What on Earth is Melania Trump thinking? | Arwa Mahdawi

The first lady has put the Barbra Streisand effect in overdrive with a PR nightmare of her own making

You’ve probably heard of the Barbra Streisand effect: the phenomenon where attempts to censor information end up drawing more attention to it.

Now we might soon be referencing the Melania Trump effect: the phenomenon where holding a surprise press conference to state that you did not have a relationship with a dead paedophile, and would like people to please stop speculating about the matter, immediately causes people to start speculating about the matter.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘It holds a lot of memories’: the push to save a beloved New York dive bar

Jimmy’s Corner, opened by former boxer Jimmy Glenn in 1971, is a vestige of an older New York – and its loyal patrons are fighting to protect it

On Friday morning, David Gladman was looking at tables in the back of Jimmy’s Corner, the Times Square dive bar that has served up beers for more than 50 years.

The table tops are covered with photographs, some dating back to the 70s, with yellowing laminate over the top. Gladman used the torch on his phone to scour the pictures.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Casual without being sloppy’: why flannel shirts are making a comeback

From catwalk versions to online vintage finds, the workwear staple is being recast as a marker of laidback cool

In many wardrobes, the thick, checked shirt is usually found among the gardening clothes, or it might be worn as an extra layer on a bitterly cold day. But, in 2026, for the first time since the 90s, it’s becoming a bona fide fashion item.

Flannel shirts have recently been worn by fashion editors and stylists on the front row, by the models Adwoa Aboah and Emily Ratajkowski and the Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola. Brands including Marni, Chloé and Chanel had versions in their recent shows. And more significantly, this week comes the much anticipated new series of the Gen Z drama Euphoria, stills from which show Jacob Elordi’s character, Nate Jacobs, wearing a Bottega Veneta “flannel” shirt made of leather. Originally from the spring/summer 2023 collection, and worn by Kate Moss on the catwalk, it costs £4,600 in the shops.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

Sabrina Carpenter at Coachella review – madcap maximalism from pop savant

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
The pop star turned the desert into an ambitious theatrical revue with elaborate sets and celebrity cameos

Way back in the good old days of spring 2024, the pop singer Sabrina Carpenter ended her first Coachella set with a bold promise: “He’s drinking my bath water like it’s red wine / Coachella, see you back here when I headline,” she trilled as part of the ever-rotating, always naughty outro lines for her song Nonsense. Carpenter is a famously cheeky performer – her music, chock-full of double entendres and witty punchlines, is as much musical comedy as pop – but it seems, for once, that she was dead serious. Just two years later, she returned to the desert as the calling card for this year’s opening night, tongue still firmly in cheek. “I can’t believe I’m headlining Coachella!” she exclaimed to cheers that, true to form, she immediately melted to laughs – “Actually, I can … but it’s nicer to say that, right?”

Carpenter has reason to boast; the days when she chased virality with bawdy Nonsense outros now seem long gone. Her Coachella debut also marked the release of a daffy ditty called Espresso that soon turned everyone into “that’s that me” caffeine addicts, and catapulted the diminutive pop star (“oh I make quite an impression / five feet, to be exact,” she purrs in the delectable hit Taste) into pop’s big leagues. Near-constant touring and two albums – the no-skips Short n’ Sweet and the comparatively B-side Man’s Best Friend – cemented her status as one of pop’s consummate entertainers, churning out finely crafted, relentlessly horny hits at a pace not seen since perhaps Rihanna in the early 2010s. Nonsense, that 2022 song that first got my attention, didn’t even make the 20-plus song set list at Carpenter’s wildly ambitious headlining set, an audacious flex of ability and budget that declared her intentions for A-list permanence.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:56 pm

Sensational Scheffler reminds everyone why he is still No 1 with Masters masterclass | Andy Bull

The American shoots sublime 65 in a show of strength to give himself a chance of a third title at Augusta

On Friday evening Scottie Scheffler was in the new player facility going back and forth over his putting game. Despite himself, he got sucked into watching what Rory McIlroy was doing on the big TVs the club have up in the training room. “It was pretty special stuff,” Scheffler admitted. And by the time McIlroy had finished Scheffler, the world’s No 1 golfer, had a different perspective on the tournament. He had scored 70 and 74 himself, and was even-par for the tournament, 12 shots off McIlroy’s lead, with 36 holes to play and nothing left to lose.

All of a sudden a tournament which has a way of making the game feel very complicated indeed had become very simple for him. Scheffler needed birdies. And he got them. He made five altogether, along with an eagle. He scored 65, seven under. It was the best round he’s ever played in the Masters. “I think that’s what great players do,” Scheffler said. “They rise to the occasion when you are at the biggest tournaments, and you’d be hard pressed to find another tournament that’s bigger than this one, especially for me.”

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:05 pm

‘We feel this incredible tension at all times’: what happened to small-town USA when extremists moved in

In his new book, Michael Edison Hayden captures the bitter saga between the founders of far-right publication VDare and the residents of a West Virginia town

In 2020, residents of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, learned that a mysterious couple from New York had bought a historic local building known as “the castle”, which the newcomers planned to use as a headquarters and conference space for their non-profit organization. A bitter saga followed – one that the journalist Michael Edison Hayden writes about in his new book, Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town.

The couple in question were Peter and Lydia Brimelow, whose online publication VDare was named for Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas. Critics have accused the anti-immigration publication of being the genteel face of a constellation of white nationalist groups and figures that Hayden refers to simply as “the movement”. (VDare and the Brimelows dispute that characterization; Brimelow has described himself as a “civic nationalist”.) Stephen Miller, the adviser to Donald Trump, is reportedly a fan of VDare’s writing.

Published: April 11, 2026, 3:00 pm

Middle East crisis live: JD Vance says US and Iran fail to reach a deal at peace talks in Islamabad

Iran said historic talks had paused after stretching into early morning, while Netanyahu says Israel is still committed to fighting Iran

• US and Iran hold talks in Islamabad as Pakistan seeks to broker peace deal

• US officials claim Iran unable to find mines it laid in strait of Hormuz

The UK will host a strait of Hormuz meeting next week, bringing together multiple countries aiming to restore free movement of ships through the strait, which has been blockaded by Iran since the beginning of the war and inflicted heavy damage on the global economy.

A British official told AP that the meeting will oppose the idea of tolls being charged for passage through the waterway, as proposed by Iran as part of ceasefire negotiations.

Published: April 12, 2026, 2:05 am

Pope says ‘enough of war’ and decries ‘delusion of omnipotence’ at peace vigil

Leo’s comments did not directly mention war in Iran but read as his strongest condemnation of the conflict yet

Pope Leo XIV stepped into the international political arena at evening prayers in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Saturday, saying prayer for peace is “a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”

The first US-born pope said: “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”

Published: April 11, 2026, 9:41 pm

US officials claim Iran unable to find mines it laid in strait of Hormuz, report says

Iran dropped explosives in the waterway erratically and may not have marked where it put all of them, US suggests

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran is unable to find the mines it laid in the strait of Hormuz and does not have the capacity to remove the explosives, preventing Iran from allowing more traffic through the waterway, the New York Times reported, citing US officials.

Meanwhile, US military officials on Saturday announced that their forces “began setting conditions for clearing mines in the strait”, with two navy guided-missile destroyers conducting operations.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:54 am

Why the Nato alliance is not as likely to dissolve as Trump makes it seem

Trump has upped the stridency and threatening nature of his complaints, but the US and Europe need each other

Collateral damage is a universally acknowledged hazard of war – more commonly known for its impact on truth and non-combatant civilians.

Its consequences are much less frequently visited on military alliances.

Published: April 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

Is Iran Trump’s Suez crisis, or just a passing thunderstorm?

Britain’s standing in the world was never the same after its assault on Egypt in 1956. Now the US risks repeating history in the Middle East

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.

But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:00 am

Jubilant return of Artemis II shadowed by ‘extinction-level’ cuts to Nasa: ‘It’s discordant’

Even as a triumphant moon flyby primes agency for a 2028 landing, Trump’s proposed budget cuts cast pall on US space program

The astronauts on board Artemis II were “almost poets”, Nasa’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, declared on Friday, referring to their inspiring words as they swung above the lunar surface.

They were, he said, “ambassadors for humanity” as they became the first humans to travel to the moon and return safely to Earth since 1972, on a mission that broke a distance record.

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:33 pm

Video of an ICE shooting shattered the agency’s story. Will it usher in accountability?

The case against two Venezuelan men in Minneapolis is the latest to fall apart. Now agents could face repercussions, but questions linger over whether it signals a real shift

On 14 January, in the thick of Donald Trump’s massive anti-immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, two deportation officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attempted to stop a car in traffic.

They had identified the owner as an unauthorized immigrant, according to an FBI affidavit. The driver, later identified as Alfredo Aljorna, a Venezuelan national, sped off, hitting speeds of 80mph and eventually crashing into a parked car. He then took off running toward an apartment building where his roommate, Julio Sosa Celis, stood at the entrance holding a broad-bladed snow shovel.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Suspect in New York subway machete attack shot and killed by police

Three people wounded in attack at Grand Central subway station by man who stated he was ‘Lucifer’, police said

Police in New York City shot and killed a man who stabbed three people on a subway platform in New York City’s Grand Central station, the city’s police commissioner said.

Jessica Tisch, who leads the New York police department, told reporters at a news conference at the station that officers, flagged down by a witness to the stabbings at about 9.40am, had encountered a suspect, armed with a machete, who defied at least 20 verbal orders to drop the weapon and repeatedly stated “that he was Lucifer”.

Published: April 11, 2026, 3:17 pm

Louisiana Republicans move to eliminate court office won by exonerated man

After Calvin Duncan served 28 years for a murder he didn’t commit, he won an election to serve as criminal court clerk. But now the office might be shut down

A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana’s governor, Jeff Landry, and the Republican-controlled state legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in.

Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison.

Published: April 11, 2026, 3:42 pm

Manhattan DA’s office to investigate Eric Swalwell over sexual assault allegations

Democratic representative has denied accusations from former staffer as he faces calls to drop bid for governor

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Saturday that it is investigating a sexual assault allegation against Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from California running to be the state’s governor, who on Friday denied claims by an unnamed woman that he sexually assaulted her twice.

Confirmation of an investigation came after the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that a woman who previously worked in Swalwell’s district office accused him of two nonconsensual sexual encounters.

Published: April 12, 2026, 12:06 am

Man arrested for allegedly damaging US military aircraft in Shannon airport

Suspect in 40s arrested after man apparently climbed on to USAF C130 Hercules transport plane on remote taxiway in County Clare

A man has been arrested after entering an unauthorised area of an airport in the Republic of Ireland and allegedly causing damage to a US military aircraft, police have said.

The suspect, aged in his 40s, was arrested for alleged criminal damage and remains in custody over the incident on Saturday at Shannon airport in County Clare.

Published: April 11, 2026, 10:51 pm

French man charged with keeping nine-year-old son locked in van since 2024

Police rescued boy after neighbour reported sounds of a child coming from vehicle in Hagenbach in eastern France

A malnourished nine-year-old boy was rescued after being locked in his father’s van since 2024 in eastern France, a prosecutor said.

A neighbour alerted police to “sounds of a child” coming from a vehicle in the village of Hagenbach, near the borders of Switzerland and Germany.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:11 pm

Washington officials say 21 dead canines that washed ashore were foxes, solving local mystery

Animals were used legally as fishing bait, sheriff’s office confirms after incident shook locals in Guemes Island

A Washington state sheriff’s office says it has solved the mystery of nearly two dozen dead canines who washed ashore recently.

The animals were foxes being used legally as bait for fishing operations, the Skagit county sheriff’s office said on Friday.

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:33 pm

US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

Judge said ban, which originated in Reconstruction era to thwart liquor tax evasion, actually reduced tax revenue

A US appeals court on Friday declared a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling to be unconstitutional, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax.

The fifth US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the non-profit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members.

Published: April 11, 2026, 7:36 pm

US state department revokes green cards of three Iranian nationals it links to regime

Three arrested by federal agents had family ties to Iranian military general, regime spokesperson or security chief

United States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.

State department officials revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the spokesperson for Iran’s regime during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The state department also revoked the green card – or legal permanent resident – statuses of Hashemi’s wife and son.

Published: April 11, 2026, 4:37 pm

Trump reportedly says he’ll issue mass pardons at end of his presidential term

President already has issued sweeping pardons throughout second term, including for 1,500 US Capital riot defendants

Donald Trump has reportedly said he will issue pardons en masse to his closest advisers at the end of his second presidency, promising them in casual conversations over the last year.

“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office],” the president reportedly said in a recent meeting, garnering laughs from the room, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing an anonymous source.

Published: April 11, 2026, 2:17 pm

Democrats urged to reclaim anti-war identity amid Trump’s assault on Iran

War spurs debate on US power and role in the world – and progressives eye chance to reorient American foreign policy

Well over a year into Donald Trump’s disruptive second term, few believed the US president could still genuinely shock. But at 8.06am on Tuesday he did just that, with an apocalyptic threat on Truth Social, to destroy a “whole civilization” in Iran – a country of more than 90 million people. Democrats abandoned their forced restraint and immediately began to call for Trump’s removal from office.

Yet beneath Democrats’ near-universal opposition to what they call the president’s “war of choice” are simmering tensions about the way America should engage with the world, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Since losing to Trump and his America First agenda in 2024, which promised not to start new wars, leading progressives have urged Democrats to reclaim the “anti-war” mantle.

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

Zebras, wealth and power: Hungary’s election tests Orbán’s grip on power

Corruption scandals and a surging opposition have turned the vote into the biggest test yet for the long-serving populist leader

The drone footage showed a sprawling residence in northern Hungary, complete with manicured gardens, a swimming pool and an underground garage. But it was what came next that captured much of the country’s imagination: zebras darting across the countryside.

Published: April 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Ukraine war briefing: Easter truce falters as Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners

Warring sides exchange 175 prisoners as Ukraine accuses Russia of 469 ceasefire violations, and Moscow blames Kyiv for gas station attack. What we know on day 1,509

Russia and Ukraine on Saturday accused each other of violating a brief ceasefire in their four-year-old war, hours into the truce put in place to mark Orthodox Easter. Governors of two Russian border regions said Ukrainian drones had attacked targets in the Kursk and Belgorod regions, injuring five people. The general staff of Ukraine’s military said Russian forces had violated the terms of the 32-hour truce through assault actions, shelling and drone strikes.

By late Saturday, Ukraine’s military said in a Facebook post that “469 ceasefire violations were recorded, namely: 22 enemy assault actions, 153 shelling attacks, 19 strikes by attack drones ... and 275 strikes by FPV drones.” In total, the Ukrainian military said Saturday had seen Russia carry out 57 airstrikes and drop 182 guided aerial bombs, along with deploying 3,928 drones and conducting 2,454 shelling attacks “on populated areas and positions of our troops”.

In Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, governor Alexander Khinshtein also accused Kyiv of breaking the 32-hour truce by attacking a gas station in the town of Lgov with a drone, injuring three people, including a baby.

Despite tensions over the truce, the warring sides exchanged 175 prisoners of war each on Saturday, according to officials from both sides. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had brought home 175 servicemen and seven civilians from Russian captivity. Andrii Yusov, a Ukrainian defence intelligence representative, said 163 of those freed had been held since 2022. “This is a real success, a very significant achievement,” Yusov said. “It is very hard to imagine what these people have been through during that time and you can see that the men are returning in varying conditions.” Russia’s defence ministry said the United Arab Emirates had mediated the exchange. Russia took back 175 servicemen and also seven civilians originally from the Kursk region, the ministry said.

Russian news agencies said Vladimir Putin attended services after midnight at Moscow’s vast Christ the Saviour Cathedral. In his Easter greeting, quoted by agencies, the Russian leader described Easter as the “triumph of love, good and justice”. He also expressed thanks to Orthodox Patriarch Kirill for his support of those fighting in Russia’s military campaign, described as a “special military operation“. “I would like especially to note the effective assistance you provide to our heroes – the participants and veterans of the special military operation,” he wrote.

Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, made no reference to alleged ceasefire violations. The Ukrainian president repeated that Ukraine would stick to the truce and wished it could be in effect longer. “It would be right for the ceasefire to continue beyond this,” Zelenskyy said. “We have made this proposal to Russia and if Russia once again chooses war instead of peace, it will show the world, and particularly the United States, who truly wants what.”

Hungarians vote on Sunday in an election that could end prime minister Viktor Orbán’s 16-year hold on power. For Ukraine, Hungary’s eastern neighbour, an Orbán defeat could mean the unblocking of a €90bn (US$105bn) European Union loan vital for Kyiv’s war effort. It would also deprive Russia of its closest ally in the EU.

Published: April 12, 2026, 1:02 am

Federal workers struggle to find roles a year after Trump cuts: ‘I’ve applied to over 250 jobs’

Current and former government employees say they’re facing a tough job market over a year on from sweeping cuts

Maggie was faced with a tough choice in February 2025: quit her job at the US office of personnel management or be unceremoniously fired.

Though she was a few months pregnant at the time, Maggie was offered one of the buyouts that were offered to tens of thousands of federal government employees by the office of personnel management.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

‘It has your name on it, but I don’t think it’s you’: how AI is impersonating musicians on Spotify

Fraudulent music streams have long been a scourge for the industry, but experts say generative AI has supercharged it

Jason Moran, a renowned jazz composer and pianist, got a strange call from a friend last month. The friend, bassist Burniss Earl Travis, was curious about Moran’s new record that he saw on the music streaming service Spotify.

“It has your name on it,” Travis told him. “But I don’t think it’s you.”

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

The Last Ship review – Sting’s sincere but cloying musical stars the man himself – and Shaggy

Glasshouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
Sting plays a Wallsend foreman navigating the threat of his shipyard’s closure, bringing a renewed version of his musical to Brisbane’s newest theatre

When Sting says he grew up in the shadow of a shipyard, he means it literally. At the end of his street in Wallsend, northern England, the Swan Hunter factory dominated the skyline. Each day thousands of workers filed past his house to labour on ships so big they obscured the sun. A royal visit sparked a childhood epiphany: watching the Queen Mother drive past in a black Rolls-Royce, Sting decided he didn’t want a life in the belly of a metal beast. He wanted something bigger, and he would find it: first as the magnetic frontman of the Police, then as a solo artist.

Now 74, with 17 Grammys to his name, the superstar is back in the shipyard – this time in Australia, in a renewed version of his musical The Last Ship. Sting takes on a leading role as foreman Jackie White, who is navigating the threat of the shipyard’s closure as he grapples with his failing health. Sting is joined on stage by none other than Reggae icon Shaggy, who brings warmth to the stage as the Wallsend Ferryman, who watches over Jackie.

Published: April 12, 2026, 1:08 am

Black women in Georgia turn to midwives for safer births – so why does the state criminalize many of them?

A new lawsuit seeks to decriminalize the work of midwives banned from providing care amid a worsening maternal health crisis

When Tamara Taitt moved to Georgia in 2023 to run the Atlanta Birth Center, she found herself in what she calls “an extraordinary position”. Under Georgia law, the center’s own executive director cannot provide routine clinical care for the center’s own clients. She could even face criminal charges for doing so.

Taitt is a nationally accredited midwife. She directs one of the only freestanding birth centers in the state – a destination for women seeking to give birth outside a hospital, cared for by midwives rather than obstetricians. Families choose birth centers to access more holistic, less medicalized prenatal care and birth, and to avoid invasive medical interventions in a state where C-sections occur at three times the rate recommended by the World Health Organization.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Four ways to brew better drip coffee

A recipe for a cafe-quality iced latte, the best chargers and more

• This story was originally published in the Filter US newsletter on buying fewer, better things. Sign up here to get early access to it

Each week the Filter newsletter cuts through the noise to bring you smart, practical recommendations on how to live better – from what is worth buying to the tools, habits and ideas that actually last.

I have very specific coffee preferences. The mere thought of a weak brew or bland beans is enough to send a shiver up my spine. I’ve all but perfected my at-home coffee, which I make in my trusty moka pot. Recently, I shared how I use it to make a delicious cup of iced coffee. Over the course of a week, I saved more than $40 compared with what I would have spent at Starbucks.

Published: April 11, 2026, 3:01 pm

‘He cares about Hungarians’: the small Ukrainian town divided over Orbán

The rightwing populist’s support for the majority-Hungarian population of Berehove means they may offer their votes in return

• Hungary elections: what is at stake and who is likely to win?

Across much of Ukraine, Sunday’s parliamentary election in Hungary is being followed with a singular hope: that Viktor Orbán, the Kremlin-friendly leader who has made opposition to Kyiv a centrepiece of his campaign, will be voted out after 16 years in office.

But in Berehove, the mood is more complicated.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

Richard Schiff: ‘If Jesus was alive today he’d point to Martin Sheen and say, “That’s what I was talking about”’

The actor on the killer T rexes he’d like to meet, a 90% life lesson, and an awkward moment with Amy Adams

Born in Maryland, Richard Schiff, 70, came to fame when he was cast in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. From 1999 to 2006 he played Toby Ziegler in the TV drama The West Wing, receiving an Emmy for his performance. Other work includes the series The Good Doctor and Ballers, and the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He stars in Copenhagen at Hampstead Theatre until 2 May. He is married with two children and lives in Montana and New York City.

What is your greatest fear?
People finding out my greatest fear.

Published: April 11, 2026, 9:00 am

‘It’s a test of courage wearing a hot-pink cheongsam’: How I learned to wear my grandma’s heirlooms

My grandma is 89, her clothes are from 1960s Hong Kong, and now they’re mine. How can I give them another life and wear them with pride?

An explosion of fabric sits at my feet. Heavy coats sit in stacked piles that threaten to topple over, and silk cheongsams lie unzipped on the bed. Despite the chaos, organising my 89-year-old grandma’s clothes is a reminder that her life has been as vivid as the clothes that surround me.

She’s moving into a retirement village and I am luckily on the receiving end of her closet clean-out. My grandmother was a sartorially savvy woman and the craftsmanship of the clothes she has collected and worn over the years is unlike anything I’ve seen.

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:00 pm

Trump’s Iran fiasco has led him into the gravest territory | Sidney Blumenthal

As the president spirals over his disastrous war, his threats have escalated beyond the red line of international law

Donald Trump has hung nine glowering portraits of himself throughout the White House, each one projecting a variation on the theme of intimidation. But gazing into his narcissistic pool of grimacing images has not calmed him when in his mind’s eye he stares into the abyss of the worst failure of his life.

Trump’s fiasco has inspired him to heightened performances of profane, vile and vicious threats. His grammar of atrocity has escalated from hateful rhetoric to threats of war crimes. What might have initially appeared as rage-quitting the video game that the White House communications department makes of his Iran War has crossed an inviolable red line of international law. His pouting and foot stomping have led him into the gravest territory.

Published: April 11, 2026, 10:00 am

For Trump and Hegseth, the Iran war is a game | Judith Levine

Amid death, threats, obliterated buildings and wasted money, the administration’s remarks have been head-spinning to witness

Trump threatened to commit genocide and Iran came to the table. A little threat – plus the deaths of thousands of Iranians and 13 Americans, the obliteration of schools, homes, hospitals and mosques, the waste of $40bn by the US and losses to the Gulf nations of as much as $200bn – is all it took. Ergo: threatening genocide works.

That, anyway, is what the “secretary of war”, Pete Hegseth, strongly suggested in a press briefing on Wednesday, the day after the president vowed to wipe Iran’s “whole civilization” off the map and then a few hours later announced a ceasefire, obviating the need to wipe Iran’s civilization off the map, at least for two weeks.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Australia must be more self-reliant – but it can’t afford to throw the US baby out with the bathwater | Arthur Sinodinos

Even under Trump, the American system of alliances is fundamental for Indo-Pacific security. That means staying the course on joint initiatives such as Aukus

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Donald Trump is not a big believer in alliances or the mutuality principle. Life for him is a zero-sum game of winners and losers. That’s the thinking behind his tariff and security policies, as well as his latest outbursts at allies including Australia for not helping in the war.

He has lashed out at allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific because he was frustrated by the course of the war. He never intended for allies and partners to be co-opted so did not brief them or formally request assistance. He thought America and Israel could go it alone – likely because he did not want the headache of having to coordinate operations with coalition partners for the perceived marginal benefit of their contributions.

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:00 pm

The hill I will die on: Yes, money can buy you happiness – if you spend it right | Eleanor Margolis

For the super-rich with cash to burn, all those Rolexes and rare Labubus may not fill the void. But for me, a little goes a long way

When wages have stalled for nearly 20 years and I recently came face to face with a tube of toothpaste that was nearly £7 in my local Sainsbury’s, the idea that money can’t buy happiness seems almost offensive. It ultimately comes from a blinkered concept of what money can do. Sure, if you only use your money to buy things, the happiness it provides will be shallow and fleeting.

Having said that, I refuse to believe there’s a single person out there overpaying on rent who wouldn’t be happier if they owned a house outright. Loosely speaking, yes, Rolexes and rare Labubus have nothing on, say, spending quality time with the people you love. But sadly, the latter costs money, too. Free time is part of a growing number of basic human needs that have become more or less commodified, and under whatever wacky stage of capitalism we’re currently at, more money equals more time to pursue your interests and ultimately find meaning in life.

Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva

Published: April 11, 2026, 7:00 am

Cuba’s doctors were a lifeline for the world. Now the Caribbean is shamefully complicit in the US drive to expel them | Kenneth Mohammed

For decades, Cuban doctors have served the Caribbean’s most marginalised. Now, as Cuba faces its own crisis, the region looks away, waiting on Trump’s approval

There is a line, often quoted, seldom practised, from the Christian gospels: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is recited from the Americas to Africa, invoked in speeches, embroidered into national mottoes.

But like many moral injunctions, it has proven easier to proclaim than to live by. Across the Caribbean and Latin America, something extraordinary and shameful is unfolding.

Published: April 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Cameron Young reels in Rory McIlroy with pack on their tails for Masters finale

• McIlroy’s 73 leaves him tied on 11 under after Young’s 65

• Lowry, Rose and Scheffler among nine within five shots

Rory McIlroy began this Masters in the company of Cameron Young and will finish it in the company of Cameron Young. McIlroy arrived at this tournament as the holder of the Green Jacket. By Sunday night he will …? Goodness only knows. Day three proved predictions are a fool’s errand at the Masters.

Such drama played out at Augusta National on Saturday that by close of play it was extraordinary to see McIlroy’s name still atop the leaderboard, albeit now with Young for scoring company. Both are 11 under par. From holding a six-shot lead at the start of the round – and eight over Young – McIlroy inexplicably wobbled. His 73 was one involving intense struggle. “I knew today wouldn’t be easy,” said McIlroy. “I didn’t quite have it today. I’ll need to be better tomorrow.”

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:27 pm

Tyson Fury returns with unanimous points win over Makhmudov and wants Joshua next

• Fury easily defeats Russian by unanimous decision

• Joshua was ringside and initially evades Fury’s challenge

Tyson Fury completed the first stage of his latest comeback when he outclassed Arslanbek Makhmudov in an uninspiring near shutout over 12 rounds late on Saturday night. The former world heavyweight champion has retired on five previous occasions and, each time, he has been unable to resist the lure of a return to the ring. Now, even at the age of 37, he was still too fast, fluid and accurate for the lumbering Makhmudov.

The Russian from Dagestan hits hard and 17 of his previous 21 victories had featured successful stoppages within the first three rounds. But Makhmudov has never faced a heavyweight of Fury’s pedigree. The chasm between them was obvious from the second round and reflected in the scorecards as two judges had Fury winning each round, in a 120-108 victory, while the third official recorded a 119-109 margin.

Published: April 11, 2026, 10:28 pm

Lavelle and Heaps score as USA women ease past Japan to open friendly series

• Lavelle scores on landmark 100th US start

• Heaps adds winner after sweeping counter

• Emma Hayes’ side make it 10 straight wins

Rose Lavelle celebrated her 100th start with a goal and an assist to help the US women’s national team to a 2-1 win in San Jose, California, on Saturday to open a three-match series against Japan.

Lavelle, in her 119th match, scored in the ninth minute off a set piece then set up Lindsey Heaps in the 48th for the 2-0 lead.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:55 pm

Bournemouth expose Schrödinger’s Arsenal, a team that could be either dead or alive | Paul MacInnes

Mikel Arteta urged fans to bring ‘your lunch, bring your dinner’ but when the set pieces fail to fire his side are short of a full plate

It was another one of those games where Arsenal had found it necessary to rouse the troops beforehand. Mikel Arteta, in his occasional, unusual jokey mode, had urged Arsenal fans to “bring your lunch, bring your dinner” and make this 12.30 kick-off an occasion.

The players, meanwhile, had been training under the eye of a big screen broadcasting footage of Arsenal in happy, successful moments, presumably to encourage the creation of more. “Every game, we have to be there,” Arteta said. So were they?

Published: April 11, 2026, 4:03 pm

New York Times investigates reporter Dianna Russini’s Vrabel coverage amid photo uproar

• Veteran NFL reporter sidelined during review

• Reporter, coach photographed at Sedona resort

The New York Times Company is reviewing coverage by NFL reporter Dianna Russini involving New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel after photos of the two together at an Arizona resort prompted internal concern, ESPN reported Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

Russini, who works for The Times-owned The Athletic, has been sidelined while the review is ongoing, a source said.

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:24 pm

Rio Ngumoha sparks Liverpool win over wasteful Fulham with first Anfield goal

At the end of a stormy week for Arne Slot there was respite in the form of a morale-boosting display from Rio Ngumoha. Liverpool’s 17-year-old winger marked his second Premier League start with an exquisite goal and a key role in the second from Mohamed Salah as the troubled champions celebrated a first league win since February.

Liverpool seemed vulnerable after painful cup quarter-final defeats at Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain had intensified the pressure on Slot. The ingredients were in place for Anfield to turn toxic. Fulham never put that fragility to the test. Marco Silva’s team were passive and limited in front of goal while Liverpool, re-energised by the virtuosity of Ngumoha, found the clinical touch and resolve to reach the landmark of 1,500 league wins at Anfield. It was only their second win in six games following a Champions League away trip this season and should restore some confidence before the daunting assignment against PSG on Tuesday. Ngumoha pressed his claims for inclusion from the start.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:34 pm

Real talk: Chelsea punished Enzo Fernández for exposing project’s fatal flaw | Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City can brush off Rodri’s comments but Chelsea’s existential angst helps explain suspension of midfielder

Enzo Fernández and Rodri would quite like to move to Madrid; many people would. They both said as much in the international break, those special parts of the season when players join up with their national teams and give interviews while apparently unaware that media are global these days: a whisper on Luzo TV can soon become a hurricane in London. But Rodri will line up for Manchester City at Chelsea on Sunday, while Fernández will not, suspended by the club for “crossing a line”.

It’s worth, perhaps, looking at exactly what was said. Fernández expressed disappointment at Enzo Maresca’s departure on New Year’s Day. “It … hurt a lot,” he told Luzo, “because we had a lot of identity, he gave us order, but it’s the way that football is, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. But we always had a clear identity when it came to training, playing and obviously his departure hurt us especially in the middle of the season – it cuts everything short.” Sadness that a manager has gone surely isn’t a crime; it could even be supportive of Liam Rosenior and the difficulty of taking over a club mid-season.

Published: April 11, 2026, 7:00 pm

Gambling is easy, right? Wrong: it turns out betting on sport is designed to disturb you | Barney Ronay

Could I turn £10 into £1,000? I thought I could but was undone by the harsh reality and lost a little bit of my soul along the way

Welcome to How I Beat The Bookies: My Gambling Journey. Yes, my extreme methods can work for you. But only in the usual way. Which is to appear very briefly to work and then not to work at all.

First it is necessary to address the latest blow to English football’s otherwise watertight economy. People often talk about playing the world’s tiniest violin, a way of expressing sarcastic sympathy for bogus suffering, usually accompanied by a finger-and-thumb gesture that suggests, incorrectly, this is the size of the world’s tiniest violin.

Published: April 11, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Abhorrent’: the inside story of the Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

A Guardian investigation reveals how the prediction market can shape news – and how it rules on ‘the truth’

“Horekunden” was rapidly losing patience.

His frustration was with the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank which produces a daily map of the frontline in Ukraine.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Russian drone attacks persist despite Kremlin’s Easter ceasefire, Ukrainian forces say

Ukraine reports 469 violations of Putin’s 32-hour ceasefire, hours after deadly drone attacks on Odesa and Kherson

Russia continued to strike Ukrainian positions with drones after a Kremlin-declared Easter ceasefire took effect on Saturday, a Ukrainian military officer said.

“The ceasefire is not being observed by the Russian side,” said Serhii Kolesnychenko, a communications officer for the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade.

Published: April 11, 2026, 7:50 pm

US man in Bahamian jail after wife disappears into Atlantic waters during boat trip

Lynette and Brian Hooker, from Michigan, were years into a sailing adventure when Brian said his wife fell overboard

Lynette Hooker bounced around the deck of the docked Soul Mate, smiled into the camera and proclaimed, “We’re finally leaving Kemah,” referring to a Texas port town.

“It’s only been four months,” she said as her husband, Brian, tugged on some rigging as they got ready to set sail.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:53 pm

Swalwell denies allegations of sexual assault as calls grow for him to withdraw from California governor race

Former allies of Democratic contender withdraw support after accusations in San Francisco Chronicle and on CNN

Congressman Eric Swalwell, a leading candidate to be California’s next governor, forcefully denied allegations of sexual assault on Friday night, as he faced escalating calls to withdraw from the race from prominent supporters, rivals and his won colleagues in Congress.

In a video statement shared on his Instagram and posted by his official congressional account on X, the California Democrat vowed to fight the allegations with “everything I have”.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:37 am

Native Americans were gambling with dice 6,000 years earlier than anyone else, study says

Archaeological record suggests hunter gatherers were playing games of chance at the end of the last ice age

Native American hunter gatherers were using dice for gaming and gambling more than 6,000 years before the practice appeared anywhere else, a new study argues.

It says dice were being made and used on the western great plains of North America at the end of the last ice age, more than 12,000 years ago.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

McDonald’s CEO blames mother’s etiquette training for awkward burger bite in video

Chris Kempczinski’s taste test was mocked online, to which he said his mother had taught him: ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full’

The chief executive officer of McDonald’s recently blamed etiquette guidance from his mother for a February on-camera taste test that made him a target for ridicule – and summarily recorded another video of him eating one of the fast-food giant’s offerings in a manner potential consumers found awkward.

Chris Kempczinski suggested to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) earlier in April that he was simply heeding maternal advice to never talk with his mouth full when he took the humorously small bite at the center of a viral video which depicted him discussing and sampling the new Big Arch burger from McDonald’s.

Published: April 11, 2026, 9:00 am

A ‘weird dream’ of an arts festival began 10 years ago in the California desert – can it survive its growing popularity?

The Bombay Beach Biennale started as an intimate event and has grown dramatically – but some question whether it sustain its DIY atmosphere

It is hard to imagine a stranger place for a large outdoor art festival than Bombay Beach – a tiny, visibly impoverished California desert town over 150 miles east of Los Angeles and 235ft below sea level. The heat is scorching even in March, and the smell of decay wafts over from the nearby Salton Sea; a dying inland lake created by an irrigation engineering disaster over 100 years ago.

But the Bombay Beach Biennale is not your ordinary art festival.

Published: April 11, 2026, 11:00 am

More than 500 people arrested at Palestine Action protest in London

Arrests and detentions took place at first mass demo since group’s ban was ruled unlawful by high court

More than 500 people have been arrested at the first mass demonstration opposing the proscription of Palestine Action since the group’s ban was ruled unlawful by the high court.

Hundreds of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London and presented signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Hundreds of demonstrators sat on camping chairs and on the ground as they held up their placards on Saturday afternoon. The Metropolitan police said 523 people had been arrested by midnight, with their ages ranging from 18 to 87.

Published: April 11, 2026, 4:17 pm

Sexual abuse claims have dragged the international criminal court into crisis – but what happens now?

Investigating claims made against Karim Khan, the ICC top prosecutor, has turned into a lengthy process fraught with geopolitics and rows over standards of proof

Behind the closed doors of a large room at the international criminal court’s fortress-like headquarters in The Hague, senior diplomats who oversee the court have been gathering each week to try to resolve a crisis.

On their agenda: the fate of the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, a British lawyer whose tenure at the court was thrown into disarray nearly two years ago by sexual abuse allegations that he denies.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:21 am

Trump news at a glance: Epstein survivors have words for Melania Trump after surprise statement

More than a dozen survivors accuse first lady of ‘shifting the burden’ on to them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings – key US politics stories from Friday 10 April

More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have accused Melania Trump of “shifting the burden” on to them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.

“Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony,” said a group of 13 people and the brother and sister of the late Virginia Giuffre, who was one of the most vocal Epstein accusers, in a statement. “Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility not justice.”

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:30 am

Multiple people face charges, including murder, in California fireworks blast

Massive fire followed explosion at 5,000-sq-ft warehouse near Esparto, an hour from Sacramento, on 1 July

Multiple people have been charged with murder in connection to a fatal fireworks-warehouse explosion in California that killed seven people and injured two others in July.

The explosion at the 5,000-sq-ft warehouse sparked a massive fire near the small town of Esparto, about an hour outside Sacramento. The explosion took place on 1 July; local celebrations to commemorate the Fourth of July holiday were cancelled that year.

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:22 am

Explosives found near pipeline in Serbia probably ‘Russian provocation’, says expert

Former Ukrainian major general says 4kg of material was most likely an attempt to influence Hungary’s election

• Hungary elections explainer

The amount of explosives discovered in Serbia last week would not have been enough to destroy the Balkan Stream gas pipeline, prompting an expert to conclude it was probably a Russian intelligence plot aimed at influencing Hungary’s impending election.

A former Ukrainian major general and a munitions specialist told the Guardian calculations made by his company showed the 4kg of explosives recovered by Serbia’s military security agency in Kanjiža could not have seriously ruptured the pipe.

Published: April 11, 2026, 9:36 am

Brian Cox: ‘We don’t know how powerful AI is going to become – it’s both exciting and potentially a problem’

The physicist, BBC presenter and author on snowflakes, art v science and the time Paul McCartney quizzed him about one of Saturn’s moons

What is the inspiration behind your latest live show, Emergence?

It came from a book that I’ve loved for years: The Six-Cornered Snowflake by Johannes Kepler. Kepler is most famous for his laws of planetary motion in and around 1610, but he wrote this little book about New Year’s Eve in 1609, when he was walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague in a snowstorm. He was going to his benefactor’s house and he hadn’t bought him a present. So he writes this beautiful little book about looking at the snowflakes landing on his arm and thinking about the symmetry of them and asking, why are they six-sided?

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:00 pm

UK starts crackdown on EU citizens’ post-Brexit rights

Concerns raised over use of travel data in determining if people are ‘continuously’ in Britain after HMRC fiasco

UK ministers are to start removing post-Brexit residency rights from EU citizens who are no longer “continuously” living in the country.

The initiative is legal under the 2020 Brexit withdrawal agreement, but the decision to use travel data to partly determine absences has raised concerns after the HMRC fiasco in which almost 20,000 parents were stripped of child benefits because of inaccurate Home Office border data.

Published: April 11, 2026, 12:44 pm

‘The party was chilled until police sent in the riot squad’: when a Dorset free rave turned violent

The organisers of Eggtek in Lulworth and local police have two very different stories about how trouble started at the Easter event

A couple of thousand ravers were given the secret location for one of the annual highlights of the free party scene – the Easter bank holiday weekend Eggtek event.

The sun was shining and they arrived at a field on Ministry of Defence land in Lulworth, Dorset in a state of high excitement about a weekend of dancing to techno music playing from a variety of different stages and sound systems in the heart of the countryside.

Published: April 11, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘I got everything I dreamed of – when I had no ability to handle it’: Lena Dunham on toxic fame, broken friendships and her ‘lost decade’

Stardom came fast and hard for the wunderkind who created the hit HBO series Girls aged just 23. Now she’s written a tell-all memoir about why she was forced to retreat from the spotlight

• Lena Dunham on going to rehab: read an exclusive extract from Famesick

If there is something to be learned from the words people pick for their passwords and proxies, then Lena Dunham’s choice of aliases – pseudonyms that, as a public person, she has used over the years to conceal her identity when checking into rehab or ordering room service – give us a tiny glimpse into the writer and director’s self-image. Among her staples, “Lauri Reynolds” (after her mum, Laurie, with whom she is strikingly close); “Rose O’Neill” (after the American millionaire illustrator, who lost her fortune to burnout and hangers-on); and my favourite, “Renata Halpern”, an alias Dunham shares with readers of her delicious new memoir, Famesick, without explaining the name’s origin.

“Has anyone else clocked the Renata Halpern reference?” I ask Dunham, who is in her apartment in New York, talking fast via video call while waiting for an egg-and-cheese bagel to be run up from the deli. On the brink of 40, she is in her dark-haired era – very Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – which, this morning, is set against a bright orange shirt and the pale, glowy skin she describes as the single happy side-effect of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition of the connective tissue with which Dunham was diagnosed in 2019. Later this month, she’ll return to London, where she has lived for the last five years with her husband, Luis Felber, and where she enjoys greater anonymity than in her native New York – although, she says, not enough to dispense with the aliases. (“Just when you think no one cares, someone does something creepy, so you have to watch out.”)

Published: April 11, 2026, 5:00 am

American Classic review – I defy you not to fall in love with Kevin Kline and Laura Linney’s tender comedy

There are hints of Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek in this delightful series in which an unexpected death triggers all manner of fun and games. It’s lovely comfort TV

Ah, the roar of the greasepaint – the smell of the crowd! Who doesn’t love the theatre? Or at least the idea of the theatre. Not the fact of the theatre – spending a fortune on a ticket, getting dressed up and going into town, either hungry or with too early a dinner inside you, trying to suspend enough disbelief to engage with Actors doing Big Acting in front of you when you’re too used to Small Acting watched from the sofa in front of a streaming platform. Then home too late to recover properly before bed.

It’s not just me. I know it isn’t.

American Classic is on MGM+

Published: April 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Margo’s Got Money Troubles: Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer ace this taboo OnlyFans comedy

Fanning is a young single mother who makes adult content in this hilarious series. It is smart, sexy and bold – and Pfeiffer is unmissable as her ex-Hooters-waitress mother

I promise, it’s the title that drew me in. Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a new Apple TV show (out Wednesday), starring Elle Fanning as a single mum who becomes an OnlyFans model. It joins a niche canon of similarly blunt titles about generic obstacles. To wit: Fleishman Is in Trouble; Big Trouble in Little China. Margo’s Got Money Troubles is better, though. Check out the assonance, the rhythm. It has great mouthfeel, to borrow a word from food reviewing, one I instantly regret.

Our hero, Margo Millet, is a first-year college student who falls pregnant by her professor. The married academic tells her to get an abortion; her friends agree with him. She has the baby. She drops out of college, falls into money troubles. She attempts to fall out of them by joining the notorious content creation platform. She does nude video shoots, in the character of a sexy alien. If none of this inflames you, can I interest you in Nick Offerman as Margo’s pro-wrestler, drug-addicted father? Or Michelle Pfeiffer as her blue collar, ex-Hooters-waitress mother? No? Are you dead?

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:00 am

The xx at Coachella review – indie trio reunites for spellbinding, rangy set

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
The English indie rock band’s first festival set in eight years hypnotized with their atmospheric dance sound

When Jamie Smith, Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft took the Coachella main stage on Friday evening, you could be forgiven for forgetting the momentousness of the occasion. The trio known as the xx has not performed together in eight years, save for a couple of warm-up shows in Mexico City ahead of the California festival, though they’ve hardly been absent from the music scene. Smith, the renowned electronic producer known as Jamie xx, is now a festival mainstay, while Madley Croft and Sim have each built on the indie rock band’s signature haunted sound with their solo material, 2023’s clubby Mid Air and 2022’s horror-tinged Hideous Bastard, respectively.

The three childhood friends still collaborate – Jamie produced Sim’s Hideous Bastard – and their long-awaited Coachella reunion, the first outing of a planned festival run and “new chapter”, felt more like peeking into an ongoing mind-meld than one of the buzziest sets of the festival. The group appeared in their signature all-black and launched into their 2009 debut single Crystalised as if no time had passed.

Published: April 11, 2026, 9:45 pm

I swapped England for Seoul after watching a Korean teen drama – and found myself cast in a K-pop video

I was on the verge of failing Mandarin, when a last-second pivot caused me to utterly fall in love with Korean culture, and send me in a totally new direction

The first time I discovered South Korea was during a Mandarin homework mishap in 2013. I was 16 and lacked all the characteristics required to be good at languages: confidence, a thick skin and any desire to talk out loud. Forced to choose a language, Mandarin seemed like the best option for me – with a self-proclaimed photographic memory, I spent hours cramming complex Chinese characters, convincing myself I could pass my exams without speaking a word. I could not.

My vow of silence was shattered three months in, when I was introduced to my native-Chinese conversation teacher. As suspected, I was woeful. I cried, she cried. Stunned by my ineptitude, she quietly wiped a tear away with her knuckle as she helplessly suggested that I watch Chinese TV dramas to improve my pronunciation instead.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:00 am

The moment I knew: in the Tasmanian wilderness, we lay next to each other in the dark. It felt like now or never

Katherine Scholes was in awe of Roger, but on a hike together, things didn’t look promising from a romantic point of view. Then night fell

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I met Roger in 1975, when I was just 16 and he was 25. Returning home one afternoon, I found him having tea with my parents. He had been living in an artist’s community in Switzerland and had ideas of starting one in Tasmania. My mother is a painter, and my father one of those people who makes things happen. I listened to them talk of buying a farm.

Roger was wearing worn-out Levi’s jeans, Western boots, a blue-grey suit jacket. His blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. More than six feet tall, he towered over me. He had an enamelled brooch pinned on his lapel and a string of tiny turquoise beads around one wrist. This was country Tasmania. No one looked like this.

Today I have met the kind of man I would one day like to marry.

Published: April 11, 2026, 8:00 pm

Blind date: ‘She claimed she was usually shy. I wouldn’t have guessed’

Jack, 31, a nature consultant, meets Heather, 23, who works in marketing for a homelessness charity

What were you hoping for?
A nice evening, to meet someone new and see what type of person I would be matched up with.

Published: April 11, 2026, 5:00 am

‘This cactus looks as if it’s preaching’: Joseph Cyr’s best phone picture

The language teacher was running in the desert in Arizona when he saw this enormous, oddly human-looking plant

Joseph Cyr works as a language teacher at an American secondary school. He was born in South Korea, and spent his childhood living across Germany and the US, in Georgia and Arizona. “As an adult I have lived in Seattle, Paris and Nicaragua before moving back to Arizona,” he says. “I took this in Saguaro national park, on the edge of Tucson. It’s about an hour north of the US-Mexico border.”

It was a school holiday, so Cyr was doing a trail run when he took this image. His route was quiet; he saw only a few people on horseback and this saguaro cactus. The largest cactus in the US, it grows only in the Sonoran Desert, where the Saguaro national park lies.

Published: April 11, 2026, 10:00 am

‘We are not like the rest of Andalucía’: the rugged charms of Almería, Spain’s desert city

While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider status

Perched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civilisations.”

A British adventurer, Hispanist and fringe member of the Bloomsbury group, Brenan had walked to Almería from where he was living near Granada, apparently to buy extra furniture in preparation for a visit from Virginia Woolf and friends. A century later, my journey here in a 30-year-old van from London is somewhat less notable, but as I marvel at the almost surreal incandescence of the Med, and the maze of ancient streets below me, I too am aware of a sensation of time travel.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:00 am

Tim Dowling: my wife is on a quest to restore my thinning hair

I am settling in for my usual haircut when, before I know it, my wife and the hairdresser are signing me up for a ‘treatment’

In the beginning I used not to be able to tell Kelly and Hayley – the identical twin hairdressers who came to the house appointments – apart. Eventually my wife furnished me with a handy mnemonic: Kelly cuts, Hayley highlights. From then on, I knew them by their tools.

I don’t need that crutch any more: since my wife decided to go grey, we only have Kelly. She arrived at 11, and I am already in the chair, hair wet, a towel over my shoulders. Kelly is on her phone. My wife is sitting across the table from me.

Published: April 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Child trust funds: a windfall at 18 – but what should you do next?

All children born in the UK between September 2002 and January 2011 have a CTF – but £1bn has not been claimed

At some point in the midst of 2009 I made a decision that would change my son’s life: I started paying £10 a month into his child trust fund account.

It didn’t seem like much but, almost 18 years later, thanks to the performance of the stock market and the original government payment, he’s about to get about £10,000. At first he had no idea what to do next, financially, and he’s not alone.

Published: April 11, 2026, 6:20 am