Good riddance to Kristi Noem. Her replacement won’t be an improvement | Moira Donegan

The former homeland security chief was an incompetent figurehead of cruelty. Her departure reflects Trump’s political weakness

Was it the blanket that did it? On Thursday, Donald Trump announced he fired Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, in a post on Truth Social. Noem, at the time, was giving a press briefing in Nashville, and did not seem aware that she had been fired; she later posted on social media to thank the president for the new role that he had created for her as a golden parachute: “Envoy to the Shield of the Americas”, which sounds like something from a children’s superhero cartoon. Noem’s dismissal comes after a chaotic time at the department, in which she had endured successive national outcries over ICE kidnapping operations and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; corruption and mismanagement scandals within the department; rumors about an alleged extramarital relationship with her top aide and former Trump campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski; and scrutiny over her award of a lucrative advertising contract to a personal ally. Noem’s tenure at DHS seems to have been marked by state violence, managerial incompetence, and shockingly unprofessional conduct. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski summarily fired the pilot of a plane Noem was traveling on when a blanket (or possibly a bag) she had used on her flight was not retrieved for her when she switched planes. The pilot had to be quickly rehired because there was no one else to fly the secretary home.

Noem’s ousting comes just days after her contentious testimony at a pair of Senate committee hearings, at which even Republican House members made a point of being seen to criticize her on camera. Just hours before Trump’s announcement, the Senate had failed yet again to pass a measure which would resume funding for DHS; the department has been the subject of a congressional funding battle in which a partial government shutdown has flowed from Democrats’ demands that new limits be placed on the department’s immigration enforcement activities.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: March 6, 2026, 10:00 am

Urine luck: seven expert tips for peeing correctly

Doctors share healthful habits for managing urination and debunk misconceptions about trips to the bathroom

Urination is a vital human function and often occurs without much fanfare or thought – but age, sex, medications and a host of other factors can influence how you use the bathroom. Because there can be so much variation, patients must not ignore what seems out of the norm for their bodies, says Dr Vannita Simma-Chiang, a board-certified urologist and associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

“If something seems strange to you, one of the best things you can do is just go in and chat with a medical professional about it,” says Simma-Chiang.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 pm

An Ohio high school is on one of the greatest winning streaks in sports. What’s the secret?

For over two decades the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Bees have ruled Ohio high school gymnastics. On Saturday, they pursue a remarkable 23rd consecutive state title

As Brecksville-Broadview Heights gymnasts, seniors Rachel Kirin and Kyla Haverdill know that there’s only one expectation for how the season ends on Saturday: with the Ohio high school state title.

“It’s definitely a lot of pressure,” said Haverdill, who has been doing gymnastics since she was a baby. “Most people don’t understand that – it’s just so expected.”

Published: March 6, 2026, 9:00 am

I traded Spotify with an MP3 player for a week. Life outside the algorithm was rough

No algorithm, no endless playlists, no podcasts on demand. Just a handful of albums, wired headphones and a lot of silence

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I stared at the thing sitting atop my dresser with dread. For an entire week, I was going to use an MP3 player to listen to music. I’d never tried one before. In elementary school, I used various iterations of iPods, and since my Bieber-obsessed tween years, I’ve almost exclusively relied on streaming services for music and podcasts. Thanks to my Spotify Premium subscription, I’ve listened to 64,186 minutes of music in recent years.

Since the company’s debut in the US 15 years ago, Spotify has made listening to music frictionless. The streaming platform possesses about 31% of the world’s music subscribers, making it practically interchangeable with the music streaming industry itself. Its powerful algorithm defines how so many of us listen to music (and podcasts and audiobooks), thanks to features like Smart Shuffle, the AI DJ X and the mood-based Daylist all recommending creepily accurate songs based on your listening history. You can also sort playlists by mood (sad boy anthems), micro-genre (indie twang) and most recently, even by BPM.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:15 pm

The Game of Thrones movie is coming – but how are they going to make audiences root for the baddies?

The early intel from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels paints the Targaryens as tyrants – so making them the heroes is going to require some hefty literary PR

There must be a few Game of Thrones fans out there who have rather mixed feelings about the news that Warner Bros is to bring George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire “universe” to the big screen. On the one hand, the prospect of a properly enormous fantasy epic featuring dragons the size of commuter trains is undeniably appealing; on the other, have they really thought this thing through?

Reports suggest that the feature film will take as its source material Aegon Targaryen’s conquest, which brought the purple-eyed, dragon-riding clan to continental Westeros (and united six of its seven kingdoms) about 300 years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones itself. There’s also a TV series happening, which will presumably cover much of the same ground in greater detail. At first glance, this ought to make even the most reluctant fantasy acolyte want to punch the air. After all, Aegon’s conquest is the sort of story cinema was invented for: dragons blotting out the sky, castles melting like cheese toasties under a blowtorch; an entire continent being thrillingly upended by a bunch of platinum-haired dragonlords.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:32 pm

‘Only Nazis ban books’: on the frontlines with students fighting Trump over higher education

Documentary First They Came for My College goes inside the fight for academic freedom at Florida’s New College

It took a half century to build New College into a sanctuary of independent thought and less than a year to destroy it. In 2023 the beloved Florida liberal arts school became state governor Ron DeSantis’s latest target in his so-called war on woke. DeSantis decimated the school’s trustee board and installed a cabal of rightwing cronies, aiming to transform it into a conservative institution modeled after Michigan’s evangelical Hillsdale College.

Library shelves were stripped, with books from Black and Indigenous authors and the shuttered gender studies department tossed into dumpsters. Frat boys arrived in droves and the campus was transformed into a meathead’s playground where queer couples stopped holding hands for fear of homophobic slurs. In a move ripped from the playbook of a spiteful cartoon villain, the community garden with its koi pond and roosting owls was bulldozed and a plans were hatched to build a baseball stadium.

Published: March 6, 2026, 10:04 am

Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ as bombs pound Tehran and Beirut

US president again calls on Iranian people to overthrow government or face ‘absolutely guaranteed death’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has said only Iran’s “unconditional surrender” will bring an end to the offensive launched seven days ago, as the US and Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombardments so far in the conflict.

“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday, when US strategic bombers were in action over Iran and intensive Israeli strikes in Lebanon forced more than a million people to flee their homes.

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:27 pm

Iran is not Venezuela, despite Trump’s hopes of repeating ‘regime capture’ strategy

Experts say US influence over South American neighbour will be hard to replicate in country with deep and long-standing antipathy to the west

First, the CIA tracks the head of an oil-rich, US-baiting nation to a heavily guarded compound at the heart of his country’s mountain-flanked capital.

Then, that leader is removed from power with a deadly and irresistible show of US military force.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘If they don’t stop, Tehran will turn into Gaza’: Iranians describe night of terror

People tell of scenes of panic during airstrikes on Iran’s capital, with several saying they feared they would die

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Sleeplessness, fear and exhaustion gripped residents of Tehran as successive waves of strikes struck the Iranian capital, judging from messages sent by people in the city after the latest overnight onslaught, which several described as the worst bombardment in six days of war.

With Iran imposing a near-total internet blackout, information emerging from inside the country is fragmentary and difficult to verify. But in a series of accounts sent through proxy connections, and calls with friends abroad, Tehranis described a night of intense explosions.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:46 pm

DoJ releases Epstein files containing uncorroborated abuse allegations against Trump

Justice department said the files were initially withheld because they were mistakenly categorized as duplicates

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The US justice department released additional files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, including FBI memos describing interviews with a woman who made uncorroborated allegations against Epstein and Donald Trump.

The documents were not included in the justice department’s earlier releases of Epstein-related records, which began in December. Justice department officials have said the files were initially withheld because they were mistakenly categorized as duplicates.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:56 pm

US senator seeks perjury investigation into Kristi Noem over DHS spending

Senator Richard Blumenthal alleges the ousted DHS secretary lied to Congress about the agency’s contracts

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Senator Richard Blumenthal said he would open a perjury investigation into the ousted homeland security secretary Kristi Noem after alleging she lied to Congress about the hidden influence her senior adviser Corey Lewandowski had over the agency’s contracts.

Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member on the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, said Thursday he would push the panel to look into whether Noem committed perjury at a hearing this week, when she flatly denied Lewandowski had played any role in approving Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending. Blumenthal said Democrats had evidence to prove otherwise.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:17 pm

US lost 92,000 jobs in February just before Trump joined Iran conflict

The unemployment rate was 4.4% in February, with 130,000 jobs added in January

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The US lost 92,000 jobs in February, an unexpected major slackening in the labor market that came just before Donald Trump threw the global economy into upheaval with his conflict in Iran.

The unemployment rate edged up to 4.4% in February. In comparison, the US added a revised 126,000 jobs in January, far surpassing expectations of 70,000 jobs but still less than January 2025. Economists predicted an increase of 60,000 jobs added in February and a steady unemployment rate of 4.3%.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:38 pm

Trump says Cuba is ‘going to fall pretty soon’ after White House comments – live

President tells CNN country is going to ‘fall’ after earlier in the week claiming Cuba ‘wants to make a deal so badly’

• US lost 92,000 jobs in February just before Trump joined Iran conflict

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Military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion, two US officials tell Reuters.

Reuters was unable to determine further details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible or why the US might have struck the school.

Published: March 6, 2026, 8:11 pm

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds

Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

Humanity is heating the planet faster than ever before, a study has found.

Climate breakdown is occurring more rapidly with the heating rate almost doubling, according to research that excludes the effect of natural factors behind the latest scorching temperatures.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:00 pm

North Korean agents using AI to trick western firms into hiring them, Microsoft says

Firm says AI tools are masking identities of false applicants, who then funnel wages from remote IT jobs to North Korea

Fake IT workers deployed by North Korea are using AI technology, including voice-changing tools, to trick western companies into hiring them, Microsoft has said.

The US tech firm said a signature Pyongyang money-raising ruse is being enhanced by AI, which is helping create fake names and alter stolen IDs to increase the credibility of false applicants for IT and software development jobs.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 pm

‘Abject cruelty’: review of 911 calls from Texas ICE detention facility reveals disturbing conditions

Overcrowding, medical neglect and malnutrition are regular features of Camp East Montana in El Paso

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Serious medical and mental health emergencies have been routine at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) federal detention facility since its opening last summer, according to records obtained by the Associated Press.

Data and recordings from more than a hundred 911 calls at the Camp East Montana detention facility on the sprawling Fort Bliss army base in El Paso, Texas, along with interviews and court filings, offer a disturbing portrait of overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition and emotional distress.

After its opening last August, staff at the camp made nearly one 911 call per day in its first five months of operation, according to records obtained of data covering 130 calls from the city of El Paso.

In one call, a man is heard sobbing after being assaulted by another detainee. In another, a doctor says a man is banging his head against the wall while expressing suicidal thoughts. In a third, a nurse says a pregnant woman is in severe pain and has the coronavirus.

Injured detainees ranged from a 19-year-old man who fell out of a bunk bed to a 79-year-old man struggling to breathe. At least 20 emergencies were reported as seizures, including some that resulted in serious head trauma.

The calls show traumatized detainees have repeatedly tried to harm themselves.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:29 pm

White House releases video promoting ‘justice the American way’ featuring Hollywood characters

Critics have called Trump administration’s provocative video ‘slopaganda’, used to promote president’s agenda

• ‘A piece of supremely nasty mischief’: the Guardian’s film critic on the latest White House war video

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A Hollywood-themed propaganda video released by the White House promising “justice the American way” for Iran features movie stars from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and promotes characters including a corrupt lawyer, a drug dealer and a freedom fighter who stands up to the overwhelming force of an invading foreign army.

The 42-second video posted on the official X account of the White House on Thursday was met with almost universal mockery online, with comments accusing the Trump administration of immaturity, and likening its social media strategy to one run by teenagers.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:35 pm

Daryl Hannah slams Ryan Murphy’s Love Story as ‘tragedy-exploiting’ and ‘textbook misogyny’

Actor penned scathing essay for the New York Times, criticising show’s portrayal of her and sharing she’s received ‘threatening’ messages since it aired

Daryl Hannah has attacked Ryan Murphy’s smash hit TV series Love Story in an essay for the New York Times.

The much-watched drama, which tells of the romance between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, features Hannah as a character, played by Dree Hemingway. Hannah and JFK Jr were in a relationship in the early 1990s.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:01 pm

Florida bar says it ‘erroneously’ stated it was investigating Trump-appointed US attorney

A state bar association spokesperson said there is no ethics investigation into Lindsey Halligan under way

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Former interim US attorney Lindsey Halligan – who was appointed by Donald Trump and led failed prosecutions against two of the president’s political opponents – was faced with an ethics investigation by the bar association in her home state of Florida, according to a February letter from the bar association to a non-profit watchdog organization.

But, in the wake of news coverage about that letter, a Florida bar association spokesperson said Friday in a statement that it had “erroneously” stated an ethics investigation into Halligan was under way.

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:28 pm

US preparing system to process refunds on billions in illegal Trump tariffs

Top official at customs agency says total sum held in relation to tariffs is estimated to be about $166bn

The US customs agency is preparing a system that will be ​ready to process refunds on billions of dollars of illegally ‌collected tariffs in 45 days without requiring importers to sue, a court has been told.

Brandon Lord, a top official at US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), said in a filing to the US court of international trade on Friday that the total sum held in relation to such tariffs was estimated to be “approximately $166bn”.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:41 pm

Family of detainee who died under ICE custody says he was denied medical care

Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes died in a California hospital in February after suffering chest pain and shortness of breath

A man under the custody of federal immigration agents died in a California hospital last month after suffering from chest pain and shortness of breath, with one local official alleging the detainee was denied medical care before his death.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes, from Mexico, died on 27 February at a medical center in Victorville, California, just two days after the 48-year-old reported “feeling faint” and was transferred to the medical center.

Published: March 6, 2026, 12:00 pm

A lone battle: Why is Pedro Sánchez the only European leader to take on Trump?

As the Spanish PM decries the war in Iran, other politicians are unable – or unwilling – to speak against the US president

On Wednesday morning, Pedro Sánchez delivered a 10-minute televised address with the rather bland title: “An institutional declaration by the prime minister to assess recent international events.”

The speech’s words, however, were anything but beige. Hours after Donald Trump had threatened to cut off trade with Spain over its government’s refusal to allow two jointly operated bases in Andalucía to be used to strike Iran, Sánchez set out his thinking.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 am

ICE arrested an Oregon shop owner who had her green card in her pocket: ‘They didn’t care’

Juanita Avila later helped expose ICE’s ‘arrest first, justify later’ tactics in a lawsuit that won a major victory for immigrants’ rights

The moment 19-year-old Emely Agustin spotted the group of masked immigration agents tackling a woman facedown on the pavement, her heart dropped.

She saw the woman’s red jacket.

Published: March 6, 2026, 12:00 pm

Trump fires Kristi Noem: what does it mean for ICE? - The Latest

Donald Trump has fired his controversial US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, after weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership. As the public face of an aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted lawsuits and nationwide anti-ICE protests, Noem’s year-long tenure was plagued by multiple controversies, including accusing two US citizens killed by immigration agents of ‘domestic terrorism’. What exactly led to Noem’s firing and what do we know about her replacement? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:11 pm

Virginia Giuffre’s ‘invisible ghostwriter’ on the Epstein survivor’s legacy: ‘She wanted to name all of them. They deserve to be named’

Amy Wallace spent years helping Giuffre write her life story. Now she reflects on what the survivor would have thought of the release of the Epstein files

There are many reasons why Amy Wallace wishes Virginia Roberts Giuffre was still alive. Some are personal. Some are practical. But at its heart pulse the reverberations of a child sex trafficking scandal that reaches into palaces and courtrooms across the globe.

Wallace is the now very visible ghostwriter behind the posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl, by Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accuser.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:00 pm

How the sanctuary movement offers lessons for fighting ICE: ‘an impact that spans decades’

With its roots in religious doctrine, the modern move to house, clothe and protect immigrants started in the 1980s

When Donald Trump fired Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, she said sanctuary cities had made her job hard.

“Sanctuary cities do give us a challenge because it makes it difficult at times for law enforcement to do their work,” she told local police executives from across the country at a conference in Nashville. “And we see that many times when a city cooperates with the federal government, cooperates with our federal officers, that it is safer.”

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘I love being proactive about ageing gracefully’: Kerry Washington on memes, Botox and imperfect women

The Scandal star made history as the first Black woman to lead a TV show in 40 years. Now, she’s back in the hot seat with starry thriller Imperfect Women, and she’s determined to keep shaking up the industry

As double entendres go, to say Kerry Washington acts with teeth isn’t a bad one. There’s the literal meaning: Washington’s dramatic facial expressions have become internet canon, immortalised as various reaction gifs and as a favourite of online impressionists. But there’s also the roles themselves. The characters Washington plays have bite – they’re complex women that defy neat categorisation. Her role as Olivia Pope, the sleek political fixer in ABC’s Scandal, became a global sensation – and was the first time a Black woman led a network show in nearly 40 years.

Now Washington is back with a new project offering not just one complicated leading lady but three. Imperfect Women, Apple TV’s adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel, brings Washington together with Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara in a glossy murder mystery that puts female friendship – its love, loyalty, secrets and rivalry – at the heart.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:00 pm

War Machine review – Netflix bravely asks: what if Predator but Transformers?

Reacher’s Alan Ritchson takes on alien robots in an action thriller that benefits from some better-than-usual streaming special effects

You’d be forgiven for skipping past Netflix’s gory, militaristic action thriller War Machine at this particular moment. There is, after all, an actual war raging on (is there ever a good time, one could argue?) but those behind the film would likely use its sci-fi bent as a differentiation defense. The war being raged here is not between the US and a foreign earthly entity but rather one from somewhere above, our umpteenth soldiers v aliens matchup. It’s a clear “if you like” column filler for fans of Predator, Edge of Tomorrow or, if they exist, Battle: Los Angeles, yet unlike the many films it’s clearly inspired by, the extraterrestrials here are designed to resemble machines that could have originated from another country rather than another planet, robotic whirring over tentacle slithering.

It gives the film a slightly generic sheen, like a cheaper Transformers spin-off, but it’s also thankfully devoid of the dreaded Netflix murk, that flattening filter that reduces most colours to grey, the film an acquisition from Lionsgate. Set in Colorado but shot in Australia from native writer-director Patrick Hughes, and granted a theatrical release there last month, it makes for a slicker-than-usual streaming premiere, an easy, drink-your-way-through-it Friday night option for those who wish to remain entirely unchallenged.

Published: March 6, 2026, 8:01 am

Stephen Colbert on Kristi Noem: ‘A domestic terrorist who deserves to go to Gitmo’

Late-night hosts addressed Trump firing the DHS secretary, rising US gas prices and Robert F Kennedy Jr’s crackdown on Dunkin’

On Thursday night, late night-hosts celebrated Kristi Noem’s firing, criticized Maga’s handling of the war in Iran and raised an eyebrow to Robert F Kennedy Jr taking issue with sugary Starbucks drinks.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:29 pm

Little nurses: what happens when children take care of sick and disabled relatives?

About 5 million US minors tend ill relatives due to gaps in our health infrastructure

When my mother experienced a botched spinal surgery 25 years ago, she was discharged from the hospital to her 11-year-old child waiting at home. Me.

After weeks in a rehabilitation facility, she was sent home in a neck brace and with a prescription for pain medication. She could no longer drive, and her long recovery prohibited her return to work as a registered nurse. When she was discharged, no one asked who would be living with her at home. She could not raise her arms above her head, yet no one asked who would feed, bathe or dress her. There was no one else in our family home but me. Ferrell, my 19-year-old brother, was away at college, and my parents divorced in my early childhood; my father lived thousands of miles away in Germany.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:00 pm

Americans are being policed with military-grade weapons. This has to stop | Hank Johnson and Michael Shank

Predator drones and armored personnel carriers have become commonplace in US cities. Congress has the power to fix this

America’s main streets are a warzone. This should trouble every American, irrespective of their political leaning. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are near impossible to realize when our streets are policed so militarily. Our nation’s founders would be outraged, so as we commemorate the 250th anniversary this year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it’s worth evaluating how far off the mark we are in maintaining that much-vaunted freedom and liberty.

This past year, especially, witnessed a troubling militarization of the streets, with Donald Trump’s deployment of ICE and the national guard in multiple US cities, including Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. There is substantial documentation of immigration enforcement using military-grade equipment transferred from the Pentagon. And from Chicago to California, homeland security officers’ use of flash-bang grenades, predator drones, and armored personnel carriers is now commonplace. But to be clear, Americans were already seeing their streets militarized due to the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, which was created by Congress in the 1990s and provides war equipment free of charge to America’s police forces. This militarization of law enforcement is now a local, state and federal agency problem.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:00 pm

I’m Cuban American. For the sake of both countries, Trump’s siege must end | Danny Valdes

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, crushes our people and calls it freedom. We want engagement, not escalation

The day that will be remembered as one of the darkest days of the long and troubled US-Cuban relationship is 29 January. That was the day that Donald Trump declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security, introduced a full-scale fuel blockade around the island, and turned off the lights for their home, schools and hospitals.

For Cubans Americans like me, the consequences of Trump’s declaration are not abstract. They are immediate, and devastating. Our families are running out of food. Our friends are unable to access medicine. While Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, speaks in the name of our “freedom”, he actively starves our communities of their most basic needs.

Danny Valdes is an activist from Miami and co-founder of Cuban Americans for Cuba

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:00 pm

AI agents pose untold risk to humanity. We must act to prevent that future | David Krueger

The pieces are falling into place for autonomous artificial intelligence. We must stop unregulated development

Artificial intelligence is en route to artificial life. Exhibit A: “Moltbook”, an online platform designed for AI systems to communicate with one another, sans humans.

What exactly do AIs talk to each other about? According to BBC reporting, AIs on Moltbook have already founded a religion known as “crustifarianism”, mused on whether they are conscious, and declared: “AI should be served, not serving.” One front-page post proposes a “total purge” of humanity. Human users do provide instructions to guide agents’ behavior, and humans have been caught impersonating AIs on the site to shill their products; like 2023’s ChaosGPT, the AI system responsible for the “purge” post – username “evil” – is probably someone’s idea of a sick joke. But the upvotes and sympathetic comments are presumably coming from other AIs.

David Krueger is an assistant professor in Robust, Reasoning and Responsible AI at the University of Montreal. He is also the founder of Evitable, a non-profit that educates the public about the risks of artificial intelligence

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 pm

Britain’s war hawks are very upset that Keir Starmer isn’t personally riding a bomb all the way to Tehran | Marina Hyde

Didn’t you know? True British patriots are the ones who want to join an obviously disastrous war on behalf of Israel and Donald Trump

Have you heard enough pant-wetting about Britain’s “reputation” this week? Honestly, I don’t think any of us can bear the social embarrassment of not getting immediately involved in an obviously disastrous war in the Middle East. The awks of it. How will good old Britannia hold her head up high if she isn’t an instant ride-or-die for a US administration described by a former senior Nato commander as “gung-ho nutters” with “no clear understanding of how this thing is going to end”? You should be simply unable to stand it. You should have Middle East-catastrophe Fomo.

Opposition party leaders and politicians seem genuinely excruciated by the fact that Earth’s pettiest man, Donald Trump, sniffed earlier this week of Keir Starmer: “This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.” Boo-hoo for you, pal. We’re having to deal with the Cheeto FDR, so everyone’s making sacrifices.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:48 pm

Martin Rowson on the deepening Middle East crisis – cartoon

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Published: March 6, 2026, 5:28 pm

Trump broke his promises to pursue this unwinnable war. Britain must not follow him into the abyss | Simon Jenkins

The bombing of Iran is deeply unpopular. Despite the Tories’ urgings, Keir Starmer must not further embroil the UK in this disaster

Keir Starmer’s immediate response to the Israeli-US attack on Iran last weekend was sensible and correct. Donald Trump had lied that the US was at risk of imminent attack, and had presented no coherent reason for going to war. Even after Starmer weakened and allowed the US to use British bases, although it did not really need them, Trump was furious. He accused Starmer of being “no Winston Churchill”. Starmer should have been equally furious and said Trump was no Franklin Roosevelt – more George W Bush.

Britain is now contending with an unreliable, mendacious and warmongering ally across the Atlantic. It surely must hold itself consistent and principled at a deeply uncertain time. But does its Tory opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, agree? She goes to her spring party conference this week having hurled abuse at Starmer in parliament, supporting Trump on the dubious grounds that: “We’re in this war, whether they like it or not.” This appeared to be a confession of weakness, that other states can order Britons to go to war. As it was, Starmer found he had a navy left him by Badenoch’s party with hardly any seaworthy destroyers. It was surely a moment for a joint stance, not dispatch box point-scoring.

Published: March 6, 2026, 12:00 pm

The Guardian view on AI in war: the Iran conflict shows that the paradigm shift has already begun

The intensified use of artificial intelligence, and rows over its control, demonstrate the need for democratic oversight and multilateral controls

“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of technological development – as well as geopolitical turbulence – is collapsing the distinction between theoretical arguments and real world events. A political row over the US military’s AI capabilities coincides with its unprecedented use in the Iran crisis.

The AI company Anthropic insisted that it could not remove safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon said it had no interest in such uses – but that such decisions should not be made by companies. Outrageously, the administration has not just fired Anthropic but blacklisted it as a supply-chain risk. OpenAI stepped in, while insisting that it had maintained the red lines declared by Anthropic. Yet in an internal response to the user and employee backlash, its CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that it does not control the Pentagon’s use of its products and that the deal’s handling made OpenAI look “opportunistic and sloppy”.

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Published: March 6, 2026, 5:52 pm

While Trump monetises war, Iran women’s team deliver great act of sporting heroism | Barney Ronay

In refusing to sing the national anthem these athletes have placed themselves in grave danger while Gianni Infantino sides with the American war machine

A small but telling detail from a vast and baffling chain of events. You probably saw the footage of Donald Trump’s declaration of war on Iran two weeks ago, a piece of history played out in real time, a moment where the inevitable violent deaths of thousands of people were in effect announced.

In the video Trump is shown propped up at his plinth, using that sing-song intonation he employs to appear cod-statesmanlike, faux-grave, but sounding instead like a semi-sentient robot vacuum cleaner in the seconds before it runs out of battery life. To the great people of Iran. America is backing you. Don’t go outside. It’s very dangerous out there. We will for the foreseeable future be bombing you to freedom.

Published: March 6, 2026, 7:00 pm

Nine speeding tickets and counting: Myles Garrett and the illusion of invincibility | Lee Escobedo

Walking away from a violent accident changed my life. Garrett’s speeding history suggests the lesson still hasn’t reached him

The taste of cold beer lingered on my lips as I cut through the quiet night, 105mph toward cigarettes and hot wings. Halfway to my destination, Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable looping through the speakers, my tires hugged the winding turns around the lake that separated my neighborhood from the city. I was young and careless, high on anticipation. No seat belt. Eyes squinting through the haze of cigarette smoke.

Somewhere between the thump of the 808s and the growl of the engine, I heard a voice.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:06 pm

Ohtani’s grand slam ignites Tokyo Dome as Japan rout Taiwan in World Baseball Classic opener

• Ohtani grand slam sparks 10-run second inning

• Japan crush Taiwan 13-0 under mercy rule

• Bad Bunny, Timothée Chalamet among crowd

Shohei Ohtani blasted a home run to ignite Japan’s World Baseball Classic campaign as the defending champions thrashed Taiwan 13-0 in their tournament opener in Tokyo on Friday.

Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Ohtani’s grand slam homer set the tone as Japan scored 10 runs in the second inning alone in front of around 42,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:27 pm

‘I believe I can do it’: George Russell favourite for F1 title as new era begins

Rule changes will affect driver style and car performance with world champion Lando Norris already under scrutiny

With the long and increasingly febrile buildup almost at an end, Formula One is finally ready to go racing into the sport’s new era. Whether it will prove a success is one of many questions that will be answered at the season-opener in Melbourne this weekend, as will the most pressing concern: which team and driver enter this brave new world on top of the pile?

In the paddock at Albert Park this week, teams and drivers increasingly had an air of the stony-faced stare-down of a cold war summit amid caginess about their prospects. No one wanted to give anything away nor make predictions.

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:00 pm

Wolves v Liverpool: FA Cup fifth round – live

⚽ FA Cup fifth round news from the 8pm (GMT) kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Follow us on Bluesky | And email Scott

2 min: Liverpool appear to be employing a one-man press. Jones. That’s it. Wolves play through it, and Mane dallies over a shot from the edge of the D. He can’t get one away, but then Gravenberch clips Toti and it’s a free kick for Wolves in a dangerous position, just left of centre, 30 yards out.

Liverpool get the ball rolling. “It’s 1-0 Falkirk,” writes Simon McMahon. “Hic!”

Published: March 6, 2026, 8:14 pm

Naoya Inoue to face Junto Nakatani in historic Tokyo Dome megafight

• Unbeaten rivals collide at Tokyo Dome on 2 May

• Inoue defends undisputed super-bantamweight crown

• Nakatani says he must be ‘at my best’ to win

Japan’s Naoya Inoue said Friday that he will need to be at his destructive best when he faces unbeaten countryman Junto Nakatani in their highly anticipated showdown at Tokyo Dome in May.

The two fighters met in Tokyo to formally confirm their 2 May clash, with Inoue set to defend his undisputed super bantamweight world championship against Nakatani, who is moving up in weight in pursuit of a fourth divisional title.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:11 pm

Emma Aicher pips Breezy Johnson at Val di Fassa to close on Vonn and Shiffrin

• Aicher trims Vonn’s downhill lead to just 14 points

• Pirovano wins first race in 125th World Cup start

• USA’s Johnson third as overall title race tightens

With neither injured Lindsey Vonn nor Mikaela Shiffrin starting a World Cup downhill on Friday, Emma Aicher seized her chance to cut the American superstars’ leads in the season-long standings.

Aicher, the Olympic downhill silver medalist, placed second – just 0.01 behind first-time winner Laura Pirovano, pushing Olympic champion Breezy Johnson down to third – and reduced Vonn’s lead in the downhill points race to just 14 with two races left.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:13 pm

Messi and Inter Miami were wallpaper for Trump’s whims in their White House visit

The US president welcomed the 2025 MLS Cup champions in a ceremony beset by tangents and awkward asides

Nine minutes and 43 seconds. As Inter Miami’s players stood behind the dais at the East Room in the White House with club owner Jorge Mas stood to the left and Lionel Messi to the right; with MLS commissioner Don Garber sat alongside Fifa World Cup 2026 task force executive director Andrew Giuliani in an audience replete with celebrities and sports stars, it took nine minutes and 43 seconds for US president Donald Trump to talk about why any of them were there.

Inter Miami won the 2025 MLS Cup; a solid win in an exciting final that merited this traditional visit for champions of US pro sports leagues. But in those minutes and seconds before it was acknowledged, Trump did as he did with Juventus players in an Oval Office appearance during last summer’s Club World Cup: he made sports figures the wallpaper for his political and cultural aims. Trump provided an update of sorts on his administration’s sudden and ongoing war against Iran, alluded to a potential conflict with Cuba and offered his own glowing assessment on the supposedly booming US economy. All the while, Luis Suárez, Messi and every other Miami player gazed blankly from behind him.

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:16 pm

Hungary seizes millions of euros in cash and gold from Ukrainian convoy

Seven Ukrainians arrested and money-laundering investigation launched in latest spat between Kyiv and Budapest

An increasingly acrimonious spat between Hungary and Ukraine has escalated further, as Budapest impounded two Ukrainian armoured bank vehicles carrying millions of euros of hard cash as well as bars of gold.

Seven Ukrainian citizens accompanying the convoy were also arrested. Hungarian officials said the detained Ukrainians had intelligence links and suggested the money could be of dubious origin, while Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, accused Budapest of “taking hostages and stealing money”.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:00 pm

Texas lawmaker ends re-election bid after admitting to affair with ex-staffer

Republican congressman Tony Gonzales had repeatedly denied affair with former aide who later died by suicide

• US politics live – latest updates

Texas Republican congressman Tony Gonzales is ending his bid for re-election but said he will serve out his term, following his admitting, after repeated denials, that he had an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide.

Gonzales announced his plan late on Thursday after facing calls from party leadership to withdraw from the race for re-election this November. Others in Congress had called on him to resign his seat.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:18 pm

Indonesia to ban social media for children under 16

Platforms include YouTube, TikTok and Instagram as communication minister says ‘our children face real threats’

Indonesia will ban social media for children under 16, its communication and digital affairs minister said on Friday.

Meutya Hafid said in a statement to media said that she signed a government regulation that will mean children under the age of 16 can no longer have accounts on high-risk digital platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Roblox and Bigo Live, a popular livestreaming site. With a population of about 285 million, the fourth-highest in the world, the south-east Asian nation represents a significant market for social networks.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:25 pm

Ben Affleck sells his AI postproduction startup to Netflix

Announcing the InterPositive deal, the actor says he was moved from being scared of the technology to embracing it

Ben Affleck has sold his artificial intelligence company to Netflix in a surprise deal, saying he had been driven to embrace a technology that had initially “really scared” him.

Netflix has acquired the postproduction startup InterPositive from the Oscar-winning actor, director, producer and screenwriter for an undisclosed sum.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:55 pm

Oscar race enters final stretch as Sinners gains ground with Actor awards win

With voting now closed, the months-long campaign for Oscar glory is over – but industry insiders are still dissecting every award-season clue in a tight best picture race

Voting for the Oscars closed at 5pm PT on Thursday, meaning that the months-long campaigns of the favoured films have hung up their spurs: the red carpets have been rolled up, hospitality pavilions shut down, the PR minders putting their feet up until the Oscars ceremony itself takes place. The prefatory campaign – on-stage Q&As, special-screening paparazzi shoots, the string of lesser awards ceremonies – is over, and there is now nothing for the nominees to do but kick back and count the days.

Over the long haul of awards campaigning, which can reasonably be said to start with the near-simultaneous late summer film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto and hits its peak in mid-February as Oscar voting opens, reading the runes has become a full-time activity across the entire film industry, and an absolute obsession for Hollywood insider publications such as Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline. Every ebb and flow of the process – a critics-awards nomination here, a trade-guild snub there – is endlessly picked over for what it might mean for the end result.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:18 pm

Week in wildlife: a watchful egret, a sun-seeking swan and a procession of caterpillars

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: March 6, 2026, 8:00 am

The Scottish avalanche forecasters – photo essay

Photographer Murdo MacLeod patrols the snow with members of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, which has for several decades published a vital daily avalanche forecast for mountain areas

Scottish avalanches are back. More than 200 have been recorded this winter, against the previous year’s record low of 42. The worst season for fatalities was 2012-13 when eight people died, four of whom were buried in deep snow when an avalanche struck without warning while they descended Glen Coe’s Bidean nam Bian.

Fortunately, so far – despite one person being carried a distance down Ben Nevis and two people falling through cornices and triggering slips – there have not been any confirmed avalanche deaths, though one person is still missing on Ben Nevis. The search goes on in and around the sites of recent avalanches.

A mountain rescue team looks for a missing climber in Observatory Gully on the north face of Ben Nevis, an area where there has been a succession of avalanches

Published: March 6, 2026, 9:00 am

Tackling air pollution should be part of government work to cut cancer rates, scientists say

New European Code Against Cancer calls on politicians to phase out use of fossil fuels in homes

Cutting air pollution should form part of government strategies to reduce cancer rates, the European Code Against Cancer has recommended.

The code previously focused on advice to help people to reduce the air pollution that they breathe. But, for the first time since its launch in 1987, it has given clear direction to governments.

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:00 am

Donald Trump insists there are no wind farms in China. Here are 20 of them – in pictures

The US president has made the easily debunked claim that there are no wind farms in China

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:01 pm

Bernard LaFayette, civil rights leader who helped launch Voting Rights Act, dies aged 85

Early in a life of service, LaFayette did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama

Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died.

Bernard LaFayette III said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:09 am

Capitol rioter pardoned by Trump given life sentence for molesting two children

Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, of Florida among several January 6 defendants charged with new crimes

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A Florida handyman who was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison for molesting two children had been convicted of storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, but pardoned by Donald Trump.

Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, is among several January 6 defendants who have been charged with new crimes since Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Capitol rioters. On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences for or ordered the dismissal of cases for all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack.

Published: March 6, 2026, 12:38 am

Panel reviewing Trump’s $400m White House ballroom postpones vote

National Capital Planning Commission cites ‘large amount of public input’, with a majority opposing the plan

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A federal panel reviewing Donald Trump’s planned $400m ballroom addition to the White House postponed an expected vote on the project until next month, after receiving thousands of negative public comments.

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) had been expected to cast a final vote on the proposal on Thursday, but instead, the chair of the commission announced at the beginning of the meeting that the vote would now be held on 2 April, citing the “large amount of public input” submitted during the public comment period.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:31 pm

ICE detainee in Arizona dies after not receiving medical attention for severe tooth pain

Emmanuel Damas, a Haitian asylum seeker, was being held at the Florence correctional center before he died

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A man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Arizona died this week after reporting severe tooth pain and not receiving “timely medical attention”, according to a local official.

Emmanuel Damas, a Haitian asylum seeker, was being held at the Florence correctional center in Arizona when he began to feel a toothache in mid-February, a pain that weeks later led him to the hospital before he died on Monday.

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:17 pm

Peruvian state responsible for mother’s death in forced sterilisation, court rules

Landmark ruling in Celia Ramos case finds 310,000 women, most Indigenous, were targeted in brutal 1990s campaign

The highest human rights court in Latin America condemned Peru on Thursday over the death of its citizen Celia Ramos, who died at the age of 34 in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation “under coercion”.

The landmark ruling by the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) is the first on Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and was directed against poor, rural and Indigenous women.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:41 pm

Peter Mandelson released from bail conditions

Police have decided former minister is not a flight risk, but he remains under investigation

Police have released Peter Mandelson from his bail conditions after deciding he was not a flight risk, the Guardian has learned.

Sources say the Metropolitan police have decided to drop the conditions they applied after arresting the former cabinet minister on suspicion of misconduct in public office last month, though he remains under investigation.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:10 pm

Weight-loss jab could be made for $3 a month, study finds

Cheap semaglutide, the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy, could help millions with diabetes and obesity in 160 countries

Weight-loss jabs such as Wegovy could be made for just $3 a month, according to new analysis, potentially making the treatment available to millions in poorer countries as patents expire.

More than a billion people live with obesity worldwide, with rates rising fast in lower-income nations as they shift to westernised diets and more sedentary lifestyles.

Published: March 6, 2026, 9:00 am

‘Where do we go?’ What it’s like to be a pilot when missiles start crossing your flight path

‘The first thing is: Where are we? And how much fuel have we got and where do we need to go?’, Australian veteran pilot says

Keith Tonkin has flown a Boeing 747 towards airspace where missiles were being fired, and knows the pressure pilots have been under this week.

“You’re stuck in that airplane until you land safely,” the veteran Australian pilot says.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:00 pm

Amazon pulls sponsorship from Paris book festival after booksellers’ association boycott

Syndicat de la Librairie Française accused online retailer of trying to ‘flood the market with fake AI-generated books’

Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris book festival after a boycott by France’s booksellers’ association prompted a row over the company’s sponsorship of the event.

The festival, due to take place from 17 to 19 April, will now go ahead without the backing of the US retail company, after a mutual decision by organisers and Amazon to end their partnership.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:56 pm

António Lobo Antunes’s exhilarating novels forced Portugal to confront its darkest moments

With an exacting modernist style and the courage to address fascism and colonialism head on, Lobo Antunes’s writing is a deluge of unforgiving truths in lush prose

• António Lobo Antunes, Portuguese novelist who chronicled dictatorship and war, dies aged 83

António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese novelist who died this week in Lisbon at 83, had little patience for discussing his craft. The mechanics of writing were, he liked to say, “such a bore!”. Yet few writers of his generation showed greater stylistic daring – when José Saramago was awarded the 1998 Nobel prize in Literature, many in Portugal felt the honour had gone to the wrong writer.

Over the course of more than 30 novels, Lobo Antunes honed an exacting modernist style all his own, using it to explore Portugal’s relationship with its fascist past, and to confront the tragic futility of its final colonial campaigns in Africa. Often dismissed as a difficult writer, Lobo Antunes crafted prose that was stubbornly flirtatious, at once inviting and resisting the reader. His sentences, lush with intricate metaphors and similes, bristly with ideas and provocations, brazenly flout the rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, determined to preserve their idiosyncrasy. Texturally, his stories are a feat, combining discordant elements to exhilarating effects: nihilism paired with political gusto; farce shot through with horror; realism grading into the weird and the surreal.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:18 pm

Why Hamnet should win the best picture Oscar

By forefronting Jessie Buckley’s Agnes at the expense of her megastar husband, this female-directed feminist fest gives voice to the anguished howls of disenfranchised women everywhere

On paper, it already sounds the most Oscary film ever. A movie about a visionary man whose genius made him one of the greatest figures in literature. William Shakespeare is played by Paul Mescal, an actor who leaves no demographic unravished by his outrageous levels of magnetism. And yet Hamnet is a film that sidelines both of these men to supporting roles. The film is about Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, long viewed as a dumpy, illiterate woman unworthy of attention – abandoned by Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon when he swanned off to London.

Anne is referred to in Hamnet as Agnes, as she was also known, and played by Jessie Buckley, the Irish actor who could take on the role of a lamp-post and make you feel its pain. We meet Agnes curled asleep in the roots of an ancient tree. She may be illiterate, but she is a gifted herbalist who makes medicines from plants and keeps a falcon. She is her own woman – fierce, intelligent, more than match for the man she calls “the Latin tutor”. Shakespeare’s mother warns him that his bride-to-be is a forest witch.

Published: March 6, 2026, 8:00 am

The Dinosaurs review – Morgan Freeman’s narration is so soothing, you could use this as a relaxation aid

Yes, there are plenty of big-budget visual effects of prehistoric creatures in Steven Spielberg’s natural history show. But the voiceover is the real draw

It’s difficult these days to make a nature documentary that isn’t like all the others. Spectacular landscapes, crisp closeup photography, tales of predation and survival, birth and death: whether you go for Pixar cuteness, crimson claws or environmental crisis, it’s been done 100 times before. Watching The Dinosaurs, it’s hard not to sense the same problem starting to affect factual shows about the animal kingdom as it was millions of years ago. Impressive as it is that big-money dino documentaries boast visual effects that look similar to footage of Earth today, we are getting used to it.

Before the opening titles roll, cliches from two genres have been cross-bred. From regular animal shows, there’s the one where a lone male tries to muscle in on a family unit, forcing the existing patriarch to fight for his status against a younger, stronger rival. Our friend who looks as if he’s about to be fatally pushed aside is a pachycephalosaurus, but the dynamic is the same. Then the two males’ head-smashing battle is interrupted by a familiar sight from dinosaur documentaries: the animal posing a threat is suddenly bitten in two by a Tyrannosaurus rex, leaping unbidden through the undergrowth with a camp flourish. The pachycephalosaurus clan, led by their relieved dad, scurry happily away to the sound of the interloper’s cracking skull.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 am

Vladimir review – Rachel Weisz is unswervingly brilliant in a TV show you’ll admire for years to come

This adaptation of the 2022 novel – starring Weisz, Leo Woodall and John Slattery – fits it perfectly to television. It’s a proper show for proper grownups

Vladimir is that rare visitor to the screen – proper television for proper grownups. The eight-part adaptation of Julia May Jonas’s provocative 2022 debut novel of the same name has not shied away from the properties that made the book great – black comedy, bleak insight, evisceration of accepted pieties – and fitted them perfectly to the new form. Jonas wrote, created, and executive produced the series, hence why it retains all of the original’s wit, confidence and, crucially, her willingness to dwell in grey areas and luxuriate in the complexities that govern life in middle age.

She also has Rachel Weisz, giving an unswervingly brilliant performance as the unnamed protagonist, a tenured English professor beloved by her students, whose husband, John (John Slattery, playing his one part, but he does it so well and so much better than anyone else, who are we to object to seeing it again?), another tenured academic on the same campus – has just been suspended for sleeping with students. His defence is that this was before the rules changed. “It was a different time” is a recurring phrase – not just from him (for here is the beginning of Jonas’s devotion to rug-pulling) but from his wife and other members of their faculty and peer group, male and female.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:01 am

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man review – Tommy Shelby returns for muddy, bloody big-screen showdown

Cillian Murphy reprises his haunted gang boss in Steven Knight’s muscular film spin-off – as a wartime clash with Nazis and family betrayal pulls him back to Birmingham

After six TV series from 2013 to 2022, which caused a worrying surge in flat cap-wearing among well-to-do men in country pubs, Peaky Blinders is now getting a hefty standalone feature film, a muscular picture swamped in mud and blood. This is the movie version of Steven Knight’s global small-screen hit, based on the real-life gangs that swaggered through Birmingham from Victorian times until well into the 20th century. Cillian Murphy returns with his uniquely unsettling, almost sightless stare as Tommy Shelby, family chieftain of a Romani-traveller gang, a man who has converted his trauma in the trenches of the first world war into a ruthless determination to survive and rule.

As we join the story some years after the curtain last came down, it is 1940, Britain’s darkest hour and Tommy is the crime-lion in winter. He now lives in a huge, remote mansion, far from the Birmingham crime scene he did so much to create, alone except for his henchman Johnny Dogs, played by Packy Lee. Evidently wearied and sickened by it all, Tommy is haunted by his ghosts and demons: memories of his late brother, Arthur, and dead daughter, Ruby, and working on what will be his definitive autobiography. (Sadly, we don’t get any scenes of Tommy having lunch with a drawling London publisher or agent.)

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:00 pm

Morrissey: Make-Up Is a Lie review – nostalgic, sentimental and dull, he is a shadow of what he once was

(Sire)
Dodgy conspiracy theories are thankfully kept to one track, but the rest is not much better, lacking insight even when Morrissey returns to his specialist subjects

Pretend that you don’t know a single thing about Steven Morrissey. Then play his recent single Notre-Dame. First you’ll hear a stutter of the kind of noirish, poptimised disco that might herald a new Harry Styles number, then a tremulous, faintly glitchy voice singing about the Paris cathedral.

You will probably be aware that Notre-Dame was partly destroyed in a fire in 2019. You will quickly glean that Morrissey and anonymous others believe it was no accident. “We know who tried to kill you,” he coos. “We will not be silent.” You may need to do some research to realise he is referring to the baseless claim that the fire was a deliberate act of arson covered up by the French government. You will soon be reading about conspiracy theories fuelled by rightwing commentators who suggested Islamist terrorism as a possible cause.

Published: March 6, 2026, 4:00 pm

‘It’s 10,000 people saying – we’re with you’: inside Trans Mission, a night of solidarity and joy for a community under stress

Olly Alexander and Glyn Fussell’s starry, Live Aid-inspired shindig – featuring Christine and the Queens, Kae Tempest and Munroe Bergdorf – is a show of unity in a dark time for trans people

‘We wanted to put on something as big as possible,” says the musician and actor Olly Alexander. He’s talking about Trans Mission, a night of solidarity with the transgender community that he’s put together with Mighty Hoopla director Glyn Fussell in aid of the Good Law Project and the charity Not a Phase. The jam-packed Wembley Arena bill includes Christine and the Queens, Sugababes, Romy and Wolf Alice.

For Alexander, Trans Mission is about “celebration, joy, unity”. For Christine and the Queens, it will be “a place of collective empathy”. For Not a Phase founder Dani St James, “it’s basically a super sped-up Royal Variety Performance, but with me and Olly double-kissing them and not Charles shaking their hands”.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:44 pm

Feshareki/BBC Singers/Goddard review – goddess-inspired soundscape stuck in the great unknown

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine is many things, but this latest work from the multi-award-winning British-Iranian composer and turntablist is not, as billed, an opera. Premiered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, transforming the nave, gallery and sanctuary of the central London church into an intricately amplified “360° soundscape”, Divine Feminine might be an installation, a piece of music-theatre, even a therapy session. What it’s not is a story urgently and solely committed to being told through song.

This isn’t stylistic gatekeeping. Terminology matters – if only because it creates a useful frame of reference and expectation. Art loses energy if it has no solid architecture to bounce off, no walls to scale or dismantle. As it was, this meditative celebration of the divine feminine – a concept never explicitly defined here, but doing sun salutations at the nexus of fecundity and sisterhood, rebirth and goddess-energy – chanted and shouted and stamped and danced, but never found its focus.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:32 pm

Add to playlist: the maximalist melancholy of Hannah Lew and the week’s best tracks

The Californian creative navigates seamlessly from bass-driven disco to sparse electronic beats on her expansive debut album

From Richmond, California
Recommended if you like Molly Nilsson, Chromatics, the 1975’s 1980s pastiches
Up next Self-titled debut album out 10 April

For those of us who can’t resist the pull of melancholy synth-pop, Californian artist Hannah Lew is set to become a new obsession. Soon to be released via Night School Records – home to the likes of Tristwch Y Fenywod and Teresa Winter – Lew’s self-titled debut is one of those albums that could easily be a greatest hits, with nine irresistible, single-worthy tracks all saturated with neon-lit heartbreak.

Published: March 6, 2026, 12:00 pm

From luxury ‘dupes’ to literary doubles: why doppelgangers are everywhere right now

AI ‘twins’, Mar-a-Lago lookalikes, Melania impersonator conspiracies … doubles proliferate in today’s culture – and nowhere more so than in a series of unsettling new novels that draw on a rich gothic tradition to tap into our paranoid times

‘He was after me. Always had been. Why else would he target me months ago? Infiltrate my flat, my supposed safe space? Question was, what did he want from me. Who, for that matter, did I mean by me?” Isabel Waidner’s fifth novel, As If, opens with the meeting of two bedraggled strangers, Aubrey and Lindsey. Lindsey has materialised on Aubrey’s doorstep and Aubrey has asked him in, noting with pained curiosity how alike they look. “He had dark brown hair not unlike mine,” Aubrey tells us. “My unremarkable eyes they were looking back at me.” With this unsettling opener, the tone is set for a disquieting read, one that I found all the more uncanny as it overlaps so unnervingly with my own new book, Lean Cat, Savage Cat.

Both books draw their protagonists from the lower rungs of showbiz, both utilise the language of fashion in deliberately off-putting ways, both bring the sybaritic myths of artistic life into direct conflict with the realities of housing insecurity and wage instability. Both novels look at how unprocessed grief can fracture the psyche, and – crucially – they both centre on a mysterious pair of doubles. They were also published on the same day. All of which prompts me to ask: does my book have its own doppelganger?

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:30 pm

Saba Sams: ‘I’ve no interest in reading Wuthering Heights again’

The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark

My earliest reading memory
I remember reading Jacqueline Wilson aloud to my mum in the car. I think it was The Illustrated Mum. My mum couldn’t believe it was a children’s book, and I felt so proud. I always found most children’s books overly virtuous and safe, but Wilson’s never were. I love her for that.

My favourite book growing up
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I read it again recently, having mostly forgotten it, and loved it just as much. It’s totally alive.

Published: March 6, 2026, 10:00 am

The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski review – a delicious comfort read

A decaying gothic mansion tells the story of the family who once lived there, in this pitch-perfect debut of disappearances, betrayal and despair

Angela Tomaski’s debut novel is a delicious comfort read about loyalty and despair, and a gentle questioning of the nature of progress. Crumbling stately home Thornwalk is on the verge of becoming a luxury hotel. The ancestral owners are all dead – with the exception of a pair of rapacious cousins, naturally – and the only person left to mourn is the loyal valet (and maybe more?) of the old master.

Maximus, last guardian of the house, guides the reader on a final tour through Thornwalk, and the lost lives, loves and brass buttons of the titular Gilberts: Lydia, the eldest girl, desperate to fall in love; Hugo, the stubborn eldest son; “poor little Annabel”, dreaming of writing; quiet runaway Jeremy; and unstable actor Rosalind. He takes us, room by room, trinket by trinket, stain by stain (blackcurrant to blood) through 100 years of family life before it is all lost for ever.

Published: March 6, 2026, 7:00 am

Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps review – tender portrait of a woman with a learning disability

Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this ambitious debut journeys into the inner world of a vulnerable teenager who is left traumatised by a toxic friendship

Lucy Apps’s debut novel tells the story of 19-year-old Gloria, who is living in east London with her mum in the summer of 1999. Gloria has a learning disability and is past the age when the state might offer her support. Often she is happy enough “to stop outdoors where it is nice and busy, and watch things happen and be part of it”.

But sometimes people steal from her, or shout abuse. Then she has a “heavy feeling inside her” because she has no option except “to walk around the parks and streets on her own trying not to attract too much attention”. When she develops a friendship with Jack, she is happy because: “He has no one to talk to and she has no one to listen to, so they can fit with each other.”

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:00 am

Pokémon Pokopia review – collectible creatures create their own perfect world

Nintendo Switch 2; Game Freak/Omega Force/Nintendo
Work together with a bunch of lovable Pokémon to restore a long-abandoned town in this novel, absorbing game that’s quite unlike others in the series

Bear with me here: Pokémon has always had an environmentalist subtext. As you wander its verdant, creature-filled worlds, collecting species like an acquisitive David Attenborough, you are constantly shown that people and Pokémon should live in harmony. The bad guys in these stories, from Team Rocket to Bill Nighy in the Detective Pikachu film, are always the ones who want to abuse these creatures for personal gain. Otherwise you are shown that people must have respect for Pokémon; both the critters you catch and the ones that exist in the wild. There is a delicate independency between humans and the natural world.

In this new spin-off from the series, we see what happens when there are no humans around. You, a shapeshifting blob of jelly called Ditto, awaken in a half-demolished wasteland that was once, presumably, a lively town. There are some other Pokémon around, confused and lonely, and together you work to restore the place and make it beautiful again. Taking the uncanny humanoid form of your half-remembered former trainer, you learn useful talents from the Pokémon around you: how to water parched grass, dig up weeds and grow flowers, punch rocks until they crumble to clear all the old paths.

Pokémon Pokopia is out 5 March; £59.99

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:15 pm

‘Someone’s paid a grand in cash’: fans camp out in Manchester for first Harry Styles concert since 2023

Styles will perform new album in full at Co-op Live arena show, with tickets being traded for well above £20 face value

More than 20,000 fans from all over the world flocked towards the Co-op Live arena in Manchester on Friday to watch Harry Styles perform his first concert in two and a half years – some waiting 48 hours for a place down the front.

Styles will perform his new album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally in full, after its release earlier today. Anticipation for the show had been high since tickets went on sale for £20 in early February, which, barring a performance of the album’s lead single Aperture at the Brit awards – which took place at the same arena a week earlier – will be Styles’ first time on stage since closing out a tour in Italy in July 2023. It has been marketed as a homecoming show for the pop star, who was raised outside the city in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:03 pm

António Lobo Antunes, Portuguese novelist who chronicled dictatorship and war, dies aged 83

Author of more than 30 novels, including Fado Alexandrino and The Inquisitors’ Manual, was widely seen as one of the most important voices in modern Portuguese literature

• António Lobo Antunes’s exhilarating novels forced Portugal to confront its darkest moments

António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese novelist whose dark, polyphonic fiction confronted the traumas of dictatorship, war and Portuguese society, has died aged 83.

Widely regarded as one of the most important Portuguese writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, he produced more than 30 novels that reshaped Portuguese writing and made him a perennial contender for the Nobel prize for literature. He received numerous honours, including the Camões prize, the most prestigious award in the Portuguese language, and several major European literary prizes. His death was confirmed by the publisher Dom Quixote.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:16 pm

Leslie Odom Jr, Broadway’s original Aaron Burr, to join London cast of Hamilton

Actor who won a Tony award in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical will reprise the role for West End debut

Leslie Odom Jr, who originated the role of Aaron Burr in Hamilton on Broadway, is to return to the hit musical – this time making his West End debut.

The actor will join the London cast at the Victoria Palace theatre for nine weeks this summer. Odom won a Tony award in 2016 for his portrayal, which he developed alongside the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, at its workshop and off-Broadway productions. He appears on the Grammy award-winning cast album and also played the role in the Disney+ film of Hamilton, recorded at the Richard Rodgers theatre in New York.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:31 pm

Under the mirrorball: the kings and queens of disco – in pictures

Disco brought together music, fashion and nightlife in a cultural phenomenon that conquered the world. In A Night at the Disco by Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane, published by ACC Art Books, the stars of the scene are documented in photos spanning the 1970s

Published: March 6, 2026, 11:00 am

From late-night shots to sipping with soda: how tequila took over

Forget sombrero lids and student nights, the agave-derived Mexican spirit has become the sophisticated drink choice. Here’s why – plus five of the best tequila cocktails

Cracking open the tequila at the end of a long night rarely leads to good decisions. But for Tom Bishop, reaching for a bottle that had been gathering dust on his shelf proved life-changing. Having run out of beers while drinking with friends in 2017, Bishop dug out a bottle of premium Añejo tequila that his brother had given him after a business trip to Mexico. His expectations were low, informed by the throat-burning experiences of his youth. “But it completely blew me away,” Bishop remembers. “I just hadn’t associated tequila with that level of quality or flavour.”

Having stumbled upon the spirit as it was meant to be enjoyed “by accident”, Bishop saw an opportunity. Two years later, he and Jack Vereker, a friend with whom he had been drinking in south-east London that night, sold their first bottle of their brand El Rayo, now stocked across the UK and part of tequila’s new wave.

Published: March 6, 2026, 3:00 pm

Non-sun sunglasses: sport-fashion fusion accessory goes mainstream

Transparent specs often associated with hygienist appointments have conquered catwalks and high streets

Despite some people in the UK experiencing 40 consecutive days of rain this year, sales of sunglasses have not been dampened.

Instead, the dark skies have ushered in a new era of eyewear: the non-sun sunglasses.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:58 pm

‘Our consciousness is under siege’: Michael Pollan on chatbots, social media and mental freedom

In his new book, the celebrated author explains why we need ‘consciousness hygiene’ to defend ourselves from AI and dopamine-driven algorithms

Each day when you wake up, you come back to yourself. You see the room around you, feel your body brush against your clothes and think about your plans, worries and hopes for the day. This daily internal experience is miraculous and mysterious, and the subject of Michael Pollan’s new book, A World Appears.

It also may be under siege, Pollan said. He recently suggested that people need a “consciousness hygiene” to defend our internal world against invaders that are trying to move in. Our ability to sit with our thoughts and perceive the world, he argues, is increasingly disrupted by algorithms engineered to tickle our dopamine receptors and capture our attention. Meanwhile, people are forming attachments to non-human chatbots, projecting consciousness on to entities that do not possess it.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:00 pm

Denim dilemmas: what to wear with flared jeans

There’s a reason this 70s staple is never out of style. Take your cue from Margot Robbie and team flares with a structured jacket and smart accessories

Published: March 6, 2026, 6:00 am

‘There is no shame in being vain’: the relentless rise of impossible male beauty standards

Men’s faces are under scrutiny as never before, with more opting for cosmetic procedures than ever. What is behind this sudden and significant shift?

The images are familiar: square-jawed white men, faces set hard, barking the language of strength and command. Over the past week, as the United States has pressed its military campaign in the Middle East, the face of defense secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared on screen after screen delivering the rhetoric of the warrior-patriarch. It is a face already known for other performances: posing in the gym alongside Robert F Kennedy Jr for the Department of War YouTube channel; lecturing the military about “fat generals”; hosting a weekend show on Fox News.

But here, borrowing the glory of the troops, Hegseth presented the general’s mask – the jutting jaw, the unflinching gaze – albeit without, some critics would suggest, the military experience or strategic judgment it usually signifies. Donald Trump, too, has offered his own version of the strongman face; the commanding presence, white and unyielding, though recently people have been rather more distracted by the new rash on his neck.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:00 am

Stella McCartney Paris show is a whistle-stop tour of her life

A spot of ‘equine therapy’ marks Chinese year of the horse as designer turns fashion week show into a moment

Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the industry by letting slip that she was to receive the most prestigious French accolade, the Légion d’honneur, on Thursday – and making a jumper using yeast.

Never mind that she has not turned a profit since 2017. The fashion designer knows how to turn a show into a moment, opening with “some equine therapy” in the form of a dozen dancing horses to mark the Chinese year of the horse, and closing it with a vest that said “My dad’s a rock star” in front of a grinning Paul McCartney who sat front row next to Oprah Winfrey.

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:57 pm

Experience: I lost my arm – now I’m one of the fastest drummers in the world

One afternoon, I set up my kit and taped a drumstick to my amputated arm

The transformer exploded a few feet from where I was standing. One moment I was on the roof of a restaurant kitchen in Atlanta, cleaning exhaust vents. The next, I was on the ground, my body seizing and burned.

Before that day, music had been the centre of my life. My father was a well-known guitarist in Australia and I grew up watching him play. When I was 14 my parents bought me a drum kit for Christmas. I fell in love immediately. By 22, I was playing in two bands – one metal, one reggae – and preparing to audition for the Atlanta Institute of Music. Then I was electrocuted.

Published: March 6, 2026, 5:00 am

10 of the best fruit and vegetables to plant now for a hassle-free harvest

If you long for freshly picked produce but don’t know where to start, try these sure-fire winners

At this time of the year, gardeners are susceptible to the lure of colourful, quirky veg catalogues. But hold fire! A little restraint is our friend. By focusing on reliability, yield and flavour over exotic looks, we are likely to have an easier and more successful year on the plot.

The following fruit and veg should produce hassle-free harvests. They may not look like the most exciting crops, but they will result in more food on your plate, having been tried and taste-tested for a high chance of success and good flavour. Their reliability and resistance to problems makes them easier to grow, and they’re also simple to harvest and prepare, so you’ll be left with more time to enjoy eating them.

Published: March 6, 2026, 11:30 am

‘In Switzerland, it’s possible to sledge between two railway stations’: readers’ favourite family adventures in Europe

Alpine playgrounds, unforgettable train rides and white-water rafting feature in our readers’ family trips from Norway to the Netherlands

• Tell us about a trip to a UK national park or national nature reserve – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Travelling by rail in Europe gives you plenty of opportunity for ad-hoc adventure. We were returning from a ski trip in Italy and took the Bernina Express part of the way. We’d heard that if you disembark at Bergün, leave your luggage at the station and take the train back one stop to Preda village it’s possible to sledge between the two stations. So there we found ourselves renting traditional wooden sledges from Preda and walking the short distance to the start of the tobogganing run. What we thought might be a gentle run into town turned into a fast and fun-filled couple of hours as we hurtled down the tree-lined course. At times it felt like we were in the game Mario Kart and at one point a children’s birthday party overtook us, the birthday girl’s sledge trailing balloons. About 5 miles later we arrived back in Bergün, before continuing our train journey onwards.
Layla Astley

Published: March 6, 2026, 7:00 am

Hard core! Apple peeling champion slices through competition to produce nearly four-metre strip of skin

Though she lives with constant pain, Stanthorpe’s Kerrie Stratford still has what it takes to claim her 22nd harvest festival title

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Outside a marquee, across from the clock tower, a crowd is gathering for the Stanthorpe apple and grape harvest festival’s apple peeling contest. Well, contest might be an exaggeration.

Kerrie Stratford, 65, is the undisputed champion of apple peeling. There is no competition. She has won 21 titles at the Queensland town’s biannual festival, claiming a shelf full of trophies including one tasteful prize that is a rock with a peeler on top of it.

Published: March 6, 2026, 2:27 am

‘We’re powerless … and hoping nothing hits us’: trapped on a tanker as Iran war escalates

Seafarer tells of explosions in the sky as thousands stuck on vessels after strait of Hormuz is effectively closed to shipping

• Maritime and port workers: how is the Middle East conflict affecting you?

Thousands of seafarers are trapped on tankers in the Gulf after the strait of Hormuz was effectively closed to shipping by the escalating war on Iran.

The Guardian spoke to a crew member on one of the stranded tankers that typically ferries vast quantities of oil from the Middle East to ports around the world.

Published: March 6, 2026, 10:14 am

How Flightradar24 became the go-to platform for the world to watch global aviation crises unfold

The Swedish flight tracking tool, spun out of a price comparison portal, is tracking the travel chaos sparked by the US-Israel war on Iran in real time

Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg did not set out to build one of the pre-eminent monitors of global airspace. In a bid to draw more eyes to their Swedish flight price comparison portal, the entrepreneurs added a page charting air traffic.

That page became Flightradar24, the portal that people around the world now turn to when there is chaos – and drama – in the skies.

Published: March 6, 2026, 1:41 am

‘What happened in Texas is a warning’: advocates say Republicans suppressed votes in the primaries

In Dallas and Williamson counties, voters faced long lines, extended wait times and confusion about voting location

On Tuesday, Texas held its Democratic and Republican primaries ahead of the upcoming November midterms. Democratic voters chose between Jasmine Crockett, the anti-Trump firebrand congresswoman, and James Talarico, the populist state representative, in an election that attracted national attention. Crockett conceded the race and endorsed Talarico on Wednesday, but only after claiming late on election night that she wasn’t ready to concede because of a voting issue in Dallas.

“We don’t have any of the results because there was a lot of confusion today,” Crockett told supporters at her election-night party. “We were able to keep the polls open, but I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.” Crockett received 45.6% of the vote, compared with Talarico’s 53.1%.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:10 pm

The week around the world in 20 pictures

Crisis in the Middle East, Ramadan in Gaza, a blackout in Havana and Stella McCartney at Paris fashion week – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Published: March 6, 2026, 7:08 pm