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“Quali” (ugh) is coming right up at 9pm UK time. That’s 20 minutes or so if my maths is correct. What could possibly happen?

Lando Norris took advantage in a dramatic sprint race in tricky, changeable conditions at the Miami Grand Prix to claim victory from his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, with Lewis Hamilton enjoying a well-timed strategy call by his Ferrari team to take third place.

Super League patron Florentino Pérez sets the tone with his destructive acts of pettiness, dragging down a once noble club

Referees have never been so disdained and despised as they are now. Those who do not think they are corrupt, think they are incompetent. Standards, apparently, have never been lower. Clubs and their fans rage about conspiracies. But even in the present context, the scenes at the end of last Saturday’s Copa del Rey final were unprecedented as Antonio Rüdiger threw an ice-pack at the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.

And to think this is a club that used to pride itself on its sense of its señorio, its gentlemanliness, to the extent that in Steve McManaman’s day players were given a code of conduct; the familiar line used to be whinging about referees was for the cry-babies of Barcelona.

• Leinster 34-37 Northampton
• Saints cling on for win following first-half blitz

This competition has seen a few remarkable results over the years but few to match this sweetest of Saints days. Maybe Leinster thought that a fourth successive Investec Champions Cup final appearance was a formality against supposedly outgunned English opposition. If so they were made to pay a heavy price as a triple whammy of tries from Tommy Freeman helped Northampton pull off one of the all-time great knockout heists.

The Irish province, beaten in the final in the last three consecutive seasons, were stunned at the final whistle. But the Saints had led 27-15 at half-time and, even after Leinster had charged back to within three points the visitors came knocking again via a 63^rd-minute score from James Ramm. The final quarter was frantically tense, settled in contentious fashion after an aghast Leinster had a possible 79^th-minute score disallowed.

• World No 1 defeats American 6-3, 7-6 (3) in final
• Sabalenka has 4,000 point lead at top of rankings

Aryna Sabalenka defeated Coco Gauff to win her third title of the season at the Madrid Open. The world No 1 won 17 points in a row early in the contest but had to save a set point in the second set on her way to a 6-3, 7-6 (3) victory at the Caja Mágica.

It is a third title in the Spanish capital for Sabalenka, who lifted the trophy in 2021 and 2023 before losing to Iga Swiatek 12 months ago. The Belarusian now has a lead of more than 4,000 points over her stuttering rival in the rankings, although the result does mean Swiatek stays ahead of Gauff at No 2.

It was a day when the Arsenal team news threatened to be the news, Mikel Arteta sending a message at the outset. There was precious little rotation from the manager before Wednesday night’s Champions League, semi-final second leg away against Paris Saint-Germain, the tie that cast long shadows here. Arteta wanted to keep his starters in the groove, to generate momentum for the Parc des Princes with a win. So much for the theory.

Arteta rested Jurrien Timber, who had picked up a minor knock in the 1-0 first-leg defeat against PSG but that apart, he went with pretty much his strongest available line-up. It was certainly a contrast to the approach of his PSG counterpart, Luis Enrique, who made 10 changes for his team’s Ligue 1 game at Strasbourg. PSG, who have already sewn up the title, lost 2-1.

People’s Action party retains majority, with sample counts showing it winning all but 10 seats in 97-seat legislature

Singapore’s ruling party has notched a resounding win in general elections, official results have shown, giving the prime minister, Lawrence Wong, the clear mandate he sought from voters.

Wong’s long-ruling People’s Action party crossed the threshold of 49 seats early on Sunday to form a majority government in the wealthy city-state’s 97-seat unicameral legislature, with sample counts earlier showing the PAP winning all but 10 seats.

Ahmad bin Mubarak says he was not able to take the decisions he needed to or to fully exercise his powers

Ahmad bin Mubarak, the premier of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, has announced his resignation saying he was unable to fully exercise his powers.

Bin Mubarak had been entangled in bitter disputes for months with Rashad al-Alimi, who heads the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), two ministers and a member of the PLC told AFP.

Far-right German party was labeled a ‘confirmed rightwing extremist group’ by country’s domestic intelligence service

Germany’s foreign ministry has hit back at the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, following his criticism of Germany’s decision to label the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party as a “confirmed rightwing extremist group”.

On Thursday, Rubio took to X and wrote: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

Harry’s gripes about personal security and call for reconciliation with his family elicit mixed responses

It was the usual chaos outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday afternoon. Tourists squashed themselves up against the palace gates, e-bikes whizzed around the memorial of Queen Victoria and security staff hurriedly erected impromptu barriers to manage the heaving crowds.

For the family drawing this familiar circus, things have been equally chaotic.

Labour’s Luke Charters says allowing alcohol in the top five tiers of the men’s game would be the ‘modern approach’

A Labour MP has called for trials to assess the impact of lifting a decades-long ban on drinking alcohol in football stands.

York Outer MP Luke Charters said football needs to take a “modern approach” to the issue in a debate on the football governance bill earlier this week.

Mohsen Mahdawi, student detained by Ice last month, pens blistering attack on Trump’s deportation policies

Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student freed on Wednesday after more than two weeks in immigration detention, has issued a stark warning about the US’s descent into authoritarianism.

“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” said Mahddawi in an op-ed for the New York Times.

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Australia’s women’s side, AKA the Wallaroos, defeated their Fijian counterparts overnight. Angus Fontaine has the story:

“The Wallaroos have sent a warning shot to the world with a powerful 43-7 victory over Fiji in Suva to give coach Jo Yapp’s new-look Australian side a welcome jolt of confidence as they prepare for the Rugby World Cup in England this August.”

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Bournemouth get the ball rolling. Zabarnyi goes long down the right, looking for Tavernier. Too long. Goal kick.

The teams are out! Arsenal in their famous red shirts with white sleeves, Bournemouth in a third kit which [MBM reporter squints, adjusts pince-nez] “draws its inspiration from our seaside roots, finished in deep lagoon green with an aquatic themed design on the front featuring subtle seashells and waves.” We’ll kick off after a verse or two of North London Forever.

Evertonians paying their final visit to Goodison Park were not hard to identify afterwards, they remained in their seats for one last, lingering look around the old place. A woman turned back as she reached the exit and waved goodbye. Goodison’s penultimate fixture, however, proved an occasion for Ipswich to savour as they make a dignified return to the Championship.

Everton were two goals up and cruising towards a first home win in three months when Julio Enciso changed the complexion of the contest with a stunning finish. David Moyes’s side suddenly had doubt where previously they had control and a late header from substitute George Hirst completed the recovery for Kieran McKenna’s spirited side. Another two-goal lead blown by Everton and an opportunity wasted against a relegated, depleted and limited opponent.

Jamie Vardy ended Leicester’s long wait for a home goal in the Premier League as they defeated Southampton 2-0 in a clash between two already-relegated teams.

Vardy’s opener at the King Power Stadium was the 38-year-old’s 199th goal in a Leicester shirt and set Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side on their way to a first win since January. Jordan Ayew added a second before half-time for the Foxes to leave Southampton still needing one more point to avoid a share of the competition’s lowest-ever total – Derby’s 11 from 2007-08.

Over five-year period Oksana Shahar – who cares for her son – was paid a small amount more than carer’s allowance earnings limits allow

It was three weeks after Christmas when the bombshell letter arrived. Guy Shahar and his wife, Oksana, looked at each other in stunned disbelief.

They had followed the Guardian’s investigation into the carer’s allowance scandal that has left thousands of families with crippling debts and criminal records. Not once did they think they would join them.

• RB Leipzig’s Poulsen strikes in injury time to seal 3-3 draw
• Bayern can still be crowned champions on Sunday

RB Leipzig’s Yussuf Poulsen scored a stoppage-time goal to snatch a 3-3 draw against Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich on Saturday and delay the Bavarians’ title celebrations by at least a day. Poulsen struck seconds before the end to leave Bayern on 76 points, nine ahead of Leverkusen, who travel to Freiburg on Sunday. Bayern, with two games left to play, will secure their 34th league crown should Leverkusen fail to win.

It was supposed to be triumphant afternoon for Bayern, but they found themselves on the back foot from the start with the hosts piling on early pressure. Leipzig had two big chances before Benjamin Sesko completed a quick break with a superbly curled shot past Jonas Urbig in the 11th minute.

Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migration

Ministers will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.

An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands.

Zinc Nacional will move ‘most polluting’ operations after joint investigation found heavy-metals pollution in area

• Revealed: US hazardous waste is sent to Mexico – where a ‘toxic cocktail’ of pollution emerges

A factory processing US hazardous waste in Mexico has promised to relocate what authorities call its “most polluting” operations following a Guardian investigation.

The plant in the Monterrey metropolitan area recycles toxic steel dust sent by the US steel industry and recovers zinc, according to that reporting, which was produced in partnership with Quinto Elemento Lab, a Mexico investigative journalism unit. It revealed evidence of heavy-metals pollution in the surrounding neighborhoods.

From the local sports team to local businesses, Saginaw is intimately intertwined with its northern neighbor

There are few entities that embody the close, fraternal ties between the US and Canada quite like the Saginaw Spirit junior ice hockey team.

In a place whose fortunes have been more down than up in recent decades, the Dow Event Center hockey arena in Saginaw, Michigan, comes alive with more than 5,000 fans once these young stars take to the ice. A huge banner depicting the players adorns the main street into the city.

A feasibility report using historical maps and ecological data is raising excitement: ‘It would be a slow process’

On the eve of the gold rush, California was teeming with grizzly bears – as many as 10,000 of them. They were so popular that the Bear Flag Republic – a short-lived attempt by a group of US settlers to break away from Mexico in 1846 – used the animals as their mascot; an image that still adorns California’s flag.

But by the mid-1920s, the bears were all gone. The last documented sighting of a grizzly bear in California was in the spring of 1924 in Sequoia national park, a lonesome bear wandering among the trees.

Custodians of global wealth have reacted with anger at attempts by people like Trump and Truss to revolutionise the economy

You say you want a revolution, sang the Beatles back in 1968. And that seems to be the interpretation of electoral results across the industrialised world.

From the seismic shifts in recent US and German elections to the rise of Reform and the Green party in the UK, electorates are signalling that they reject the status quo.

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Will you bounce straight back next season? Will they?
CW: “I doubt we will. The only hope I have is that the gap has become so big that we end up being promoted again simply by being less rubbish than 21 other teams. Southampton and Ipswich will probably be the top two.”

SG: “We should be there or thereabouts, so long as the managerial appointment is a sound one. The one appointment the owners got right since buying the club was done via the previously-mentioned Wilcox, so hopefully his replacement, Johannes Spors, can repeat that trick this summer. As for Leicester, I get the unhappiness that fills the air there at the moment, but barring any significant EFL penalties, they’ll be title favourites again.”

Anything you envy about your opponents?
CW: “At least they can score goals. I’ve seen us score three in this calendar year and I’m a season ticket holder and regular away dayer. Honestly, getting relegated to League One for the first and only time in our history in 2008 was about ten times more enjoyable than this.”

The broadcaster, a target of president’s sweeping cuts to US media agencies, could be back on air as soon as next week

Voice of America (VoA), the US-taxpayer funded news service for overseas listeners, could be back on the air as soon as next week, after a federal appeals court granted a temporary stay on an executive order dismantling the broadcaster.

VoA was effectively shut down after Trump signed an order on 14 March dismantling or shrinking seven agencies including the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

Opposition leader Peter Dutton fails to dissociate himself from Trump-like rhetoric and policies – and loses his seat

• Anthony Albanese profile: the Australian PM who led Labor to victory
• Live Australian election results tracker

Australia’s centre-left prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has won a second term with a crushing victory over the opposition, whose rightwing leader, Peter Dutton, failed to brush off comparisons with Donald Trump and ended up losing his own seat.

Albanese’s Labor party scored an unexpectedly comfortable win on Saturday, after a five-week election campaign dominated by the cost of living and global economic uncertainty.

The not-for-profit, which has been recording anti-Muslim hate crime for 13 years, now faces an uncertain future

For 13 years, Tell Mama has been the government-funded not-for-profit tasked with recording anti-Muslim hate crime and helping victims get justice.

For its pains, staff faced death threats from the far right, a risk so serious it necessitated an office change at the height of the hate. There have been critics too within Britain’s Muslim community, who, according to the Tell Mama leadership, were intolerant of the organisation’s tolerance.

Two groups join forces for peer-reviewed research after key contributors on Congress-mandated report dismissed

Two major US scientific societies have announced they will join forces to produce peer-reviewed research on the climate crisis’s impact days after Donald Trump’s administration dismissed contributors to a key Congress-mandated report on climate crisis preparedness.

On Friday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) said that they will work together to produce over 29 peer-reviewed journals that will cover all aspects of climate change including observations, projections, impacts, risks and solutions.

Actor returns to York theatre where he started out 46 years ago, after cementing status as one of UK’s greatest actors

It’s been 46 years since Gary Oldman made his professional stage debut at York’s Theatre Royal. Returning to the venue last week for Samuel Beckett’s one-man play Krapp’s Last Tape, the 67-year-old English actor is a world removed from the young upstart once advised by Rada to do something else for a living.

In the intervening four decades Oldman has steadily become one of the greatest actors of his generation, whose versatility and intense performance style have earned him numerous accolades including an Oscar, three Baftas and a Golden Globe.

Reginald, a great dane, and Pearl, a chihuahua, met after winning their respective Guinness World Records categories

A playdate between the world’s tallest and smallest living dogs went the way of most dog park encounters despite the 3ft (0.91-meter) height difference – lots of tail wagging, sniffing and scampering.

Reginald, a seven-year-old great dane from Idaho, and Pearl, a chihuahua from Florida, are both certified winners in their respective height titles by Guinness World Records. The fact that Reginald is the size of a small horse and Pearl is as small as an apple didn’t stop them from getting along famously.

• Pace bowler due to lead attack at Lord’s WTC final in June
• ‘I am deeply sorry to all those that I have let down’

The South Africa fast bowler Kagiso Rabada has revealed he is serving a provisional suspension after testing positive for a recreational drug. Rabada, who sits second in the International Cricket Council Test bowling rankings, returned home after playing two matches with Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League last month.

The Titans said at the time he had done so to tend to an “important personal matter” and the 29-year-old disclosed this was due to returning an adverse analytical finding for a recreational substance.

This was a narky, gnarly narrow victory but Aston Villa will not mind. After missing out on a Champions League semi-final and an FA Cup final over the previous two matches, Unai Emery’s team enhanced their chances of a top-five Premier League finish that would return them to Europe’s elite competition after Youri Tielemans’ first-half header dented Fulham’s own bid for continental competition.

Villa have now equalled their 17-match record unbeaten home run in the Premier League, set under Emery two years ago, and are level on points with Nottingham Forest, who visit Crystal Palace on Monday, and Chelsea, at home to Liverpool on Sunday, on 60 points.

• Solomon’s injury-time winner seals top spot for Leeds
• Hatters down, Bristol City and Coventry in playoffs

Daniel Farke described Leeds’s Championship title triumph as “a proud day and an emotionally moving day” after he saw his side clinch top spot in dramatic fashion thanks to Manor Solomon’s injury-time winner against Plymouth at Home Park. The 2-1 win meant they held off Burnley, who beat Millwall 3-1, on goal difference to seal top spot with a century of points. At the other end of the table, Luton suffered a second successive relegation after a 5-3 loss at West Brom.

As the Leeds players and fans celebrated, Farke initially sat alone in the dugout. “I was too tired to celebrate even at the final whistle because I was so focused on winning promotion,” he said. “I really wanted to win this match and win the title for everyone at the club.

The Freedom to Learn campaign included panels and coffee meetups and will end Saturday with a rally and prayer

A coalition of civil rights groups have launched a weeklong initiative to condemn Donald Trump’s attacks on Black history, including recent executive orders targeting the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington DC.

The national Freedom to Learn campaign is being led by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), a social justice thinktank co-founded by the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. Crenshaw is a leading expert on critical race theory (CRT), a framework used to analyze racism’s structural impact. She has fought against book bans, restraints on racial history teaching and other anti-DEI efforts since the beginning of the Republican-led campaign against CRT in 2020.

I have a suggestion for conspiracy theorists: instead of searching for secret plots, why not grapple with some very clear facts?

Last weekend the terrible news broke that Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, had died by suicide. Conspiracy theorists immediately started circling. A tweet from 2019, in which Giuffre said she wasn’t suicidal, was dredged up. Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest failson, then amplified the theory to his millions of followers, adding that “other than the Clinton’s [sic] no one has more suiciding going on”.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Bureij, Beit Lahiya, Gaza City and Khan Younis hit as Israeli government prepares to expand offensive

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 people across Gaza during the past 24 hours, civil defence officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said, as Israel’s government prepared to order an expansion of its military offensive.

Nine people were killed when a strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; another six people died in a separate strike targeting a family home in the northern city of Beit Lahiya; six more died in a strike on a community kitchen in Gaza City, and an overnight attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, the officials said.

Exclusive: Insiders sound alarm over ‘catastrophic’ impact of widespread departures and cuts under Trump

A “catastrophic” exodus of thousands of employees from the US Department of Labor threatens “all of the core aspects of working life”, insiders have warned, amid fears that the Trump administration will further slash the agency’s operations.

The federal agency has already lost about 20% of its workforce, according to employees, as nearly 2,700 staff took retirement, early retirement, deferred resignation buyouts or “fork in the road” departures earlier this year.

Papal electors gossip in bars and restaurants and try to avoid journalists seeking clues to Pope Francis’s successor

Some journalists brave the warm spring sun, others seek respite in the shade of the Vatican’s colonnades. Whatever their strategy, the aim is the same: to spot the red-capped cardinals emerging from Synod Hall and try to elicit from them a clue as to who will succeed Pope Francis.

The men responsible for picking a new pontiff are enjoying rock-star status in Rome this week as they prepare for conclave: the secret, centuries-old ritual of electing a leader of the Catholic church that is due to begin on 7 May.

A new lawsuit seeks to examine ransom notes linked to the 1932 kidnap and murder of the transatlantic aviator’s son

HL Mencken, the prominent journalist and critic, once called it the “greatest story since the Resurrection”. Though it has been 93 years since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case merged crime, fame and mass media together, the enduring mystery of the crime still holds fascination for many in the US.

The case was shocking. The transatlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh suffered the kidnapping and murder of their 20-month-old baby son on 1 March 1932. Now a new lawsuit filed in New Jersey – where the crime played out – seeks to force the state police to allow mitochondrial DNA testing on envelopes used to send a series of ransom notes.

In early 2020, separated from my family and friends during the pandemic, I made up my mind to write a love story

In early 2020, I made up my mind that I wanted to write a love story. Separated from my family and friends during the height of the pandemic and emotionally raw from living alone, I wanted to write something where I already knew the ending from the beginning: the characters would win. How they got there would be the most difficult part. I was inspired by the oeuvres of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez, and I wanted my fourth book to be vast in scope, rich in history and intertwined with familial lineages. But the work would demand plot development as well as historical research and I needed someone to help me.

I began interviewing assistants and came across a fellow Black female Harlemite from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Immediately, we clicked over a video chat and soon after, she emailed me a document she said I just had to see. The attachment revealed a four-page, cursive letter that dated back to 4 February 1863. Gorgeously maintained and preserved, the letter was written by a woman named Maria who took dictation from an enslaved man named James Tate of West Point, Georgia.

Musk and Bezos are the heirs to a quasi-religious belief in tech salvation. The rest of us are stuck in the real world

It’s tempting to believe that tech billionaires’ embrace of Donald Trump and the far right is a sudden rupture with the usual political ideology of Silicon Valley. Op-eds in the New York Times and elsewhere have made this case. Even Marc Andreessen, one of the billionaires in question, claims that this is what happened – he said that it was a change in the Democratic arty that pushed him and his fellow oligarchs into the arms of the GOP.

Yet this is a serious misunderstanding of the situation. There wasn’t a sudden shift in the politics of tech – it was a homecoming. While it’s true that Silicon Valley has long supported Democratic candidates for political office – and that rank-and-file tech workers still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats – the fundamental ideology underpinning the culture of Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists and CEOs has always had a far-right libertarian core. This is even true for Andreessen: while he likely believed what he said while he was saying it, his own words and actions make it clear that he wasn’t giving an accurate assessment of his own motivations, much less anyone else’s. His venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has long opposed government regulation of any sort that touches on their investments; Andreessen himself posted a “techno-optimist manifesto” that, despite its claim to be politically neutral, promotes an authoritarian vision of unfettered power for tech oligarchs. He even lovingly paraphrases Filippo Marinetti, the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto.