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An email from Ian Copestake, one of our resident Liverpool fans

You ain’t seen me. Right?

Tensions rise between nuclear-armed neighbours who have fought three wars over territory as Delhi vows to respond

The brutal militant attack that killed 26 people in one of Kashmir’s most scenic spots has shattered the region’s relative calm, turning a popular tourist destination into a scene of horror – and raising fears of a fresh conflict between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

Soon after the attack in which gunmen emerged from dense pine woods and opened fire on families picnicking and riding ponies, India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, vowed a “loud and clear response”.

US president attacks Ukrainian counterpart for complaining Kyiv is unwilling to cede Crimea to Russia

Donald Trump has accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardising what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, as he gave the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.

The US president claimed a deal to end the war – largely negotiated between Washington and Moscow – was close, while the vice-president, JD Vance, said the agreement would include a proposal to freeze the conflict roughly along the current frontlines.

Gustavo Petro hits back after Álvaro Leyva accused him of going awol during official visit to France

A prominent Colombian politician and former minister has accused the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being a drug addict who allegedly went awol during an official visit to France.

In a damning letter to the South American leader, the former foreign minister Álvaro Leyva painted a dire picture of his one-time boss and ally, later publishing the text on his official X account.

Fossil teeth show species of protemnodon that roamed Australia between 5m and 40,000 years ago lived and died near Queensland caves

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Despite their immense size, species of prehistoric giant kangaroos from a site in Queensland were probably homebodies with a surprisingly small range compared to other kangaroos, according to new Australian research.

Protemnodon, which roamed the Australian continent between 5m and 40,000 years ago and is now extinct, was significantly larger than its modern relatives. Some species weighed up to 170kg, making them more than twice as heavy as the largest red kangaroo.

The Holdovers breakout and Oscar nominee will head the cast of Tony, which will follow the food world legend in 1976

The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa has signed on to play Anthony Bourdain in a new biopic.

The casting had been initially rumoured last year, but the 22-year-old has now made it official, with the Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas also joining in a role that is being kept under wraps.

Wave of airstrikes claim at least 25 lives while Arab negotiators make new ceasefire proposal

At least 25 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, including 11 in the bombing of a school turned shelter, the strip’s civil defence agency said, as Israel’s war against Hamas in the besieged Palestinian territory grinds on despite a new ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators.

Intense Israeli bombings hit several areas of Gaza on Wednesday, killing 11 in a school sheltering displaced people in al-Tuffah, a neighbourhood of Gaza City. The strike ignited a huge fire that claimed most of the casualties, said a civil defence spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal.

Washington, like Moscow, prefers bilateral talks to a wider diplomatic process. Kyiv and other European governments are rightly alarmed

There could hardly be clearer evidence than Donald Trump’s latest attack on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the US administration’s last-minute snub of London peace talks, that what matters to him is not Ukrainian sovereignty and safety, nor the transatlantic alliance, but a deal with Vladimir Putin. The US president says an agreement is close, with leaks suggesting that Washington would recognise annexed Crimea as Russian with Moscow giving little if anything in return. For Mr Trump, it is Ukraine’s president who is harming negotiations by saying he will not recognise Russia’s control.

Mr Putin is passionate about maximising Russian interests, attentive to every detail, skilled in negotiations, and believes that time is on his side. Mr Trump does not care about the outcome as long as he can claim he has ended the war, has little interest in the detail and has a habit of handing over the prize at the start of the process.

Ban comes week after 16 members were arrested, accused of threatening national security

Jordan has said it is shutting down the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and banning membership of the Islamist political group.

The ban came a week after Jordan said it had arrested 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood accused of threatening national security by training militants, making explosives and plotting to strike targets in Jordan with rockets and drones.

Palestinian green-card holder was arrested by US immigration authorities in Vermont on 14 April

Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained by the Trump administration on 14 April, will have a hearing next week on his request for release on bail, a federal judge decided on Wednesday.

Judge Geoffrey W Crawford extended a temporary restraining order issued by a separate judge last week to keep Mahdawi in Vermont. Immigration authorities have sent other foreign students arrested for their pro-Palestinian views to detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, jurisdictions typically overseen by more conservative judges.

Illinois senator, 80, plans to leave office in 2027 at end of term, so voters will elect his replacement in midterms

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Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the US Senate, announced he will not seek re-election in 2026, bringing an end to a Senate career that spans nearly three decades.

The 80-year-old Illinois senator, who has served since 1996, posted on social media that he plans to leave office in 2027 when his term expires – meaning there will be an open primary for his replacement in the midterms.

What do you think being ‘prettier’ will bring you? Belonging? Self-assurance? Relief? Perhaps there are other ways to reach those goals

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Hi Ugly,

My brother and I have big teeth with gaps. He recently found out he could get them “done” in an affordable way, and now I am doing it, too. There is nothing wrong with my teeth or smile – it’s just gappy, and I think I will look somewhat prettier with the new chompers.

My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done

How should I be styling my pubic hair?

How do I deal with imperfection?

I want to ignore beauty culture. But I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t look a certain way

Researchers left at US climate agency say drastic cuts could leave air ‘not breathable’ and water ‘not drinkable’

The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”.

Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.

The cookbook author makes eating greens a breeze with frozen veg for the time-poor, speedy yoghurt flatbread and a mixture of cheese you might already have in the fridge

• Check out more Alice Zaslavsky recipes

Did you know Popeye the Sailor Man was a wellness influencer?

When the US needed a Depression-era population, depleted of iron and coin, to eat meat-free, they turned to everyone’s favourite monochrome superhero.

Trump administration pushes back within hours of judge’s castigation as court battle with executive branch intensifies

The federal court that has found itself in a pitched battle with the executive branch over the summary removal of Salvadorian Kilmar Ábrego García despite a previous order against deportation has now accused the Trump administration of “bad faith” in the case – but received fresh pushback within hours.

US district judge Paula Xinis had given the Trump administration until 6pm ET on Wednesday to provide details to support its claims that it does not have to comply with orders to return the man to the US, where he was living and working in Baltimore, because of special privilege.

Pro-natalists aren’t actually interested in making motherhood easier by offering things like affordable childcare. So what is their aim?

Malcolm and Simone Collins, the pro-natalist couple who are reportedly consulting the Donald Trump administration on how to encourage American women to have more babies, are something of a deliberate heel: they often seem to be attempting to provoke the ire of their audience. The couple espouse the pro-natalism that is sweeping the political right with an explicit eugenicist tilt (self-styled “elites”, the Collins scan their IVF-generated embryos before their pregnancies, in an effort to select for features like high IQ). They dress in the severe black outfits of German modernists, with an emphasis on the “German” part, and wear large, unusually shaped eyeglasses; Simone has also taken to wearing large bonnets that make her look like Mother Goose, or, in their less subtle versions, like an extra on The Handmaid’s Tale.” The pair met on Reddit.

The founders of a pro-birth organization, the Collinses’ assert that there is a crisis of declining birth rates in America. (In reality, the slight dip in America’s birth rate in recent years is almost entirely due to the decline of teen pregnancies.) They aim to fix this in part by breeding as many of their own children as possible: they currently have four, blameless innocents they have cruelly burdened with names like “Industry Americus” and “Torsten Savage”. But they seem to be more adept at siring media profiles of themselves, of which there have been many. The couple insist upon their own genetic superiority, like a breeding-obsessed Boris and Natasha. They aim to advance a future of more babies and – by their own terms – better ones: what Simone calls “genetically selected humans”. They must be doing it on purpose: no one could become so off-putting by accident.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist.

About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority

• The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89% Project – and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more

A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world – between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies – want their governments to take stronger climate action.

As co-founders of a non-profit that studies news coverage of climate change, those findings surprised even us. And they are a sharp rebuttal to the Trump administration’s efforts to attack anyone who does care about the climate crisis.

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are the co-founders of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

Airplane manufacturer says it is lobbying Donald Trump over ‘unfortunate’ decision to impose tariffs

Boeing will try to divert as many as 50 planes ordered by Chinese airlines to customers elsewhere after steep tariffs prompted by Donald Trump’s trade war.

The US manufacturer said it was confident it could find other buyers for the planes, but said it was lobbying Trump personally to resolve an “unfortunate situation”.

• Augusta winner returns in Zurich Classic of New Orleans
• McIlroy and Shane Lowry are the defending champions

Rory McIlroy has admitted to being taken aback by the scale of reaction to his Masters triumph. Two US presidents – Donald Trump and Barack Obama – plus huge names from worlds outside sport have contacted the Northern Irishman since he completed the career grand slam at Augusta National. Amid moving scenes at Augusta, McIlroy’s outpouring of emotion reverberated way beyond golf. The achievement meant “everything and more” to McIlroy. It struck chords elsewhere.

McIlroy, who beat Justin Rose in a playoff to win the Green Jacket, returns to action at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, which starts on Thursday. The Northern Irishman was in bed with a fever on Monday, and was still slightly jaded when he addressed the media at TPC Louisiana on Wednesday.

Pope’s simple open casket lies on main altar of St Peter’s Basilica as mourners say: ‘It’s a privilege to be here’

Thousands of people queued for hours under the hot spring sun in St Peter’s Square on Wednesday to pay their final respects to Pope Francis, whose simple wooden coffin has been placed on the main altar of the 16th-century basilica, where he will lie in state until Friday evening.

The pope, the head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, died at his home in Casa Santa Marta on Monday aged 88 after a stroke and subsequent heart failure. He had been recovering from double pneumonia, which had kept him in hospital for five weeks.

• Ghana winger is on Saudi side’s radar
• Contract contains release clause active for set period

West Ham have accepted that selling Mohammed Kudus may be the best way to boost their transfer budget. The Ghana winger, whose contract contains a release clause that becomes active for a set period this summer, is attracting interest from Al-Nassr of the Saudi Pro League.

Kudus impressed after joining West Ham from Ajax in the summer of 2023 but he has struggled to have the same impact in his second season. The 24-year-old has not scored for the club since December and there is a view within the London Stadium that losing him would not be a disaster.

• Patrick McClean is brother of Ireland winger James
• Police attacked with petrol bombs at parade in Derry

The Northern Irish football club Glentoran are investigating footage that is said to show one of their players attending a dissident republic rally in Derry.

The images allegedly show their defender Patrick McClean among a crowd at an Easter Monday parade which has been linked to the New IRA.

François Bayrou faces questions over what he knew about school at centre of allegations of decades of abuse

The daughter of the French prime minister, François Bayrou, has said she was brutally beaten at a private Catholic school at the centre of a growing sexual abuse scandal that has shocked France.

Hélène Perlant, 53, told Paris Match that a senior priest at Notre-Dame de Bétharram beat her in front of her peers during a summer camp in the 1980s, when she was 14, but said she had never told Bayrou.

People flee to open spaces after 6.2-magnitude quake hits near Istanbul but there are no early reports of major damage

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit below the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, prompting widespread panic and scores of injuries in the Turkish city, although there were no immediate reports of serious damage.

More than 150 people were hospitalised with injuries sustained while trying to jump from buildings, said the governor’s office in Istanbul, a city that is considered at high risk of a major quake.

Leftwing party says €6.6m order for bullets from Israeli firm breaches coalition government agreements

The leftwing junior partners in Spain’s socialist-led coalition government have called on the interior ministry to cancel a €6.6m (£5.7m) order for millions of bullets from an Israeli company, claiming the deal breaches coalition agreements and undermines efforts to hold Israel to account over its actions in Gaza.

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, questioning whether it is following international humanitarian law and calling the number of Palestinian deaths “truly unbearable”.

• Trans women to remain barred from elite female races
• Event director hits out at abuse aimed at Eilish McColgan

The London Marathon has revealed that it is permanently boycotting X, with the event director, Hugh Brasher, accusing the social media platform of “descending into a gutter” since Elon Musk took charge.

Brasher’s comments came after he was asked about the horrific levels of abuse suffered online by Eilish McColgan, who has been accused of “looking like a skeleton” and having anorexia after posting videos on social media of her training before Sunday’s race.

Research council launches 100m kroner fund as Norwegian government calls for the protection of academic freedom

Norway has launched a new scheme to lure top international researchers amid growing pressure on academic freedom in the US under the Trump administration.

Following in the footsteps of multiple institutions across Europe, the Research Council of Norway on Wednesday launched a 100m kroner (£7.2m) fund to make it easier to recruit researchers from other countries.

• First clay-court match of the season is 7-6 (4), 6-4 victory
• ‘Not my best level but I competed really well,’ says Briton

Emma Raducanu opened her Madrid Open campaign with a gritty victory against a quality, in-form opponent, holding off Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands 7-6 (4), 6-4 to reach the second round.

Over the past three-and-a-half years, as Raducanu has tried to navigate the pressure, stress and ­discomfort that accompanied her spectacular arrival, there have been times where it seemed like she might find her way. Those hopeful moments were usually fleeting, with a series of tough losses, injuries or a self-sabotaging decision always around the corner.

Hampstead theatre, London
Bea, a hoarder, is visited by Veda, who carries a secret, to fix the rift between them in Chloë Lawrence-Taylor’s debut play, full of vivid dialogue and foreboding rumbles

Objects pile and tower as walls in Chloë Lawrence-Taylor’s debut play. Since their father’s funeral, when Bea scratched an obscene picture into Veda’s car bonnet, the two sisters have lost contact, and Bea has been isolated in an ever-growing haven of “stuff”. Old vinyl, books, crockery, bags for life and mountains of cutlery have turned her home into a graveyard of the past. To an outsider, it is the depths of hoarding; to Bea, every dusty item is a relic to be pored over and adored.

But, now Veda has stopped by unexpectedly to “fix” things. Lawrence-Taylor’s vivid dialogue paints the sisters both as strangers, with years missing between them, and familiars, bound by their shared youth. They remember intimate details about each other; Veda drinks camomile tea, Bea loves bonsai trees. The actors, Holly Atkins (Veda) and Rosie Cavaliero (Bea), bring remarkable emotional texture to their roles; their relationship feels lived-in and layered with complication. As they bicker, laugh and plead with one another to understand their side of things, their speech rolls over each other in a natural rhythm.

Is loads of muscle all you need for a long and healthy life? You’d think so, given the way everyone’s fighting over the squat racks

Name: Cardio

Age: 64

• Real Madrid put off by defender’s £50m release clause
• Arsenal and Liverpool also monitoring situation

Real Madrid’s doubts over whether they can afford Dean Huijsen have left Chelsea in pole position to sign the Bournemouth defender this summer.

Huijsen’s contract contains a £50m release clause and he is attracting interest from English and European clubs. He has been a standout performer for Bournemouth this season and is a key target for Chelsea, who are keen to add a ball-playing centre-back to their ranks.

Salvadorian president denounced as ‘tyrannical’ as he floats trading 252 prisoners with fellow authoritarian regime

The families of prisoners being held by the authoritarian governments of El Salvador and Venezuela have condemned President Nayib Bukele’s offer to swap 252 Venezuelan detainees sent to his jails by the Trump administration for the same number of political prisoners incarcerated by Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

Nelson Suárez, whose brother was among the Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious maximum-security jail in El Salvador last month, said he was desperate for the release of his brother, from whom he has heard nothing in five weeks.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch pushes PM on what she says is a change of stance over definition of a woman

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Keir Starmer has urged MPs to “lower the temperature” in debating last week’s supreme court ruling on gender, as he was challenged repeatedly on the subject by Kemi Badenoch during prime minister’s questions.

The Conservative leader, who took the place of her shadow equalities minister, Mims Davies, to respond to a Commons statement about the ruling on Tuesday, used all her allocation of questions to push Starmer over what she said was his change of stance.

Law firms Perkins Coie and WilmerHale say Trump’s executive orders against them are acts of retaliation that violate US constitutional protections

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte will visit the US and meet the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, according to a media notice shared by the military alliance’s press office.

Rutte will visit the US on 24 and 25 April.

• Seven-time champion rockets to 10-4 victory at Crucible
• Pang Junxu next up after getting better of Zhang Anda

Ronnie O’Sullivan made a ­mockery of his recent period of inactivity by ­reeling off three centuries in five frames as he completed a 10-4 victory against Ali Carter in the first round of the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield.

The seven-time champion, who has not played on the professional tour since he crashed out of the Championship League in January, looked close to his best as he swiftly set up a last-16 clash against Pang Junxu, but revealed he was still ravaged by self-doubt despite completing a stunning demolition job.

Jonathan Pryce was humorous, O’Toole capricious, Liv Ullman secretly female and Jude Law memorably Speedo-clad – onscreen pontiffs have come in all forms

Everything about the papacy is cinematic – especially picking a new one, as shown in the wildly popular movie Conclave, with Ralph Fiennes as an unwilling contender for the top job. There is the mystery, the ritual, the vestments; the spectacle of a lone, fragile human being poised over an abyss of history and good and evil; the elevation of one flawed man to a position of supreme authority, an exaltation whose parallel to the crucifixion is sensed but not acknowledged.

Discussing the onscreen representation of the pope in Conclave would risk the blasphemy of spoilerism but there have been many popes on screen, some cheekily fictional, many factual. Many a heavyweight British thesp has turned in a gamey cameo as some hooded-eyed Renaissance pontiff. Peter O’Toole was the lizardly and capricious Paul III in TV’s The Tudors (2007), presiding over a simperingly submissive 16th-century court of cardinals. Jeremy Irons was a small-screen Alexander VI in The Borgias (2011), a family member whose face radiated sensual refinement and hauteur.

The Wildlife Trusts are in shock after acquiring 4,000 sheep in Rothbury estate deal as part of land restoration project

Woolly maggots, nature-destroyers – sheep are criticised by many conservationists for denuding Britain’s uplands of rare plants and trees.

So The Wildlife Trusts were shocked when they were compelled to buy 4,000 sheep as part of the biggest land restoration project in England.

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Researchers say mutations more often found in younger patients’ tumours caused by toxin secreted by E coli strains

Childhood exposure to a toxin produced by bacteria in the bowel may be contributing to the rise of colorectal cancer in under-50s around the world, researchers say.

Countries, including some in Europe and Oceania, have witnessed an increase in young adults with bowel cancer in recent decades, with some of the steepest increases reported in England, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Chile.

Virtual meeting of leaders also hears UN’s António Guterres proclaim ‘no group or government’ can stop green revolution

China will continue to push forward on the climate crisis, Xi Jinping has said while appearing to criticise the “protectionism” of Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

The Chinese president was attending a closed-door virtual meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and about a dozen other heads of state and government to discuss the climate crisis.