Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, and partially occupied Zaporizhzhia were the Ukrainian regions that suffered overnight Russian attacks. Ukraine’s military has claimed it shot down 74 of 117 drones overnight, and that Russia also launched an Iskander-M missile.
Russian media reports that Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, has arrived in Moscow.
Slyly investigating language and bias in media culture, this follow-up to Assembly confirms Brown as one of the most intelligent voices writing today
Should your social media occasionally present you with publishing-related content, you may have spotted proofs for Natasha Brown’s Universality on your feed last autumn. The excitement with which various “bookfluencers” clutched them was twofold. Brown appeared on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list in 2023, and Universality is the follow-up to her 2021 debut, Assembly, which saw her shortlisted for a Goldsmiths, Orwell, and Folio prize: its critical and commercial popularity has undoubtedly created a sense of anticipation for this next book. But alongside that fact was the feeling that the proof itself provoked as an aesthetic object: striking and slender, with its reflective gold jacket and spectrally engraved lettering. “Oh, it’s a book,” a family member of mine exclaimed on holding it, having been intrigued by what I was carrying around. It wasn’t an absurd response. Those early copies were fashioned to look like bars of gold, in reference to the fact that the first 49 pages are delivered in the style of a magazine feature about a young man who uses one to bludgeon the leader of a group called The Universalists, a faction of political activists (or squatters, depending on who you ask) attempting to form a self-sustaining “microsociety” on a Yorkshire farm during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It’s the sort of story that would set social media alight for days, or rather, as Brown wryly notes in the book’s second chapter, two weeks: “a modern parable [that exposes] the fraying fabric of British society”. Each detail is more eye-popping than the last. Both the farm and the gold belong to a banker named Richard Spencer, a man with “multiple homes, farming land, investments and cars […] a household staff; a pretty wife, plus a much younger girlfriend”. A perfect symbol, in short, of “the excessive fruits of late capitalism”. Jake, the young man doing the bludgeoning, is the son of a reactionary British journalist, Miriam “Lenny” Leonard, whose columns are designed less to provoke thought and more to go viral online. The Universalists themselves share DNA with Extinction Rebellion, and do just as good a job at polarising the great British public. At the centre of it all is that gold ingot, with which, post-bludgeoning, Jake absconds after police raid the farm. Hence the flashy proofs. Except – not really. Engraved on the back of each copy is a quote from the penultimate chapter: “Words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency.” After the first section the conceit of a magazine feature drops, with succeeding chapters told from different characters’ perspectives. We learn to read carefully.
To celebrate this significant milestone, our writer follows the flow of the artist’s inspiration, taking in sights that would have been familiar to the Old Master
For visitors in search of scenic walking routes, the province of North Holland is perhaps not an obvious choice. The landscape is famously as flat as the local pancakes and picturesque mountains, forests and waterfalls are in short supply.
Head into the countryside south of Amsterdam, however, and you can find lovely walking routes amid a quintessentially Dutch landscape of green fields, windmills and waterways. Walks along the Amstel River, which flows north into Amsterdam, also offer an opportunity to follow in famous footsteps. Rembrandt van Rijn lived for much of his life close to the river, was fond of walking its banks and produced some beautiful pictures here. With Amsterdam about to celebrate its 750th birthday in June, it’s a good moment to see the city from another angle, along the waterway which gave the city its name.
Former Philippines president filmed a video message en route to the Hague, saying ‘I will be responsible for everything’
Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has said he will accept responsibility for his government’s so-called “war on drugs” in a video message filmed on board a plane shortly before he was taken into the custody of the international criminal court (ICC).
“Whatever happened in the past, I will be the front of our law enforcement and the military. I said this already, that I will protect you, and I will be responsible for everything,” he said.
A ‘dog act’ isn’t simply ruffling someone’s feathers – it’s an act of betrayal. Caitlin Cassidy explains the meaning of the Australian phrase to Julia Hollingsworth.
Caitlin, this week Australia’s industry minister, Ed Husic, called US president Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel a “dog act”. I grew up in New Zealand, a country so close to Australia and yet so free from the phrase “dog act”. Please tell me – what does it mean, and does it have anything to do with dogs?
Your nation has missed out on a truly scathing critique.
The documents would ultimately inform whether Musk has been operating unconstitutionally to the extent Doge’s activities should be halted
Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, have been ordered by a federal judge to turn over a wide array of records that would reveal the identities of staffers and internal records related to efforts to aggressively cut federal government spending and programs.
US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s order forces Musk to produce documents related to Doge’s activities as part of a lawsuit brought by 14 Democratic state attorneys general that alleges Musk violated the constitution by wielding powers that only Senate-confirmed officials should possess.
Video footage, described as ‘callous’ and ‘pretty dreadful’, shows Sam Jones grabbing the joey from its mother at night
A US hunting influencer who shared video of herself snatching a baby wombat away from its mother is being investigated for a potential breach of her Australian visa.
The footage, with scenes described as “callous” by the RSPCA and “pretty dreadful” by the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, showed the Montana-based influencer Sam Jones grabbing the wombat joey at night as it was walking with its mother.
Mauritshuis exhibition reveals Dutch families hid in attic to avoid conscription to Germany in second world war
The 13-year-old boy answered the doorbell. “Tell your dad I’m here,” said a man, who stored his bicycle and then disappeared upstairs.
It was 1944, and right under the noses of Nazi command, people were hiding in the attic of The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum from forced labour conscription – Arbeitseinsatz – under which hundreds of thousands of citizens from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands were conscripted to work in Germany.
Kim Johnson tells parliament lessons must be learnt from poor treatment of children at institutions in 1960s and 70s
The historic injustice of a scandal in which black children were incorrectly labelled “educationally subnormal” and sent to schools for physically and mentally disabled pupils must be addressed with a public inquiry, an MP has said.
Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, is calling on Keir Starmer to bring justice to survivors and to also expose the long-term effects it has had in the education system.
At 18, Mustafa was told his only way out of prison was to join the regime forces. After 14 years, his past as one of Assad’s fighters could get him killed
Mustafa was 16 when he was detained and beaten by the police for the first time. It was early 2011, and the first stirrings of the Arab spring had grown into anti-government demonstrations across the Middle East. In Syria, a sense of anxious anticipation hung in the air, and the government was responding with propaganda films and TV shows designed to fire up nationalist sentiment. A friend of Mustafa’s hired him to play an extra in one of these shows. The job didn’t pay much, but it was more fun than the long hours Mustafa spent working in a restaurant kitchen. Tall and handsome, with dark eyes and long eyelashes, Mustafa dreamed that maybe one day he could join the long list of Syrians who starred on Arab TV dramas.
The youngest of three brothers and a sister, Mustafa had grown up in a crowded working-class district in the eastern part of Damascus. His father was a stern and conservative cleric, who would beat his children for even minor infringements. At 14, Mustafa had run away and a relative in another neighbourhood had found him the restaurant job. On his first day at work, it took him four hours to peel a sack of potatoes. Within a week, he could do it in half an hour. He soon began working two shifts: mornings in the kitchen and nights making deliveries. He worked 20 hours a day. Looking back now, Mustafa thinks of this as the happiest time of his life.
Projections suggest Merthyr Tydfil and Dudley could be won by Nigel Farage’s party – but how real is the threat?
“Labour used to be the party of the working class. I haven’t got a clue what it is now,” was how Richard, a retired welder, described his feelings towards Keir Starmer’s fledgling government.
That response would be sobering anywhere, but more so for the fact he was speaking as part of a focus group in Merthyr Tydfil, the parliamentary constituency of Labour’s founder and the prime minister’s namesake, Keir Hardie.
Luke Tryl is the UK director of the research group More in Common
The government’s move to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion policies is a naked attempt to appeal to prejudice – but it may well backfire
Almost a decade ago, I started a business called Rent-A-Minority, which enabled companies to hire a minority ethnic person whenever they needed an injection of diversity to boost their image. I had a variety of inclusivity-enriching hires available, including an “ethnically ambiguous” category and a selection of smiling Muslim women (guaranteed not to support Islamic State or your money back).
Like every good startup, Rent-A-Minority posted testimonials from clients and influencers on its website. I made up all the blurbs, because that is the Silicon Valley way: fake it till you make it. One of those fake comments was from Donald Trump, who was still considered a long shot for the presidency in January 2016, when my business launched. “When I’m president, I’ll shut this site down,”Trump’s blurb read.
The role has inspired the world’s best ballerinas and her story is as popular as ever – whether revived, reimagined or deconstructed. Dancers explain the appeal of Giselle
‘I thought I looked too healthy to play her,” says Miyako Yoshida of her debut in Giselle, back in the 90s, when she was a vibrant, strong young dancer asked to play the part of the sweet village girl with a weak heart. “But from the first time I came on stage, I could just live her,” she says; she simply became Giselle. Yoshida is not the only dancer, or audience member, or ballet critic, to fall in love with this 19th-century peasant girl. “It was always my favourite,” says English National Ballet’s Erina Takahashi, “emotionally you can explore yourself in such a wide range.” “It’s a perfect ballet choreographically,” according to veteran dancer Alessandra Ferri.
Giselle is almost the oldest ballet heroine to still grace the stage, created in 1841 by librettist Théophile Gautier, choreographers Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, and a young star ballerina of the day Carlotta Grisi. Through the decades the character has inspired legendary performances from some of the world’s best ballerinas: Galina Ulanova, Natalia Makarova, and more recently a startling interpretation from Natalia Osipova.
Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s drama about a teen accused of murder is astounding. Its dazzling performances, and the devastating questions it asks, will linger with you
In the late 80s, there was a trilogy of dramas by Malcolm McKay called A Wanted Man. It starred Denis Quilley and Bill Paterson and at the centre had the most phenomenal performance by Michael Fitzgerald as Billy, a man arrested for gross indecency who comes to be suspected of the murder of a child. The first instalment followed his interrogation by a detective (Quilley), the second his trial and the third its aftermath. It was, and remains, the most devastating and immaculately scripted and played series I have ever seen – as close to televisual perfection as you can get.
There have been a few contenders for the crown over the years, but none has come as close as Jack Thorne’s and Stephen Graham’s astonishing four-part series Adolescence, whose technical accomplishments – each episode is done in a single take – are matched by an array of award-worthy performances and a script that manages to be intensely naturalistic and hugely evocative at the same time. Adolescence is a deeply moving, deeply harrowing experience.
After months of speculation, the government will soon lay out plans to change the benefits system. Keir Starmer argues that the current system is ‘the worst of all worlds’. But with deep cuts to disability payments on the table, could the changes come at the expense of the most vulnerable? And will Labour MPs really be able to support this? John Harris hears from the head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation, Tom Pollard, and the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
Many of us believe that cognitive decline is an inevitable part of ageing, but a new study looking at how our skills change with age challenges that idea. Ian Sample talks to Ludger Wößmann, a professor of economics at the University of Munich and one of the study’s authors, to find out how the team delved into the data to come to their conclusions, and what they discovered about how we can all maintain our faculties for as long as possible
Ukrainian president would not be drawn on details of proposed deal and also steered clear of criticising Trump at press briefing
As journalists filtered out of the presidential administration in central Kyiv on Wednesday afternoon after a 30-minute press conference with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the general consensus was that he had not said anything that would immediately make for a dramatic headline.
That, it seems, was the point. Eager to show the White House that Ukraine is onboard for negotiations and not an obstacle to Donald Trump’s desire to bring peace, Zelenskyy seems to be trying to erase the memories of the nightmare meeting in the White House two weeks ago.
The Reform MP Rupert Lowe has been suspended from the party. What’s behind his feud with its leader? Eleni Courea reports
On Friday, the MP Rupert Lowe criticised Nigel Farage in an interview with the Daily Mail, saying Reform UK was a “protest party led by the Messiah”, and that it was “too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods” and become prime minister.
The next day, Lowe was suspended by the party. Reform UK published a statement making a series of allegations against him, including that he had made threats against the party chair, Zia Yusuf.
Islamophobia in Australia report details 309 in-person incidents between early 2023 and late 2024, with girls and women bearing the brunt of the attacks
Islamophobic incidents – including physical attacks, verbal harassment, people being spat on and rape threats – have more than doubled in the past two years, with girls and women bearing the brunt of hatred towards Muslims in Australia, new research shows.
The fifth Islamophobia in Australia report details 309 in-person incidents between January 2023 and December 2024 – a more than 2.5-fold increase from the previous reporting period. Verified online incidents more than tripled to 366.
The Australian is out to challenge for the driver’s championship in 2025 after helping McLaren to the Formula One constructors’ crown last year
He has the face of a child and the nutritional preferences to match, but nobody doubts Oscar Piastri deserves his place at the Formula One grown-ups’ table. The 23-year-old helped McLaren to the constructors’ championship with two race victories last year, and has emerged as a genuine contender for the driver’s crown in 2025.
Days before this week’s first race of the season in Melbourne, the chocolate milk-loving, chicken parmigiana-ordering Victorian isn’t tempering expectations. “It’s hard to not be confident when you’ve got the championship-winning team around you,” Piastri said at his latest sponsor’s engagement on Wednesday evening, for McLaren partner Airwallex.
Exclusive: Jotham Napat said pact must be taken ‘back to the drawing board’ and should reflect climate change as security issue
Vanuatu’s new prime minister has said his government intends to “revisit” a security agreement with Australia, arguing it does not reflect his country’s priorities including climate change and travel mobility for its citizens.
Jotham Napat, who was elected in February, said the pact with Canberra had to be taken “back to the drawing board” as he sought a “win-win situation” in a renegotiated deal.
The thorn that Carlo Ancelotti said was wedged in Atlético Madrid’s side remains buried in their flesh, deeper and more painful than ever before, never to be removed. For a sixth time they faced their city rivals in Europe – 2025 joining 1959, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 – and for a sixth time they were defeated. Utterly, perhaps eternally defeated. The team that lost one European Cup final derby after a 93rd-minute goal and another on penalties fell once more, and this time may even have been the worst of all, another chapter in the never-ending story.
All of which may sound a bit much for a last-16 tie but the pain accumulates, each loss crueller than the last, and if the final result was oddly inevitable, how it happened was unthinkable, even for a battle between these two. If Atlético didn’t beat Real this time, they may feel they never will. Just when it seemed that fate might have shifted their way at last, it twisted the knife again. “I go in peace,” Diego Simeone said after, insisting that in their silent, lonely moments Real will reflect that over all these years no one made them suffer like his team. Perhaps they will, yet they always survive, and here they did it again.
Polish research also finds increased risk of both sexes being overweight if married
Marriage triples the risk of obesity for men, but does not affect women, according to research.
Global obesity rates have more than doubled since 1990, with more than 2.5 billion adults and children classed as being overweight or obese. Worldwide, more than half of adults and a third of children are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2050.
The new digital ‘mantra’ prompts unions to warn PM to stop blaming problems on Whitehall officials
AI should replace the work of government officials where it can be done to the same standard, under new rules that have prompted unions to warn Keir Starmer to stop blaming problems on civil servants.
As part of his plans for reshaping the state, the prime minister will on Thursday outline how a digital revolution will bring billions of pounds in savings to the government.
On a night when Arsenal ended the game with four left-backs on the pitch, this may not have been the biggest stage of Raheem Sterling’s illustrious career. But after a dismal loan spell from Chelsea during which the former England forward has failed to live up to his reputation, Sterling will be relieved to have finally made a contribution as Mikel Arteta’s side eased into a quarter-final with Real Madrid.
Sterling provided two assists in the first half as goals from Oleksandr Zinchenko and Declan Rice ensured Arsenal were never in danger of surrendering their record-breaking 7-1 advantage from the first leg. This time PSV Eindhoven proved more of a challenge and deserved to come away with a draw on the night thanks to equalisers from Ivan Perisic and then a sublime chip from Couhaib Driouech that denied Arteta’s side a place in the history books for the joint-biggest aggregate victory in the knockout stages.
When Unai Emery accepted the challenge of reviving Aston Villa at a time when the club was fretting about relegation to the Championship, he voiced his desire to return to European competition.
It was punchy, part of a grand plan and, for supporters, a particularly exciting soundbite, but back then the prospect of a Champions League quarter-final date with Paris Saint‑Germain, one of Emery’s former clubs, felt fanciful. The Villa manager has delivered unequivocally on his wish. The Champions League furniture – the oversized badges, the giant tifos and 3D signage – will get at least another outing this season.
I think of AI as alternative intelligence. John McCarthy’s 1956 definition of artificial (distinct from natural) intelligence is old fashioned in a world where most things are either artificial or unnatural. Ultraprocessed food, flying, web-dating, fabrics, make your own list. Physicist and AI commentator, Max Tegmark, told the AI Action Summit in Paris, in February, that he prefers “autonomous intelligence”.
I prefer “alternative” because in all the fear and anger foaming around AI just now, its capacity to be “other” is what the human race needs. Our thinking is getting us nowhere fast, except towards extinction, via planetary collapse or global war.
US president said of Senate minority leader: ‘He’s not Jewish any more. He’s a Palestinian’
Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as “not Jewish any more”.
“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office,” said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or Cair.
On third day of cross-examination, the actor claimed accusers voluntarily engaged in sexual conversation
Noel Clarke is trying to create “moral equivalence” between his alleged sexual misconduct and the behaviour of his accusers, the high court has heard.
Giving evidence in his libel claim against the Guardian, the 49-year-old actorclaimed that some of his accusers voluntarily engaged in or initiated sexually loaded banter, were promiscuous and bragged about their sexual exploits.
Touched her on her thighs including between her legs.
Said they should go to the mezzanine floor above to have sex.
Rated women out of 10 for their sexual attractiveness.
Said of a pregnant woman that he would “bang that” because she could not get pregnant again.
The Age of Disclosure, a provocative new documentary that argues for the existence of extraterrestrials, has drawn gasps and criticism at the SXSW film festival
A splashy new documentary that asserts the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth and alleges a US government effort to hide information on possible alien activity is making waves at SXSW.
The Age of Disclosure expounds upon years of congressional activity and testimony surrounding the presence of Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena (or UAP, a rebranding of the stigmatized UFO), in the United States, drawing both buzz and skepticism at the Austin, Texas-based cultural festival.
Activists horrified as EPA reverses pollution laws and reviews landmark finding that gases harm public health
Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an extraordinary cavalcade of pollution rule rollbacks on Wednesday, led by the announcement it would potentially scrap a landmark 2009 finding by the US government that planet-heating gases, such carbon dioxide, pose a threat to human health.
The US government is relying on a rarely used provision of the law to try to deport a prominent Palestinian activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University, where he was a leader in last year’s campus protests.
A government charging document addressed to Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident and green card holder who is currently being held in a Louisiana detention center, said that secretary of state Marco Rubio “has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
Warner reunited with former Australia coach Langer
Anderson and Roy both ignored in latest draft
David Warner will call Lord’s home this summer. The former Australia batter is in line to make his Hundred debut after he was recruited by London Spirit in the competition’s latest draft, with Jimmy Anderson – another recent retiree from the international game – left unsold.
Warner will be reunited with his former Australia head coach Justin Langer, though the 38-year-old will not sit in the highest salary bracket for the men’s tournament. Jamie Overton (Spirit), Afghanistan’s Noor Ahmad (Manchester Originals), David Willey (Trent Rockets) and New Zealand’s Michael Bracewell (Southern Brave) all secured £200,000 deals, with Warner a rung below at £120,000.
Premier League almost won but contracts are ending and key players ageing, necessitating a summer of change
It’s the 94th minute at Estádio da Luz in October. Benfica are winning 4-0 and Atlético Madrid are in utter disarray. Zeki Amdouni runs the ball into an entirely unpatrolled Atlético area, gets a free shot from 14 yards and misses a glorious chance to make it 5-0. Nobody cares. Least of all Liverpool, even though this miss will in effect end up, five months later, knocking them out of the Champions League.
Of course, we’re in the realm of the absurd here, although when it comes to the new Champions League format this is a system with margins exactly, and absurdly, this fine. By virtue of this one goal not scored – and of course you could pick out many others – Benfica end up finishing 16th in the 36-team group phase rather than 15th: a position from which they, rather than Paris Saint-Germain, would probably have ended up facing Liverpool in the last 16.
The Women’s Super League’s £65m TV contract with Sky Sports and the BBC will have to be renegotiated if it removes relegation from the top flight.
As revealed last month by the Guardian, the clubs are considering radical proposals to pause relegation from the 2026-27 season as part of a plan to expand the WSL and Championship to 16 teams each, with a vote expected at the end of the season.
Verstappen is under pressure from a revitalised Hamilton at Ferrari with McLaren’s Norris set to challenge from the off
Car MCL39 Engine Mercedes Principal Andrea Stella Debut Monaco 1966 GPs 970 Titles 9 Last season 1st. In position to build on securing the constructors’ championship in 2024, McLaren will be quick out of the blocks. The car was the standout in testing and confidence is high. Lessons were learned through questionable execution last year and they have two outstanding drivers who are both hungrily eyeing the team’s first drivers’ title since 2008. How they manage them may be key from the off.
For now Keir Starmer can say there is a middle way, but Donald Trump will soon force Britain to pick a side
No country can avoid the economic impact of Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy. There are no exceptions to the president’s global tariff on aluminium and steel and no escaping the general volatility and constant uncertainty provoked by a capricious regime. But Britain is lucky not to be a direct target.
Mr Trump has no border-related grievance against the UK, as he does with Mexico and Canada. The balance of bilateral trade is neutral enough for Britain to avoid being listed among the nations that sell more to the US than they buy from it. The White House sees that asymmetry as a devious scam, for which tariffs are a form of retribution.
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