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 that 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, will return to the course at this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. He 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 win over 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.
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.
World champion surges clear on race's brutal final climb
Kévin Vauquelin second, with Tom Pidcock coming third
Tadej Pogacar bounced back in style after his Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold Race heartbreaks as he claimed a second Flèche Wallonne title with an early attack in the finale on Wednesday.
The world champion attacked when 400 metres from the finish on the brutally steep Mur de Huy and never looked back, prevailing over France’s Kévin Vauquelin and third-placed Tom Pidcock of Britain.
A pioneering alternative to the opt-out system proposed by the government is supported by publishers and writers and is set to be available for use this summer
UK licensing bodies have announced a “pioneering” collective licence that will allow authors to be paid for the use of their works to train generative AI models.
The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) – which is directed by the Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS) and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), representing publishers and authors – will develop the licence, set to be the first of its kind in the UK.
How do you control a class of kids after the whole nation’s watched you backstabbing on The Traitors, snogging strangers on Love Island or starving half to death on Hunted? Three teachers reveal all
When English teacher Joe Scott used to sign homework planners, it was because students were in trouble. But things changed in January, when the Southampton-based secondary schoolteacher appeared in the latest series of the BBC reality show The Traitors. Pupils started voluntarily pressing their planners into his hands – for autographs. “It felt funny,” says the 38-year-old. “It was such a juxtaposition.”
Teachers have always gone on reality TV – but they haven’t always come off well. In 2001, a contestant on the second series of Big Brother was fired from her job at an east London girls’ school after her towel slipped on air. Six years later in 2007, parents complained after an American elementary school teacher missed 22 days of work to appear on The Bachelor. Just last year, a Canadian educator was let go after taking unauthorised leave to compete on Survivor.
Changes to housing bill would require Charles to pay same tax as everyone else on property he buys in Scotland
Opposition politicians in Scotland have called for King Charles to lose his unique exemption from paying stamp duty on his property transactions.
The Scottish Green party has tabled changes to a housing bill which would require the king to pay tax on any new property he buys in Scotland in the same way as all other property buyers would.
From remotely locking your phone to changing passwords, do this quickly to protect yourself and restore peace of mind
Smartphones contain the entirety of our modern lives, from photos, messages and memories to credit cards, bank accounts and all life admin, so when one gets lost or stolen it can be far worse than the cost of the actual handset.
Here’s what to do if the worst happens. Quickly taking these steps will help protect yourself against data theft, scams and fraud, and with luck could even lead to you being reunited with your phone.
Try to locate your phone with Find My on Apple or Google, if you have it turned on. You can use a browser on a computer, tablet or even a friend’s phone.
Remotely lock your phone using Find My and mark it as lost, which helps protect your data, blocks the use of Apple or Google Pay and can leave a message on the screen for anyone who finds it. You can also remotely erase your phone from here too.
Contact your network provider and block your sim to stop thieves running up bills. Also ask it to check for any new “charge to bill” activity and to disable the feature.
Contact your credit card company for any cards you have stored on your phone and disable Apple or Google Pay.
Report the theft to the police and give them your phone’s IMEI number, which may be on the box, in your Apple or Google account or their Find My services.
Contact your insurance company if you have phone cover.
Change your passwords for important accounts. Start with your email account so that thieves can’t gain access to your other accounts through password resets.
Remove your phone from your accounts and services, which will log it out and stop thieves accessing saved details.
He’ll play mixed doubles as the pickleball US Open
Former tennis world No 1 Andre Agassi will make his professional debut in the fast-growing sport of pickelball next week when he teams up with top ranked Anna Leigh Waters for the mixed doubles at the US Open Pickleball Championships.
Invented in 1965 by a group of American friends, pickleball is a fast-paced paddle sport similar to tennis and badminton played on smaller courts using a perforated plastic ball, and interest has skyrocketed in recent years.
These noisy, filthy, feral creatures make my life a misery. Is there really no way to get rid of them?
Pigeons. Appalling things. I looked them up on the bird charity RSPB’s website and snorted when I came across the Where to See section. The answer is, just so you know, everywhere. Perhaps not so much outside towns and cities but in urban areas you’re never far from the sight and sound of the bloody things. If, unaccountably, you’re not familiar with this species, do feel free to get in touch and come round to my place and observe them at your leisure.
Truly they are the soundtrack of my life. For years they’ve been getting into a drainage channel on the roof. Morning, noon and night they scratch and coo and jump about. The racket is infernal. I lie in bed reflecting on the filth in that gully just above my head. I know it’s filthy, because when there’s heavy rain their revolting detritus washes down and blocks the downpipe. I have to pull their unspeakable waste out of the pipe before something bursts and floods. There are no words to describe the tangle of excrement, nesting materials, eggs, feathers and bones. Oh Lord, the bones. I’d be less repulsed rummaging through the bin outside a chicken shop on a Sunday morning.
‘As a species, these crocs are easy to find and easy to catch. Brice Itoua is the most skilled hunter in his village. But they kill the crocs to eat – not to sell’
The Congo dwarf crocodile is a lovely species. They’re very shy and, unfortunately, very easy to find and catch. Mostly hunted for their bushmeat, these crocs only grow up to a few feet in length and during the dry season, they often spend the daytime hiding in burrows and dens at the water’s edge. Hunters use a long, woody liana vine with a hook on the end to drag them out, before binding their snout with a shorter vine and carrying them away.
Last summer, I shot a story about the Congo dwarf crocodile after being given access to the Lake Télé Community Reserve by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which manages this protected area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the Congolese government.
The Canadian singer-songwriter is releasing an album about his transition. Trump’s ‘dehumanizing’ new passport rules mean he won’t perform it for US fans
Bells Larsen knew that releasing a low-fi, folksy album about his transition as the Trump administration relentlessly attacked LGBTQ+ people would give it an inherently political edge. But the Canadian singer-songwriter did not expect to be caught in a bureaucratic nightmare while attempting to tour the US – and ultimately have to cancel that tour due to the gender marker in his passport.
On 12 April, Larsen announced on Instagram that he was pulling out of concerts to promote the album in eight cities this spring: “To put it super plainly, because I’m trans (and have an M on my passport), I can’t tour in the States,” he wrote.
It remains one of the most enduring images in the history of sport: Roger Bannister collapsing at the finish after becoming the first person to shatter the four-minute-mile barrier. Since that day in 1954, when Bannister achieved a feat many had thought was impossible, just over 2,000 others have followed in his footsteps – all of them men.
However, the pages of history could soon be freshly rewritten after the Olympic 1500m champion, Faith Kipyegon, and her sponsors Nike, announced plans “to make the impossible possible” again by becoming the first woman to run a sub-four-minute mile this summer.
Members of Board of Deputies who signed open letter about war in Gaza are now ‘subject to a complaints procedure’
Three dozen members of the largest body representing British Jews are facing disciplinary action after signing an open letter criticising Israel over the war in Gaza.
Amid signs of deepening divisions among British Jews over the 18-month-old war, the Board of Deputies announced this week that all 36 signatories to the letter were now “subject to a complaints procedure” after “multiple complaints”.
Support for climate action is growing in the US, but partisan divides and fossil fuel interests hold sway
Over the last 12 months, the United States has endured a rash of disasters worsened by the climate crisis: devastating wildfires in southern California, a catastrophic hurricane in western North Carolina, and deadly heatwaves across the country.
Americans increasingly believe global heating is a serious threat that will affect them personally – and 74% want to see more climate action. Yet while that sounds high, it is still lower than most other countries around the world. What explains this disparity?
Holy balls of wool! From pointless paintings to emotionless snapshots, the once-controversial award tiptoes too earnestly across the minefield of today’s culture wars
Remember when controversy was fun? If not, that’s because you’re too young. But back in the 1990s, my child, Britain got itself in hilarious knots about conceptual art, the readymade and whether a pickled shark or elephant dung can be art, with the Turner prize as battleground. It was a culture war but with laughs, because no one’s identity was at stake and it wasn’t like Brian Sewell was going to become prime minister and have Rachel Whiteread jailed.
It is by embracing the earnestness of today’s high-stakes culture wars that the Turner prize has lost its edge, the art getting more careful as the ideologies loom larger. This year’s shortlist is the soppiest yet. Two of the artists nominated are painters. Painters, I ask you! This makes some sense of the shortlist announcement taking place on JMW Turner’s 250th birthday. But as painters go, do Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa (who also creates bland installations) compare with the boldness of Mr Turner? Neither is pushing back the boundaries of what a painting might be, or redefining this art for the 21st century in scale, freedom, audacity.
PC, PlayStation 5 (version played); Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive Boasting a unique world, challenging combat and great writing, this RPG has a lot going for it, if only it didn’t revel in its own mysteriousness so much
When we meet Clair Obscur’s protagonist Gustave, he’s getting ready to say goodbye to his ex-girlfriend, Sophie. Once a year the Paintress, a giant god-like woman visible from across the sea, wakes, paints a number on a large monolith, and in the peaceful town of Lumière, everyone whose age corresponds with the number dies. This process, called the Gommage, has shortened people’s lives for 67 years, and now it’s Sophie’s turn. Immediately after this heart-wrenching goodbye, Gustave and his adopted sister Maelle get ready to set sail as part of Expedition 33, on a journey to defeat the Paintress and end her gruesome cycle.
While stunningly beautiful, the continent you arrive at is no friendly place, and the path to the Paintress is filled with surreal monsters called Nevrons, which you fight in turn-based battles. Characters have a melee attack and a long-range attack, but most importantly, they have a large variety of unique skills including elemental magic attacks and strong attacks with multiple hits that have the chance to stun. Each member of your team has a special way of building up damage even further; Maelle for example uses a defensive, offensive or aggressive combat stance, inspired by fencing, while the magic that Lune wields builds up so-called stains that you can then spend to make other spells more powerful. Add to this long list of optional passive skills called Pictos, and soon you have a wide array of ways to enhance your characters. The interplay between building up action points to use skills, building up damage and defending is really interesting, and I enjoyed trying out different tactics, even as it meant that a lot of my time was spent in menus.
Rachel Reeves could be forced to raise taxes or announce deeper cuts to public spending after figures revealed UK borrowing overshot official forecasts by almost £15bn in the last financial year.
With the British economy coming under mounting strain amid Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said borrowing in the financial year ending in March was £151.9bn, more than £20bn higher than in the previous financial year.
Kevin Farrell rose through the ecclesiastical ranks to be made camerlengo by Pope Francis, whose death has thrust him into the global spotlight
The cardinal who announced the death of Pope Francis bore the ancient Vatican title of camerlengo and spoke in Italian, but there was no mistaking the Dublin accent.
Long before he rose through the ecclesiastical ranks and was entrusted with temporarily running the Holy See, Kevin Farrell was an altar boy from an Irish republican family in the working-class suburb of Drimnagh.
Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, will not attend the funeral of Pope Francis, despite his foreign ministry saying earlier it was their “most important aim” in negotiations with the Vatican that he be there in person.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that Taiwan would be sending its former vice-president, Chen Chien-jen as special envoy. Chen has deep ties with the Vatican and met Pope Francis six times, but the decision means Taiwan’s delegation will be without a serving government official, despite the Vatican being one of Taiwan’s few diplomatic allies.
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