Soto sad, bad or just playing in New York?

22 mai 2025 à 11:00

The 26-year-old has been good rather than great in his first season with his new team, and he’s playing in an unforgiving environment

If you only tuned into the biggest headlines about him, you might be convinced that Juan Soto’s first quarter of a season with the New York Mets has been a complete flop.

Last December, the Mets guaranteed Soto $765m on a 15-year contract, the most lucrative deal in professional sports history. In the early going of his time with the Mets, Soto has been the subject of a handful of viral stories, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. None of them have been positive. Last Sunday, Soto did not hustle out of the box on a ground ball up the middle, and his casual trot to first base cost him a chance at an infield hit, in the eighth inning of a tied game against the crosstown rival Yankees. The very next night, Soto jogged out of the box on a fly ball at Fenway Park that he thought was a home run. It was not, and another news cycle about Soto’s effort followed. “I think I’ve been hustling pretty hard,” he told reporters.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Natalie Reid/MLB Photos/Getty Images

© Photograph: Natalie Reid/MLB Photos/Getty Images

Scientists solve the mystery of ginger cats – helped by hundreds of cat owners

22 mai 2025 à 11:00

Discovery has implications for ‘all cells and tissues’ and research bridged gap between scientists and non-scientists

After decades of mystery, new research has shed light on a question that has long stumped scientists and cat lovers alike – what exactly makes orange cats, well … orange?

Two studies published in Current Biology last week by separate teams at Stanford University and Japan’s Kyushu University at last provided some answers. Scientists have known for more than a century that orange cats inherit coloring differently from other mammals. Now – with help from hundreds of cat owners – researchers have identified the genetic mutation that gives orange cats their signature hue.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Imago/Alamy

© Photograph: Imago/Alamy

‘Shakespeare would be writing for games today’: Cannes’ first video game Lili is a retelling of Macbeth

22 mai 2025 à 11:00

Translocating the Scottish play to Iran with help from the RSC, iNK Stories’ version focuses on a Lady Macbeth contending with an oppressive surveillance state

The Cannes film festival isn’t typically associated with video games, but this year it’s playing host to an unusual collaboration. Lili is a co-production between the New York-based game studio iNK Stories (creator of 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, about a photojournalist in Iran) and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and it’s been turning heads with its eye-catching translocation of Macbeth to modern-day Iran.

“It’s been such an incredible coup to have it as the first video game experience at Cannes,” says iNK Stories co-founder Vassiliki Khonsari. “People have gone in saying, I’m not familiar playing games, so I may just try it out for five minutes. […] But then once they’re in, there is this growing sense of empowerment that people from the film world are feeling.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ellie Smith

© Photograph: Ellie Smith

Draining cities dry: the giant tech companies queueing up to build datacentres in drought-hit Latin America

In Brazil, the Chinese social media giant TikTok is said to be the latest company planning a supercomputer warehouse that will use vast amounts of water and energy

It is a warehouse the size of 12 football pitches that promises to create much-needed jobs and development​ in Caucaia city, north-east Brazil​. But it won’t have shelves stocked with products. This vast building will be a datacentre, believed to be earmarked for TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app​, ​a​s part of a 55bn reais (£7.3bn) project​ to expand its global datacentre infrastructure​.

As the demand for supercomputer facilities rises, fuelled by the AI boom, Brazil is attracting more and more tech companies. The choice of Caucaia is no accident. Several undersea cables carry data from the nearby capital of Ceará state, Fortaleza, to other continents. The closer to the cables, the greater the traffic capacity and the lower the latency, or response time, between two points on the internet network.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Joe Plimmer/Guardian Pictures/Alamy/Marilia Camelo/Jeff Botega

© Illustration: Joe Plimmer/Guardian Pictures/Alamy/Marilia Camelo/Jeff Botega

I’ve studied the history of death. I know how we can better face up to our grief – and our own mortality | Molly Conisbee

22 mai 2025 à 11:00

How we deal with bereavement has changed enormously over the years. But not all the old traditions should be forgotten

Many years ago, as part of a school homework project, I asked my grandparents what the most significant social change had been during their lifetime. Two of them answered “child mortality”. I was surprised. Weren’t there other, more significant experiences in long lives that had stretched from the first and second world wars to the 1980s?

But now that I am older and have experienced bereavement, I understand their replies. Both grandparents had sisters who died of diphtheria. And my grandfather’s younger brother died of sepsis, meaning his parents had buried two of their four children before the age of three. Their childhoods had been profoundly shaped by loss. Child mortality was, at that time, horrifyingly common, and from their earliest years many people spent a great deal of their lives coping with the emotional fallout of grief, which shaped their lives into older age.

Molly Conisbee is a social historian, visiting research fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, and author of No Ordinary Deaths

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Yara Nardi/Reuters

© Photograph: Yara Nardi/Reuters

Two Israeli embassy staff shot dead near Washington DC Jewish museum

Police said a suspect was in custody after the shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum

A suspect is in custody after shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff outside a Jewish museum in Washington on Wednesday night.

The gunman, named by police as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, approached a group of four people leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum and opened fire, killing Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: @IsraelinUSA/Twitter

© Photograph: @IsraelinUSA/Twitter

US nursing home employees: do you have information about UnitedHealth’s nursing home practices?

21 mai 2025 à 17:10

We’d like to hear from UnitedHealth or nursing home workers and their experience with the company’s ISNP program

The Guardian has reported on allegations from current and former UnitedHealth employees that their company endangered patient safety in an attempt to cut hospitalization expenses and crossed legal lines to enroll residents in UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage institutional special needs plans (ISNPs). UnitedHealth/Optum has denied these allegations.

We would like to hear from nursing home employees and operators about their experience working with UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage ISNP program.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Unitedhealth Group/Reuters

© Photograph: Unitedhealth Group/Reuters

Tell us about a poem that reminds you of someone you’ve lost

21 mai 2025 à 15:00

We would like to hear about the poem that invokes memories of someone you loved and lost

‘He lived inside poetry’: Toby Jones and Helena Bonham Carter perform poems in memory of lost loved ones

In the Guardian’s new video series “Poems to remember” (published in collaboration with “Celebration Day”, an initiative that honours people who have died), actors including Helena Bonham Carter, Toby Jones, Stephen Mangan have read poems in memory of people they’ve lost. Now we would like to hear from you.

You can tell us about a poem that reminds you of someone you’ve lost – and why – below and we’ll include a selection in our Bookmarks newsletter.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: tofino/Alamy

© Photograph: tofino/Alamy

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Spots or stripes? The good news is you no longer have to choose

21 mai 2025 à 15:00

The trick is to remember they have more in common than they have differences – and you’ll be seeing a lot of both this summer

Are you team spot, or team stripe? They resonate on different frequencies, in a subtle sort of a way. They are not exactly opposites, but they are not interchangeable either. Not chalk and cheese, but perhaps a bit like salt-and-vinegar and cheese-and-onion. Just different flavours.

A stripe is brisker, while a spot is giving whimsy. I guess there’s some old-fashioned gender stereotyping mixed up in that, because stripes are worn by everyone, whereas spots are almost exclusively found in women’s fashion. Stripes feel robust and functional, while spots are daintier, more playful.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: David Newby/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Newby/The Guardian

Hong Kong authorities trying to disrupt independent press with ‘strange’ tax audits

22 mai 2025 à 10:17

Inland revenue targets eight outlets, union, 20 journalists and their families with supposed ‘random’ checks

Hong Kong authorities have targeted journalists and media outlets with what are supposed to be “random” tax audits, in a move the industry union says adds pressure to waning press freedoms.

The head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Selina Cheng, detailed what she said were “strange” and “unreasonable” accusations by Hong Kong’s inland revenue department. Requests or audits were made against the association, at least eight independent media outlets, and at least 20 journalists and their family members, including Cheng and her parents, she said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Liau Chung-ren/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Liau Chung-ren/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li review – a shattering account of losing two sons

22 mai 2025 à 10:00

The novelist’s meditation on grief, memory and radical acceptance contains both horror and comfort

In this quietly devastating account of life after the death by suicide of both of her sons, Yiyun Li refuses to use “mourning” or “grieving” because they cannot adequately contain the magnitude of her experience. “My husband and I had two children and lost them both,” she writes, and words can only “fall short”.

She begins by laying out the facts. And those facts, raw and precise, are shattering: Vincent died in 2017, aged 16. James died in 2024, aged 19. Vincent, we learn, loved baking and knitting, and did not live long enough to graduate high school. James, a brilliant linguist studying at Princeton, where Li teaches creative writing, took his last Japanese class on a Friday. “Facts, with their logic, meaning, and weight, are what I hold on to,” she writes. Things in Nature Merely Grow is by necessity profoundly sad, but in the act of sharing details of the “abyss” she now inhabits, Li has created something both inclusive and humane.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Maria Spann

© Photograph: Maria Spann

High court judge blocks UK from concluding Chagos Islands deal

Government had been due to give green light to deal handing sovereignty of islands to Mauritius

A high court judge has blocked the UK government from concluding its deal to hand over the Chagos Islands with an injunction granted in the early hours of Thursday.

The agreement to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius had been due to be given the green light by ministers on Thursday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: CPA Media Pte Ltd/PA

© Photograph: CPA Media Pte Ltd/PA

‘Sick of this’: Erin Patterson told friends she wanted ‘nothing to do’ with in-laws, mushroom lunch trial hears

Victorian supreme court shown Facebook messages in which murder accused vents frustration at estranged husband’s parents

Erin Patterson told a Facebook group chat “this family I swear to fucking god” and said she wanted “nothing to do” with her parents-in-law, according to messages shown in a Victorian court.

Messages written by the user Erin ErinErin, which the court has previously heard was one of three Facebook names used by Patterson, also included saying she was ““sick of this shit” and “fuck em” about the parents of her estranged husband, Simon.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

© Photograph: no credit

© Photograph: no credit

Casper Ruud: ‘It was a smart move by me to open up and get help’

22 mai 2025 à 09:00

Two-time French Open finalist on how seeking support after burnout has helped him move forward with his career

One of Casper Ruud’s attributes, beyond his sincerity, his healthy outlook and his devastating topspin forehand, is his ability to clap back. Ruud, like others, spends ample time lurking on social media for news, where thousands express an opinion about how he plays or what he says. He is not above a sarcastic response. “Sometimes I have to keep myself from answering someone or commenting on something,” he says, laughing.

Across numerous conversations during the clay-court season, his favourite part of the year, Ruud’s social media presence comes up repeatedly. Last year, for example, the 26-year-old Norwegian found himself in a lengthy debate with a random X user on the merits of mental coaches. Considering how composed and rational he often appears, it prompted the question of exactly when he was not so cool-headed and needed the services of a psychologist.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Chema Moya/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Chema Moya/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Northampton’s Champions Cup final date with Bordeaux should be all-out attack | Ugo Monye

22 mai 2025 à 09:00

We can expect Phil Dowson’s Saints to hit the accelerator in Cardiff against a French side packed with creative talent

How do Northampton Saints go again? After pulling off a stunning upset to avenge last season’s semi-final defeat by Leinster and take their place in Saturday’s final, the question is how do Phil Dowson’s side overcome one of the French giants, Bordeaux, to clinch the Champions Cup?

Had the final been a week later I’d have feared for Northampton but they are helped by the ability to distract themselves with Premiership action, and I think the manner of victory over Leinster plays into their hands. Northampton need to focus on being unashamedly themselves. In Dublin the gameplan was to put the car into fifth gear from the first whistle and that’s precisely what they did. When your approach is so authentic and in keeping with your culture, it makes it that much easier.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images

You be the judge: Should my best friend and I get matching tattoos?

22 mai 2025 à 09:00

Marnie has the tattoos all planned out, but Kady is having second thoughts. You decide who’s needling who

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

We’ve been speaking about it for ages. She’s just getting cold feet, but I know she won’t regret it

What if I grow to hate it or want it removed? We don’t need matching tattoos to show we’re best friends

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas

Pete Townshend remakes Quadrophenia for a new generation: ‘The world is a dangerous place at the moment’

22 mai 2025 à 09:00

It may be set 60 years ago, but a new ballet version of The Who’s rock opera asks questions about youth, society and masculinity that still resonate – and it brought its original creator to tears

Deckchairs fly, arms clash, bodies launch into the air as mods and rockers engage in a fierce Brighton seafront battle. But in this east London dance studio – with Zaha Hadid’s Olympic swimming pool visible through the window – young performers in sports socks, joggers and baggy T-shirts are reimagining the Who’s seminal document of the mid-60s Quadrophenia as ballet.

Isn’t this 1973 album an unlikely subject for dance? We’ve recently had Black Sabbath: The Ballet, and Message in a Bottle set to Sting, so why not? After all, Quadrophenia is theatrical at its roots. “The closest thing to a grand opera I’ll ever write,” says the Who’s guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend. Set in 1965, the story of disaffected young mod Jimmy looking for meaning in life via music, amphetamines and aspirational tailoring became a cult 1979 film starring Phil Daniels, but a more recent incarnation was Classic Quadrophenia, a symphonic version of the album for orchestra and tenor Alfie Boe. It was when Townshend heard the instrumental version, orchestrated by the musician Rachel Fuller (also Townshend’s wife) that he said to her: “I think this would make a lovely ballet.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rich Lakos

© Photograph: Rich Lakos

UK borrowing rises to £20.2bn, putting pressure on Rachel Reeves

April figure more than expected and comes despite increase in employer national insurance contributions

The UK government borrowed more than expected in April, underscoring the challenge for Rachel Reeves to fix public services and grow the economy while meeting her fiscal rules.

With the chancellor under pressure on Labour’s tax plans, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said public sector net borrowing rose to £20.2bn in April, £1bn more than the same month a year earlier. City economists had forecast borrowing of £17.9bn.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA

© Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA

Nine Perfect Strangers season two review – not even Nicole Kidman’s new wig makes this worth watching

22 mai 2025 à 08:00

The good news is that the star has rediscovered her ability to emote facially. The bad news is that this boring drama about a creepy wellness guru is almost impossible to care about

The wig is better. Everything else is worse. The second series of Nine Perfect Strangers – which was so clearly set up by the open-ended finale of the original, starring Nicole Kidman in a blond hairpiece that would disgrace a four-year-old’s Frozen birthday party – is here.

Mad/bad/traumatised wellness guru/cult leader/visionary genius Masha (Kidman) was last seen driving to freedom after experimenting on the stupid, affluent guests at her California health retreat for the stupid and affluent. Tranquillum House was the name, microdosing subjects with psychotics and without consent so they hallucinated dead children and fires was the game. Plus, constant surveillance by hidden cameras feeding private information back to Masha at all times. Let me stop you there and say – well, yes, quite. But Melissa McCarthy as Frances, an ebullient novelist with writer’s block, and Bobby Cannavale as Tony, a former football player, now drug addict who bonds with her, just about kept things afloat.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Reiner Bajo/Disney

© Photograph: Reiner Bajo/Disney

No Straight Road Takes You There by Rebecca Solnit review – an activist’s antidote to despair

22 mai 2025 à 08:00

Hope is no casual platitude in this inspiring collection of essays; it’s the realistic mindset with which to approach challenges

According to Rebecca Solnit, a lot of us are suffering from something called moral injury. She describes this as the “deep sense of wrongness” that can infiltrate our lives when we realise we are complicit in something seriously bad.

The first time I experienced this in relation to climate change, I was changing my baby’s nappy soon after one of the worst Australian wildfire seasons on record in 2020. The nappy featured a smiling cartoon koala on the front. I immediately recalled the scene of a singed, parched koala being fed water from a plastic bottle by a human as it fled the inferno. A disposable nappy takes up to 500 years to decompose. I felt disgust and despair at the degree of consumption, waste and exploitation that even a modest lifestyle in a high-income country seems to entail.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Trent Davis Bailey

© Photograph: Trent Davis Bailey

Shabana Mahmood considers chemical castration for serious sex offenders

Justice secretary expected to back radical sentencing reforms, including use of libido-suppressing drugs in England and Wales

Shabana Mahmood, the lord chancellor, is considering mandatory chemical castration for the most serious sex offenders, according to government sources.

The minister’s department is planning to expand a pilot to 20 regions as part of a package of “radical” measures to free thousands of prisoners and ease prison overcrowding in England and Wales.

Ensure custodial sentences under 12 months are only used in exceptional circumstances.

Extend suspended sentences to up to three years and encourage greater use of deferred sentences for low-risk offenders.

Give courts greater flexibility to use fines and ancillary orders like travel, driving and football bans.

Allow probation officers to adjust the level of supervision based on risk and compliance with licence conditions.

Expand specialist domestic abuse courts to improve support for victims.

Expand tagging for all perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

Improve training for practitioners and the judiciary on violence against women and girls.

Change the statutory purposes of sentencing so judges and magistrates must consider protecting victims as much as they consider punishment and rehabilitation when passing sentences.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Gary Blake/Alamy

© Photograph: Gary Blake/Alamy

Spurs prevail with Mourinho blueprint and ultra pragmatism in baffling final | Jonathan Wilson

22 mai 2025 à 00:13

Ange Postecoglou moved away from his attacking style while Brennan Johnson earned the sweetest vindication

Finals are not for the playing; they’re for the winning. Who cares about the spectacle? Who cares about the quality? At some level football is always more about the narrative and the drama than technical mastery. Tottenham certainly will cheerily ignore what a shambolic game of football this was as they bask in their first trophy since 2008, their first in European competition in 40 years. Glory comes in many forms, and just because this might not be how Danny Blanchflower sanctioned it, does not mean this was not, in its own way, glorious.

But it was a baffling game. For the third round in a row, Tottenham prevailed with a sort of ultra pragmatism. Ange Postecoglou always wins a trophy in his second season, a fact of which he has delighted in reminding everybody. It just seems odd that it took him that long to move away from his characteristic attacking, high-pressing style to a blueprint José Mourinho might have left behind in a drawer. Ange stared into the Barclays, but the Barclays stared back far harder into him.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

Suspect in custody after two Israeli embassy staff shot dead near Washington DC Jewish museum – latest updates

Homicides are under investigation, police say during press conference, after fatal shooting of man and woman

US Speaker Mike Johnson on the shooting:

I’ve been informed of the tragic shooting that occurred outside of the Capitol Jewish Museum tonight in Washington D.C. We are monitoring the situation as more details become known and lifting up the victim’s families in our prayers.

Yoni Kalin and Katie Kalisher were inside the museum when they heard gunshots and a man came inside looking distressed, they said. Kalin said people came to his aid and brought him water, thinking he needed help, without realizing he was the suspect. When police arrived, he pulled out a red keffiyeh and repeatedly yelled, “Free Palestine,’” Kalin said.

“This event was about humanitarian aid,” Kalin said. “How can we actually help both the people in Gaza and the people in Israel? How can we bring together Muslims and Jews and Christians to work together to actually help innocent people?

Continue reading...

© Photograph: @IsraelinUSA/Twitter

© Photograph: @IsraelinUSA/Twitter

How an idealistic tree-planting project turned into Kenya’s toxic, thorny nightmare

Introduced from South America, mathenge was intended to halt desertification, but now three-quarters of the country is at risk of invasion by the invasive tree

For his entire life, John Lmakato has lived in Lerata, a village nestled at the foot of Mount Ololokwe in northern Kenya’s Samburu county. “This used to be a treeless land. Grass covered every inch of the rangelands, and livestock roamed freely,” he says.

Lmakato’s livestock used to roam freely in search of pasture, but three years ago he lost 193 cattle after they wandered into a conservation area in Laikipia – known for the fight over land access between Indigenous pastoralists and commercial ranchers.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Diego Menjíbar Reynés

© Photograph: Diego Menjíbar Reynés

Kim Jong-un furious as North Korea warship partly ‘crushed’ in launch gone wrong

South Korea said the destroyer was lying sideways in the water after ceremony to launch the new 5,000-tonne ship

A ceremony to welcome a new addition to North Korea’s naval fleet has ended in embarrassment following a major accident during the ship’s launch that the country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, described as a “criminal act”.

Kim was present when the 5,000-tonne destroyer appeared to go off balance during its launch in the eastern port city of Chongjin on Wednesday. The tipping caused damage to sections of the hull, the state-run KCNA news agency said on Thursday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: ���n�ʐm��; 朝鮮通信社/AP

© Photograph: ���n�ʐm��; 朝鮮通信社/AP

‘I’m less apologetic now’: Kelly Macdonald on her Trainspotting teen highs and hitting her stride in her 40s

22 mai 2025 à 06:00

She hid in the toilets during the Trainspotting shoot – yet became a screen sensation. As the star plays a police therapist in new Netflix thriller Dept Q, she explains why today’s young female actors leave her in awe

One of the good things about playing a therapist, says Kelly Macdonald with a laugh, is that you get to sit down a lot. There’s a fun scene in the new Netflix thriller Dept. Q in which her character, Dr Rachel Irving, weary of her client DCI Carl Morck, plants herself down behind her desk to eat her packed lunch in front of him. Morck may be the kind of troubled detective we’re used to seeing in police dramas, but Irving isn’t a typical therapist. She’s blunt, antagonistic even. It’s a “shitty” job working with police officers, she tells him. Another time she describes him as “doolally”, which in my experience is not something a typical therapist would say; Macdonald, who has had therapy, “but not regularly”, may agree.

In the show – adapted from novels by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen and brought to the screen by Scott Frank, who was also behind the Netflix hit The Queen’s Gambit – Morck is made to see Irving after he survives a shooting. Brilliant but sidelined, Morck is tasked with reviewing cold cases, and moved to a shabby basement office that becomes known as Department Q. The first case for his small crew of misfit detectives is the disappearance of a lawyer four years earlier, who everyone thinks is probably dead. The truth, it soon emerges, is absolutely terrifying.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

❌