1 min: Just 55 seconds into the match, Balogan rises completely unmarked from a Rangers corner and pops a bullet header onto the top of the crossbar! He should have done better, there was a key block from Raskin on Scales to create room for chance. Oooooo, that’s a big miss, and right in front of the travelling Celtic fans as well.
We say this every year, but it bears annual repetition. In life, there are few things – or people – or divinities – on which we can rely never, ever to disappoint us. But the World Snooker Championships are one such, and the last fortnight has bestowed upon us another jazzer.
That’s not to say it’s the same vibe every year, far from it. Once upon a time, this tournament confirmed the identity of the best player in the world – Steve Davis through the 80s, Stephen Hendry the 90s – but now, though Judd Trump has dominated the last few years, he’s won this trophy only once because he standard is so high anyone in the field can beat anyone else in the field.
Victims have had fingers chopped off by attackers in crimewave targeting entrepreneurs and their families
French police are investigating a series of kidnappings of investors linked to cryptocurrency after a 60-year-old man had a finger chopped off by attackers who demanded his crypto-millionaire son pay a ransom.
In the latest of several kidnappings of cryptocurrency figures in France and western Europe, the man, who owned a cryptocurrency marketing company with his son, was freed from a house south of Paris on Saturday night. He had been held for more than two days.
US president displays ‘pathological megalomania’ as cardinals gather to elect new pope after death of Francis
Donald Trump has been accused of mocking the election of a new leader of the Catholic church after posting an artificial intelligence-generated picture of himself as the pope on social media.
The image, shared on Friday night on Trump’s Truth Social site and the White House’s official X account, raised eyebrows at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning after Pope Francis’s funeral on 26 April.
Survivors of abuse in county-run children’s homes say closure will not come until ‘monsters’ are held accountable
Thousands of victims of abuse in juvenile facilities and foster homes across Los Angeles are being compensated for decades of mistreatment in a historic settlement, but some say the money will never rectify a system that hurt vulnerable children and protected their abusers.
LA county officials this week unanimously approved a landmark $4bn settlement to address nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Some of those claims date back to the 1950s, but most took place throughout the 1980s through the 2000s. The payout is the largest of its kind in US history.
The US’s greatest strategic advantage is its friendly neighbors. But its ties to Canada and Mexico are being undermined
The secret to American power and pre-eminence was best summed up more than a century ago.
America, observed Jean Jules Jusserand, France’s ambassador to the United States during the first world war, “is blessed among the nations”. To the north and south were friendly and militarily weak neighbors; “on the east, fish, and the west, fish”. The United States was and is both a continental power and, in strategic terms, an island – with all the security those gifts of geography provide. No world power has ever been as fortunate. This unique physical security is the real American exceptionalism.
Gil Barndollar is a non-resident fellow at the Defense Priorities Foundation. Rajan Menon is Spitzer professor emeritus of international relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and a senior research scholar at the Saltzman Institute at Columbia University.
A collective is breathing new life into inchunwa for south-eastern Indigenous people across the US
Receiving her inchunwa was not something Faithlyn Taloa Seawright did lightly, but when the moment “just felt right”, she knew it was time. Seawright, who was the 2024 Miss Indian Oklahoma and a previous Chickasaw Princess, had long studied the tradition that she inherited from her ancestors.
In Choctaw and Chickasaw languages, inchunwa means “to be marked, branded or tattooed”. So receiving inchunwa, or traditional Indigenous tattoos, is something that must be done with reverence, Seawright said. The practice was once common among the south-eastern Indigenous nations (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and others), but after colonization the tradition faded away for many.
High-concept fiction is having a moment. Funny, inventive and crackling with big ideas, these ambitious stories will have you instantly hooked
Florence Knapp’s first novel The Names, publishing this month, tells not one story but three. As it opens, a mother is preparing to take her newborn boy to formally register his name. Will it be Bear, as his older sister would like, her own choice of Julian, or Gordon, named after his controlling father? The universe pivots on the decision she makes. Knapp plaits together the three stories that follow to trace the three different worlds in which the boy grows to manhood. Think of it as Sliding Doorsfor nominative determinism.
In this universe, at least, it is going like gangbusters. Described as “the book of the fair” at Frankfurt two years ago, Knapp’s publisher secured the rights in a 13-way auction and it’s already due to appear in 20 languages. It is a prime example of a renewed interest in what might be called “high-concept fiction”.
Ignorance no barrier as president begins to put out approved version of history that ignores American failures
Donald Trump, it could be said, takes a breezy, Sam Cooke style approach to history.
Like the legendary “king of soul” in his 1960 hit Wonderful World, the US president has admitted to not knowing much about historical events or figures of the past – even when faced with authorities on the subject.
Uncertainty generated by tariff policy underlines US president seems unable to choose a path and stick to it
Ten days reporting from the US – in Pittsburgh, Washington DC, and just across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia – gave me a fascinating snapshot of what feels like the slow-motion unravelling of the world’s largest economy.
So many conversations featured uncertainty and wariness; and weariness, too, as businesses and consumers weigh up every decision, against the backdrop of the chaos emanating from the White House.
Fried pickles, or frickles, have been on US menus for decades. Now they’re having a moment in the UK, in restaurants, chippies and even Aldi. I tested the best brands for home battering
The fried pickle – or frickle – is an on-trend appetiser with a murky provenance. Allegedly, it dates back to the early 1960s, originating at a drive-in restaurant in Arkansas run by an individual who laboured under the name Bernell “Fatman” Austin. Frickles are generally deep-fried, like onion rings, and usually accompanied by a gloopy dipping sauce such as aioli, dill and caper yoghurt or ranch dressing.
Frickles aren’t exactly new to the UK – they first started appearing on restaurant menus about a decade ago – but now they’re beginning to turn up at chippies. In January, Aldi launched a frozen version.
Wes Streeting has said Reform is a real threat and could replace the Conservatives as the main opposition party by the next election, as he urged the public to give Labour the “benefit of the doubt”.
The health secretary said Nigel Farage’s party was being treated as a “serious opposition force” after Reform’s success in the local elections, where it narrowly won a byelection from Labour and took 677 council seats, gaining control of 10 councils. Reform took most seats from the Conservatives, who lost 674, while Labour lost 187.
The president started his second term fast and furious with a flurry of activity – much of it legally dubious – but analysts say the honeymoon is over
“Not just courageous” but “actually fearless” said Doug Burgum. The “first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever,” said Pam Bondi. “Most” of the presidents whose portraits adorn the Oval Office – which include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan – were mere “placeholders” who were not “men of action”, mused JD Vance.
Before the TV cameras on Wednesday, top cabinet officials took turns drenching Donald Trump with praise that some critics found evocative of politics in North Korea. Yet beyond the walls of the White House, the mood was shifting. New data showed the economy is shrinking. The national security adviser was about to be ousted. Opinion polls told of a president whose unpopularity is historic.
Fans poured on to Copacabana beach from around Brazil for show that beat Madonna’s record audience size
More than 2 million people packed Copacabana beach on Saturday night for a free Lady Gaga concert, breaking a Rio de Janeiro record set last year by Madonna.
An estimated 2.1 million “Little Monsters” – as Lady Gaga’s fans are known – turned Rio’s beachside neighbourhood into “Gagacabana” for the largest show of the pop star’s career. The turnout topped Madonna’s free mega-show last year, which drew 1.6 million to the Brazilian city’s shores.
January’s blazes in California have devastated the livelihoods of performers, technicians and other music industry pros. They reveal what they lost – and how they’re rebuilding
Within the ashes of what used to be Christopher Fudurich’s home in Los Angeles, some objects from his garage music studio were still identifiable. Microphones charred and blackened, a scorched keyboard and melted cables among the toxic debris. Not just objects; a life’s work, passion and creativity burned up. “Things I’d been collecting since I was a teenager,” says the songwriter, producer and sound technician. “Just gone.”
This was the reality confronted by Fudurich, and thousands of other Angelenos, following January’s wildfires. Their homes have been damaged or levelled, their possessions destroyed. The fortunate ones fled with what they could; for Fudurich that was some treasured vintage synthesisers, a bag of clothes and his passport.
A challenging solo hike through stunning Provençal scenery is eased by lovely inns, dining by the seaside and leaving the planning to the experts
Behind Cassis beach, the castle-topped cliffs glint red-gold in the late afternoon sun. Couples stroll on the sand, kids play on the carousel, pastel-coloured buildings reflect in the still waters of the old harbour. In the main square, lined by plane trees, a group of elderly men concentrate on a game of petanque. It’s a charming slice of Provençal life, a world away from the Cote D’Azur’s more glitzy hotspots. In summer, tourists flock to the narrow streets and pretty coast, but off season the buzz is gentler, with weekenders feasting on bouillabaisse along the water’s edge.
I grab a seat at a bar overlooking the Med and check out my walking route for the next day. Cassis is in the heart of the Calanques national park – an extraordinary place of steep fjord-like limestone inlets, deep green pines and turquoise sea – perfect for exploring on foot. It’s a fitting finale to a solo self-guided hiking trip with Macs Adventure, which has taken me from the Sainte-Baume mountains down to the Riviera over six days. While my hiking legs have been put to the test with up to six hours of walking each day, I’ve not had to worry about logistics. The routes are plotted on the app and my luggage is transferred ahead, leaving me to simply enjoy the scenery.
Perhaps Chiesa could get his long-awaited opportunity in a central striking role? He made a goalscoring impact in that position when introduced against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final. Liverpool will target a new centre-forward this summer and there is uncertainty over the futures of both Núñez and Jota. Chiesa could also decide to leave after only one season unless he is able to provide effective cover in a second forward position.
A side made up of players from the European Union would be an ambitious project but the rewards could be pleasing for a continent looking to become more united
Imagine the scene: the television is on, the screen showing images of a packed stadium. Rodri collects the ball in midfield and launches it down the wing to Lamine Yamal, who switches play to Kylian Mbappé; the Frenchman swivels past two defenders before crossing for Robert Lewandowski, who surges forward and finishes with precision past Ederson in goal. Europe are leading the Rest of the World 1-0.
Could the European Union have a football team, even if it is just for one game every other year? Why not? It is an ambitious idea that, paradoxically, could be both concrete and relevant. In an era marked by challenges to the cohesion of the union, conceiving a footballing Dream Team of the 27 countries is, in fact, one of the more plausible ways to give the continent a dimension beyond the economy or, as is highly relevant at the moment, the military.
We need a society that supports parents and makes good food choices achievable – not more lecturing of exhausted mums
Like many modern mothers, I have on occasion piped cold bolognese directly from a pouch into my small child’s open mouth and, radical though it may seem, I refuse to feel guilty about it. There is a lot of panic about ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and baby food pouches, with their high sugar content and dubious nutritional value, are the latest targets. Researchers at the University of Leeds School of Food Science and Nutrition found that 41% of main meals marketed for children had sugar levels that were too high and that 21% of ready-to-eat fruit products, cereals and meals were too watery and not providing adequate nutrition.
It’s not great. But is it news? No parent picks up something called “Heinz fruity banana custard” believing it a fantastic alternative to actual mashed banana, yet this is being treated as the Watergate of the under-4s sandpit crowd. I’m starting to wonder if people have lost their collective minds over processed food. I even saw one comment calling for the death penalty for baby food producers. Baby pouch hysteria is the perfect new addition to the maternal guilt industrial complex.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist. The Republic of Parenthood book will be published this summer
How to beat the scam, from setting up new passwords and telling your bank exactly what you are doing
“Hi mum,” the first message starts, “I’ve lost my phone.” It carries on with a tale of woe: for some reason the sender has also been locked out of his or her bank account.
Luckily a friend is often on hand to help – it’s their phone that the message comes from, apparently – and if you could just transfer some money to their account that would be great. Alternatively, you might be asked to pay the rent, direct to a landlord, or foot some other urgent bill that has arrived at this time of crisis.
Christian Doyle’s series Quietly Getting On focuses on women in their late 80s and 90s, their memories of a wartime childhood and how they live now
As a way of maintaining contact with my elderly neighbours during the Covid restrictions of 2020, we set up a project where each person held up a card showing the age they felt inside. From their life stories, a new idea formed in my mind.
This is a generation of women who had experienced first-hand the impact of war on the domestic front, who had been evacuated to strangers across the country, not seeing their parents for months on end. Maybe these experiences created a different mindset; a resilience and stoicism, where the self is less important than being part of a community.
Anthony Albanese says his job is to “represent Australia’s national interest” after his thumping election win, shrugging off questions about when he might visit the United States to speak to Donald Trump about tariffs and trade.
The re-elected prime minister said he had spoken to the leaders of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, France and the UK, and looked forward to calls with the presidents of Indonesia and Ukraine.
Companies deploy highly-paid lawyers and appear to mislead councillors – but local authorities are fighting back
It is almost 2am in Peterborough and a handful of punters are wordlessly feeding their money into the machines at Merkur Slots.
A fragment of a song, the lyric “nothing to lose”, drifts through the shop as their funds rapidly evaporate. Closing time is fast approaching, but that does not mean the end of the gambling.
Australians are much better at defining who they are by identifying what they are not, rather than by making lofty statements. And they have now said unequivocally that they are not angry little Americans, cultural warriors or self-interested libertarians.
US swim star Ledecky smashes record set at Rio Games
Gretchen Walsh sets world record in 100m butterfly
Katie Ledecky broke new ground once again on Saturday, shattering her own world record in the 800m freestyle with a time of 8min 4.12sec at the Tyr Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale.
The 28-year-old American improved on the 8:04.79 mark she set at the 2016 Rio Olympics, notching her first long-course world record since 2018 and reaffirming her dominance in the distance freestyle events.
Saints beat Irish province to make Champions Cup final
Phil Dowson says his players enhanced Lions prospects
Northampton hope their extraordinary semi-final win over Leinster will be a springboard to further personal and collective success in the coming weeks. The Saints director of rugby, Phil Dowson, also believes several of his players have “undoubtably” enhanced their British & Irish Lions selection chances before Thursday’s tour squad announcement.
Henry Pollock and Fin Smith, along with hat-trick try-scorer Tommy Freeman, could not have made a better impression on a high-pressure stage and Dowson believes Pollock’s exuberance is beneficial to any team. “It’s infectious and spreads throughout the team,” said Dowson. “Leinster are one of the best sides in Europe and the world. For our players to perform on that stage and execute under that pressure speaks volumes for them.”
They will feed you, water you, give you a good time and make you feel carefree and cosseted
As a name, One Club Row sounds a bit like the title of a 1990s lads’ mag, but it’s actually a purposely shabby-chic room above a pub in Shoreditch that serves martinis, oysters and schnitzels in a heady, tipsy, twinkly atmosphere that itself may well remind you of the 1990s. Or at least it will if you were “on the scene” back then. These days, the 90s are synonymous with louche, raffish semi-pandemonium, mainly because today feels so saintly in comparison. No 90s restaurateur ever offered reclaimed spud peelings as a starter or a kombucha-led, alcohol-free drinks flight to spare your liver, complete with an earnest lecture on zero-waste hospitality. Puritanism was definitely out there back then, yes, though mainly only in The Cranks Recipe Book. But mindfulness? Not so much.
From grassroots gigs to stadium shows, there’s no escaping the ticketing giant, making billions from hiking up prices (and whacking on fees)
Even Donald Trump knows that the price of concert tickets is too damn high. Recently, flanked by the preposterously dressed Maga rocker Kid Rock, the president signed an executive order to protect fans from “crazy prices” by cracking down on scalpers and hidden fees. “Make America Fun Again,” Kid Rock declared.
It will take more than an executive order to resolve the ticketing industry’s most intractable problems. Scalpers, anyway, are an easy target with few friends. The fact is that, with or without them, top-flight concert tickets have never been harder to acquire or afford. As customer experiences go, it’s the pits.
Around the globe, conflict is spreading – but it’s too often going ignored. Are we simply overwhelmed by the scale of it?
Victims of Nazi atrocities will be remembered at ceremonies next week marking the end of the second world war in Europe. Survivors and relatives gathered at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Hanover last Sunday to commemorate the estimated 72,000 people who were murdered there. Among those killed was a young German-born Jewish girl, Anne Frank, whose celebrated diary recalls those terrible times.
The dead of 1939-45 should never be forgotten. But we should also be mindful to count the dead of 2025. To know that in years to come, we will remember, record and honour victims of today’s recurring atrocities. Each day brings news of more appalling acts by governments and armed groups in wars and conflict zones around the world. One difference now is, unlike the Nazi atrocities, many of these crimes are very public knowledge even as they occur.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
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Attacks and self censorship, draconian anti-terror laws and tycoons’ control over the media, are all seen as eroding the country’s democracy
At her home in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Harleen Kapoor* reflects with melancholy on how, since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, she has spent a lot of time in the office instead of out on the powerful human rights exposés she used to work on.
Stories from some of the most deprived areas in the country were her forte. But, she says, in the climate of fear that has built up in India in the past decade, her media outlet has made it clear that her reports on topics such as sexual violence against lower-caste women and the harassment of Muslims are no longer welcome.
I’m a 40-year-old man who has used dating apps for eight years and met about 100 different women, not counting the ones with whom I just chatted. That’s a lot of first dates, quite a few second dates and a few short relationships. Nothing stuck.
No one seems to want a relationship. Everyone is broken, including me. Some women turn me down, allegedly, because I ask to split the bill on the second date, having paid on the first. Some turn me down because I want kids and they don’t. Some tell me I’m a nice man, after which I don’t hear from them again. I’ve never ghosted anyone, but I’ve turned down some good people too. I was trying to do the right thing by my head and my heart. It appears everyone is looking for chemistry and not finding it.
George Simion, 38, comfortably ahead in polls as first round of voting begins in presidential election
Romanians are voting in a presidential election rerun that could propel to power an ultranationalist who opposes military aid to Ukraine, has fiercely criticised the EU’s leadership and describes himself as a “natural ally” of Donald Trump.
George Simion, 38, is comfortably ahead in the opinion polls before the first-round vote in the EU and Nato member state, nearly six months after the original ballot was cancelled amid evidence of an alleged “massive” Russian influence campaign.
Moscow’s intelligence services have launched a new type of attack on the west, violent but piecemeal and hard to prove
Serhiy was just about to board a coach bound for Germany when Polish security services detained him at the bus station in the city of Wrocław.
In his backpack, the officers found firelighter cubes, a juice bottle filled with paraffin, a lighter, two pocket knives, a mini handsaw and a face mask. Later, when they searched the mobile phone of the 49-year-old Ukrainian refugee, they found a pdf of a Russian-language book called Modern Pyrotechnics. It contained detailed instructions on how to start fires and detonate explosives.
Billionaire shocked audience of investors with disclosure and said his vice-chair, Greg Abel, should take over
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, has announced his intention to retire at the end of this year. He is 94 years old.
Buffett, the fifth-richest person in the world, shocked an arena full of shareholders on Saturday when he announced that he would step down as the CEO and chair of the trillion-dollar conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025. He will recommend to the 11-person board that his vice-chair, Greg Abel, who currently oversees most of the company’s investments, be named as his successor, Buffett said.
Berlin dismisses secretary of state’s criticism over AfD designation; nine pro-Palestinian activists arrested at Swarthmore College – key US politics stories from Saturday 3 May at a glance
Germany’s foreign ministry has pushed back after Marco Rubio criticised the country’s decision to designate the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force incompatible with its constitution.
“This is democracy,” the ministry said in a post on X, adding that the courts would have the final say and that “we have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped”. The US secretary of state had called the move “tyranny in disguise”.
Ukrainian military intelligence claims Su-30 destroyed over waters near Russian port city of Novorossiisk, drawing no comment from Moscow. What we know on day 1,166
Ukraine has destroyed a Russian Su-30 fighter jet using a missile fired from a seaborne drone, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, in what it said was the world’s first downing of a combat plane by a maritime drone. The GUR’s statement on social media on Saturday said the fighter had been shot down by a military intelligence unit called Group 13 on Friday over waters near Novorossiisk, a major Russian port city on the Black Sea. The Russian defence ministry did not comment on the Ukrainian claim, but an authoritative Russian blogger believed to be close to the ministry said the jet had been shot down. “The pilots ejected and were picked up by civilian sailors,” the blogger, who goes by the name Rybar, said on Telegram. Meanwhile, the mayor of Novorossiisk declared a state of emergency on Saturday after local authorities said a Ukrainian drone attack had damaged a grain terminal and several residential buildings, injuring five people.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed a three-day truce ordered by Vladimir Putin as theatrics but said Kyiv was ready for a full ceasefire. “This is more of a theatrical performance on his part, because in two or three days it is impossible to develop a plan for the next steps to end the war,” the Ukrainian president said on Friday in remarks embargoed until Saturday. Moscow claimed the truce, set to coincide with its second world war commemorations on 9 May, was aimed at testing Kyiv’s “readiness” for long-term peace. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, said on Saturday that nobody could guarantee Kyiv would survive to see 10 May if Ukraine attacked Moscow during the 9 May celebrations. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May”. The Kremlin has rejected calls by Kyiv and Washington for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
A Russian overnight drone attack on Kyiv injured at least 11 people, including two children, and set several residential buildings throughout the city on fire, the military and officials of the Ukrainian capital said on Sunday. Falling debris from destroyed drones sparked fires at buildings in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi and Sviatoshynskyi districts, the head of Kyiv’s military administration said on social media. Timur Tkachenko added that several cars throughout the city also caught alight. Ukraine’s emergency service said 76 firefighters were involved in putting out the fires.
Russian shelling killed two people in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Saturday, while a drone strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson left one other person dead, regional officials said. In the central region of Cherkasy, a Russian drone attack late on Saturday sparked several fires, said the governor, Ihor Taburets. Ukraine’s emergency service said one person was injured.
News Corp commentator blames Liberal party for allegedly shying away from culture wars as Peta Credlin in furious agreement: ‘we didn’t do enough of a culture war’
Labor is set to govern with a huge majority after the Coalition vote collapsed and Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson. Follow today’s news and the latest results
Littleproud says working from home policy “not handled well”
Littleproud is asked about the impact of the Coalition’s bungled work-from-home proposal, which was ultimately reversed due to its unpopularity.
I think we’ve got to be honest – that wasn’t handled well. But I mean, Peter had the courage to say that he got it wrong.
Our parliament is going to be poorer for it (Dutton losing).
We’re going to work through all of those (things). I don’t think nuclear was the reason we lost. I think this was a smick campaign by Labor destroying Peter Dutton.
Connexion
