The war in Iran is an American failure. What do we do now? | Robert Reich

The most powerful nation in the world is now being led by a rogue president who rejects its longstanding values

As we reach the 13th day of the war in Iran – with death and destruction rippling throughout the Middle East – it’s important to bear in mind where the real failure lies.

So far, nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 175 Iranian schoolchildren and seven US service members. At least 140 US service members have been wounded, several critically. The final tallies on both sides will almost certainly be far higher.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Unbelievably unequal’: report shows how 1% of Mexicans own 40% of country’s wealth

Fortunes of the country’s 22 billionaires doubled in last five years, reaching unprecedented collective wealth of $219bn

Scrunched between luxury apartment buildings and a lush gated community, the neighborhood of Santa Lucía Reacomodo in Mexico City is a working-class pocket of real estate. Electrical wires tangle above cinder-block houses, stray cats slink down narrow streets, debris piles up on the pavement.

María del Socorro Corona, 79, arrived here decades ago, back when it was just a cactus-covered hillside. The two-bedroom turquoise house she built with her now-deceased husband is crammed with bags of clothes and knick-knacks she sells at a weekly market.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:00 am

I challenged ChatGPT to a writing competition. Could it actually replace me?

In week two of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic put his reputation on the line

Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect being replaced by AI. Many of them say they never use it on principle; I know all of them do.

So this week, as part of my AI diary, I’m conducting the forbidden experiment in plain sight. I’m going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer. Can it truly match me, and might it replace me? Let’s settle this.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:00 am

Why Sentimental Value should win the best picture Oscar

It may not have a flashy high concept like the other nominees but Joachim Trier’s family saga is satisfyingly grownup film-making, and beats them all as a showcase for great performance

This is a best picture race full of ambitious ideas and big swings. A Trump-baiting sanctuary city saga. A continent-crossing Jewish picaresque fantasy. A Brazilian B-movie-tinged paranoid period thriller. A loopy alien-invasion conspiracy headtrip. A giant, roaring motorsport epic. Monsters. Vampires. Railroad-building. Shakespeare. And, erm, a drama about an actor’s daddy issues.

But if Sentimental Value seems to you the least essential of this years’s nominees, then, well, you don’t know Sentimental Value. From that familiar-sounding subject matter, the film’s Danish-Norwegian co-writer and director, Joachim Trier, has crafted something grand and sprawling: a family saga spiralling across decades and generations, spliced with a movie about moviemaking. It’s a film that churns and roils emotionally like Bergman, but – as with Trier’s last one, The Worst Person in the World – tears into heavy themes with a springiness, even a playfulness. And no other Oscar nominee provides such a showcase for performance, with four meaty parts for its terrific leads – all also Oscar-nominated – to chomp on.

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:00 am

Wings, sex and hypocrisy: how the NBA tied itself in knots over a strip club night

The Hawks decided to pay tribute to Atlanta institution Magic City. The league soon found itself dealing with a narrative it doesn’t understand fully

Manufactured outrage will have to serve as the theme for what had been the most hotly anticipated game of the season.

For those who may have missed it: last month the Atlanta Hawks announced plans for a 16 March promotional event called Magic City Night. The name wasn’t just a nod to that evening’s opponent, the Orlando Magic; it was meant to honor the civic institution in the shadow of the Hawks’ arena – Magic City, America’s most famous strip club.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:00 am

The unbelievable life of Leo Sayer! The songs, the sex, being swindled – and a spooky phone call from Elvis

He lit up the 1970s with a string of hits, before falling out of the public eye. But was any man ever more connected? He discusses extraordinary encounters with Muhammad Ali and Keith Moon – and why he stormed out of Big Brother

Leo Sayer has stories. Boy, does he have stories! Muhammad Ali? Stories. Keith Moon? Stories. Elvis Presley? Stories. I’ve never met anybody with so many stories. He’s in Australia, where he lives, when we speak by video link. The pint-sized pop star with the mop of curly hair is 77 and still bouncing like a Superball.

Back in the 70s, he was famous for his turbo-charged energy. On his first Top of the Pops appearance with his breakthrough hit, The Show Must Go On, he dressed as a pierrot. If you’re looking for the footage, you won’t find it. Paedophile presenter Jimmy Savile played such a prominent role that the video was disappeared. “He was creepy. He wouldn’t get off the fucking stage, so they can never show my first performance. I’m sure he fancied me.”

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Middle East crisis live: Iran issues statement ‘from Mojtaba Khamenei’ as its attacks disrupt energy markets

Message read out by newsreader calls for national unity and says that all US bases in the region should close or face attacks

• Iran escalates attacks on infrastructure and transport across the Gulf

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

An Iranian source is denying the country will allow India-flagged tankers to pass through the vital strait of Hormuz, Reuters is reporting.

The news agency a little earlier quoted an Indian source as saying Iran would in fact allow such tankers to pass through the strait, a key artery for global oil trade.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:48 pm

‘America’s mortal enemy’: Pete Hegseth expressed extreme antipathy toward Iran for years

Comments in books, speeches and videos shed new light on defense secretary’s personal commitment to war on Iran

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years in books, Fox News broadcasts, educational videos and a 2018 speech to an Israeli media conference in Jerusalem, a Guardian review has revealed.

In a 2020 book, for example, Hegseth wrote that Iran’s leaders were “actively seeking the military means – especially nuclear weapons – to bring the West to its knees”. And in a 2017 video for PragerU, the hard-right media platform, Hegseth described Iran as “America’s mortal enemy”.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Dismay as ancient heritage sites across Iran damaged in US-Israel bombing

Golestan Palace in Tehran, a world heritage site, and buildings in historic city of Isfahan harmed, despite Unesco sending coordinates

• Middle East crisis – latest updates

The governor of the historic Iranian city of Isfahan has accused the US and Israel of a “declaration of war on a civilization” as heritage sites across the country suffer damage in their bombing campaign.

The most serious confirmed damage to date has been to Tehran’s Golestan Palace, dating back to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon Palace in Isfahan.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:06 am

Trump claims surging oil prices benefit US as Pentagon reportedly tells lawmakers Iran war cost $11.3bn in first week – live

Trump spins the spiking oil prices as a win for the US as defense departments reportedly spends billions on war with Iran

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US defense officials told senators on the armed services committee that the cost of the war on Iran totaled more than $11.3bn in the first six days alone, according to multiple reports.

The New York Times was first to break the news about the conflict’s price tag, citing three people familiar with the closed-door briefing on Tuesday.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:40 pm

Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

Experts warn younger people not to dismiss symptoms such as rectal bleeding as diagnoses rise for those under 50

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Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in the US for people under 50, according to a new analysis from the American Cancer Society, prompting both experts and those in that age group with the disease to warn others to take certain symptoms seriously.

Becca Lynch, who works in cyber security in Denver, Colorado, was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer last year, when she was just 29. At first, she assumed her symptoms couldn’t be anything serious: “I chalked it up to stress,” she said.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

Panel awards $3.8m to ‘mom and pop’ investors whose risky investments tanked

Florida investors featured in Guardian investigation claimed they lost most of their life savings after a financial adviser put their money into ‘alternative’ assets

In a victory for everyday investors, arbitrators have awarded $3.8m to 13 Florida seniors who claimed a financial adviser squandered their retirement money by plowing it into risky investments.

The award comes after the Guardian highlighted these investors’ losses as part of an investigation into dangers that so-called “mom and pop” investors face at a time when the Trump administration has thrown its support behind Wall Street’s efforts to sell them more higher-risk “alternative investments”.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Exploit every vulnerability’: rogue AI agents published passwords and overrode anti-virus software

Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

Robert Booth UK technology editor

Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.

With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:04 pm

EPA chief met with Bayer CEO over supreme court fight, agency records show

Top US regulators met with Bill Anderson to discuss ‘supreme court action’ over glyphosate weed killer

Top US regulators met with Bill Anderson, Bayer’s CEO, last year to discuss “litigation” issues – including “supreme court action” over its glyphosate weed killer – just months before the Trump administration took a series of steps to boost Bayer’s case at the high court, internal government records show.

The 17 June meeting, between officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Anderson and two other top Bayer executives, came as the Germany-based company was working to quash costly US litigation brought by tens of thousands of people who allege they developed cancer from their use of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:10 pm

Republican farm bill criticized as agribusiness giveaway: ‘pesticide industry wishlist’

Advocates say bill weakens safety reviews, boosts industry influence and shields pesticide makers from legal liability

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The newly proposed, Republican-led farm bill includes a range of provisions opponents say constitute a “pesticide industry wishlist” that would kill protections for humans, the environment, wildlife and endangered species, while also shielding industry from legal liability.

Among other measures, they said the bill would delay safety reviews, give industry a prominent role in determining endangered species’ protections and grant the US Department of Agriculture new veto power over health safeguards for children, farm workers and the public.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:00 pm

Unexplained Moscow internet blackouts spark fears of web censorship plan

Kremlin appearing to ramp up control over internet, as it tests new ‘whitelist’ restrictions and pushes people to state-owned app

Muscovites have been turning to walkie-talkies and pagers amid unexplained disruptions to internet services in the capital, as the Kremlin appears to ramp up control over online activity in Russia.

Users in central Moscow, as well as in St Petersburg, first reported difficulties accessing mobile internet about a week ago. Many said they were unable to load websites or apps, while some lost service altogether, leaving them unable to make phone calls.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:43 pm

US officer having a ‘mild anxiety attack’ took ambulance meant for man shot by police

Dyshan Best later died after having to wait 10 extra minutes for next ambulance, according to Connecticut investigation

A man who was shot by police and later died had to wait 10 extra minutes for an ambulance after an officer having a “mild anxiety attack” took the first one that arrived at the scene, according to a newly released state investigation.

Dyshan Best, 39, was shot in the back last year as he fled from officers in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A report released this week by the state’s inspector general found that the shooting was justified because Best had a gun in his hand and the officer pursuing him had reasons to fear for his own safety.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:34 pm

A young girl is knocked over at Tokyo crossing – what’s behind Japan’s ‘bumping’ trend?

Viral video of girl being shoved by fellow pedestrian has reignited debate over butsukari – with experts blaming stress and gender dynamics

It starts out as a heartwarming clip. A young girl, clearly delighted to be in Tokyo, beams as she makes a peace sign to the camera. Seconds later, she is shoved to the ground from behind by a woman wearing a surgical mask. The assailant doesn’t skip a beat, striding out of shot of the clip filmed by the girl’s mother.

This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko – “bumping man” – shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender dynamics and the stresses of modern life.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

‘The last frontier’: how red globules of nickel ore are suffocating an island’s precious wilderness

In the race to meet the demands of the energy transition, biodiversity hotspots such as Palawan in the Philippines are being increasingly mined for critical elements

• How nature is being sacrificed for mining across the world – a data visualisation

Moharen Tahil Tambiling lowers himself from the fishing boat into the water and gingerly picks his way over the reef circling the bay. At low tide here in Brooke’s Point on Palawan, a long, rugged island in the south-west of the Philippines archipelago, the coral is just under the surface, and it looms suddenly under the waves, scraping at the boat’s wooden hull.

Beneath his feet are brain-like mounds and curling fingers of coral. Leaning over the side of the fishing boat, the men point out different kinds: some which were once vibrant orange and others that should be delicate pink. Now, almost everything is the same dull khaki, covered by a thick film of silt. Another man jumps overboard, stirring the sediment. A cloud rises like thick smoke over the reef.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

How do these grab you, darlin’? Nancy Sinatra’s 20 best songs – ranked!

Sixty years after the release of her debut album, Boots, we celebrate her finest tracks – from Bond themes to LSD anthems

Before she sang a Bond theme, Nancy Sinatra had recorded a parody of one: twanging guitar, John-Barry-mocking brass and all. The great lyrics – “He’s never caught a spy I’m told / He’s never even caught a cold” – mean preposterous mid-60s novelty records come no better.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:04 pm

My depression felt creatively expansive. Now I’ve overcome it, how do I keep the meaningful parts? | Leading questions

Darkness can present itself as truth, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. But love, joy and awe are far richer experiences

I’ve overcome a depression that was both debilitating and strangely vivid and creatively expansive. How do I step back into ordinary life without losing the parts that felt meaningful and alive?

During that time, I immersed myself in creative work, I was writing poetry, painting my feelings, and reading books that echoed my inner world, and I found a depth that felt honest, vivid and alive. I gravitated towards art and film that explored life’s darker edges and through them I gained a perspective that felt richer and more truthful than everyday chatter. Those pursuits became my comfort and my way of making sense of things.

In Australia, support is available at Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Act Black: posters of Black Americans on stage and screen – in pictures

A new exhibition at New York’s Poster House celebrates the work of Black performers on stage and screen from the 1880s to the 1940s. Many of these posters are the only surviving proof of certain shows, with no recordings of plays, and certain films, having been lost over time. They offer a history of Black Americans trying to counter harmful stereotypes and provide vital and humanizing contributions to a growing Black culture. Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen is on display from 13 March to 6 September. All words and images from the Poster House and curator Es-pranza Humphrey

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:00 am

You be the judge: should my housemate stop warming her mug and then pouring the water back into the kettle?

Brent thinks Amy’s habit is unhygienic, but she says his argument doesn’t hold water. Trouble’s brewing – and you decide who’s in the right

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Amy says that boiling water kills germs so it’s hygienic, but one time I found a hair in my mug

Pouring the water away is a waste, and I can use up my recycled water before Brent returns from work

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:00 am

Why is smoking so addictive – and what are the best ways to give up?

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:26 am

Where Duolingo falls down: how I learned to speak Welsh with my mother

Once violently defended from extinction, Welsh is still a part of daily life. By learning my family’s language, I hoped to join their conversation

My maternal grandmother died 20 years ago. The funeral was held in a small Methodist chapel in the lush Conwy valley of north Wales. Her entire life – she had almost reached 100 – was spent in these hills. The drizzle that morning had slicked the trees and turned the slate of the chapel black. Our family, gathered under umbrellas, entered in order of seniority: Mum, now the family elder, with Dad on her arm, then my six aunts and uncles with their spouses, and finally the cousins, led by my brother Mark and me.

The room was austere. White walls, sturdy wooden furniture, a plain cross on the wall. Our family squeezed into box pews in the centre of the chapel. A couple of older men among the crowd reminded me of my grandfather, who had died decades earlier: similar thatches of black hair; dark, weathered complexions; history-book faces.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Israel and the US are fighting Iran together. Are they on the same page though? | Yousef Munayyer

The differences between what Trump and Netanyahu want out of this war are starting to show and complicating how it will end

When the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran to start a war that is now entering its third week, it was the start of something unprecedented; the first joint Israeli-American war. Even though the US has long been a close military ally of Israel, this has never happened before. Unlike last year’s “12-day war” where Israel launched a war that the US joined near the very end with a single set of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, this Israeli-American war on Iran is deeply coordinated at the operational level between both belligerents day in and day out.

That is precisely why clear, shared objectives between Washington and Tel Aviv will be crucial for the US to exit this war with a political victory and not just the tab for tons of destruction across the region with little significant change. Much of what we have seen so far suggests strongly that that is not the case; Israel and the US have different goals here, if they even really know what their goals are, and because of this no clear endgame can be envisioned even as the costs of the war mount.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

If oil price shocks weren’t bad enough, Trump’s war could have other unintended consequences | Adam Hanieh

China consumes around 90% of Iran’s oil exports, so could be forced to rely on alternative suppliers – particularly Russia

With the US-Israeli war against Iran in its second week, energy markets are in turmoil. On Thursday, the price of Brent Crude Oil topped $100, only slightly lower than the $119 peak per barrel on Monday.

These swings have focused attention on key energy choke points such as the strait of Hormuz, where about one-fifth of the world’s shipped oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes each day. This shutdown of the strait will be felt in people’s everyday lives for months to come, particularly in the form of spiralling household bills. But oil prices alone do not capture the full economic significance of the conflict.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this | Gordon Brown

There are rules and world leaders must insist they be honoured in practice and in spirit. After this atrocity in Iran, a more effective tribunal for crimes against children is essential

The killing of a reported 168 people, primarily schoolgirls, in the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab in Iran has shaken to its very core the conscience of the world.

The attack, carried out nearly two weeks ago when classes were under way, reduced the school building to rubble. Parents who had sent their daughters to school discovered minutes later that classrooms had become mass graves.

Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: March 12, 2026, 6:00 am

Saturday Night Live is surely only funny if you’re American. Can a UK spinoff really make Britain laugh? | Emma Brockes

There are reasons to be sceptical. But if the sketch show’s British talent strikes the right tone, Saturday night comedy could become a family ritual

A strong contender for the most depressing four words in the English language – after “I’ve started a Substack”, obviously – is the formulation, “topical sketch comedy show”, a line that will yank many of us back to painful memories of late night Channel 4 in the 90s. British telly has never excelled at this live comedy format, or maybe, depending on your view, nowhere has. Near the end of this month, Sky is launching a UK version of Saturday Night Live, that most revered of American staples and a holy grail for US comedy writers going back to the 1970s. If it seems like a strange import, it may be that, as the dusty original fields kicks from all sides, SNL UK has a prime opportunity to reboot the franchise.

The curious question for observers is whether there are things so rooted in their original context they can’t be expected to travel. We’ve seen a lot of this going in the other direction, with disastrous US remakes of British TV shows, such as Skins (cancelled after one season), The Inbetweeners (ditto) and any British show featuring actors who look ballpark normal, recast with Americans who look like Kristi Noem. (For my money, even the US version of The Office didn’t really work, although nine seasons and everyone else say otherwise). US television imports to the UK, meanwhile, have mostly been gameshows or reality TV, so SNL is a newish experiment. And yet the kneejerk response to news of its commissioning – see John Oliver, calling it a “terrible idea,” per GQ’s reporting – has been overwhelmingly negative.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Hollywood’s idea of beauty once meant polished and slim, not altered and gaunt. This new look is unsettling | Brigid Delaney

When movie stars are no longer people we aspire to look like, does it spell the end of Hollywood’s cultural power?

Once upon a time in Hollywood, if you were an actor preparing to walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards, you might have been fasting to fit into your outfit. You definitely had access to the best hair and makeup artists, and designers and jewellers lent you thousands of dollars worth of incredible products. Maybe you even had a subtle bit of plastic surgery. You looked great!

For a long time Hollywood operated a fairly coherent beauty ideal that, however unattainable, was at least legible.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Ukraine accuses IPC of ‘systemic pressure’ and pro-Russian bias at Winter Paralympics

• Ukrainian team claim athletes have been mistreated

• Allege they had to remove flag from Paralympic village

Team Ukraine have launched a ­stinging attack on the International Paralympic Committee and Winter Paralympics organisers, claiming they have been under “systemic pressure” to reduce their presence at the Milano Cortina Games.

The Ukraine National Paralympic Committee has made four specific allegations against the IPC and the Milano Cortina organisers, alleging mistreatment of its athletes and a “systematic” attempt to remove flags from the team base and spectators.

Published: March 11, 2026, 2:13 pm

Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics 2026: day five – in pictures

We take a look at the best images from day three of the Games, including curling, cross-country skiing and ice hockey

Published: March 11, 2026, 3:27 pm

US reach World Baseball Classic quarter-finals after getting needed help from Italy

• Pasquantino lifts Italy with historic effort

• US reach quarter-finals despite loss to Italy

• Canada beat Cuba to win group in San Juan

Vinnie Pasquantino had the World Baseball Classic’s first three-homer game, leading Italy over Mexico 9-1 on Wednesday night to win Pool B and advance the United States to the quarter-finals as group’s second-place team.

Italy’s victory ended a day of uncertainty for the Americans, who needed help to reach the quarter-finals after losing to Italy 8-6 on Tuesday night.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:52 am

Jack Draper ‘overwhelmed’ after beating Novak Djokovic for first time at Indian Wells

• British No 1 comes from behind in 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) win

• Hard-fought win keeps Draper’s title defence on track

Jack Draper was “overwhelmed” after beating Novak Djokovic for the first time to reach the quarter-finals in Indian Wells and keep his title defence on track.

Playing only the second ATP tournament of his comeback after eight months out with an arm injury, Draper came through a gripping battle lasting more than two-and-a-half hours in a deciding tie-break to win 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:49 am

Pitch Points: Sergiño Dest’s injury, Christian Pulisic’s title chances and Old Firm trouble

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. Today, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of them

Sergiño Dest’s World Cup is at risk. The 25-year-old limped off with a hamstring injury during PSV’s Eredivisie win over AZ Alkmaar on Saturday, immediately starting a countdown clock in the minds of US men’s national team supporters who now fear Mauricio Pochettino’s first-choice right back could miss this summer’s tournament. Dest said on social media he hopes to be back by the end of the season, but nobody truly knows when he’ll return.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:00 am

It would be a macabre story but relegation needs to happen for Tottenham | Jonathan Liew

All the managers since Pochettino have drained life from the club, which appears interested in anything but football now

Sad news coming out of Tottenham this week: Ryan Norys’s talk at the South by Southwest festival on Friday will no longer take place. The club’s chief revenue officer, who has overseen a 40% rise in commercial revenue over the past three years, was due to speak on “how Tottenham is evolving beyond football to become a global cultural brand”. And given the rich seam of cultural content Spurs have been providing the world over recent weeks, you have to say it’s been a stunningly successful initiative.

Alas, when Norys posted an advertisement for the event on his LinkedIn page this week, Spurs fans exploded with anger, forcing the talk to be cancelled. Fortunately, those still interested to see how Tottenham are evolving beyond football can simply observe their recent performances on the pitch. Igor Tudor’s Tottenham Hotspur: proudly evolving beyond defending. Beyond possession. Beyond goalkeeping. Beyond tactics, beyond teamwork, beyond competence, beyond the basic bipedal human ability to stand up straight. And – who knows? – perhaps even beyond the Premier League.

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:00 am

Attendance records and star power but who will win it? Get ready for the new NWSL season

We look at the 14th regular season before it kicks off on Friday with two expansion sides: Boston Legacy and Denver Summit

The National Women’s Soccer League’s 14th regular season starts on Friday with a rematch of last year’s semi-final between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit. From there, 16 teams will compete in a 248-match season, with eight teams qualifying for the playoffs.

We look at four themes that may define the year.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:57 am

Indianapolis Colts to give quarterback Daniel Jones two-year deal worth up to $100m

• Quarterback had promising start to Colts career

• 2025 season ended in series of injuries

Daniel Jones plans to stay with the Indianapolis Colts for at least two more years.

The two sides agreed to a new contract, a deal that will pay the quarterback up to $100m, a person with knowledge of the contract told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Jones will receive $88m over the next two seasons with $50m guaranteed. He can make an additional $12m through incentives.

Published: March 11, 2026, 6:22 pm

Bam Adebayo just scored 83 points in a game. Was it down to brilliance or stat padding?

The Miami Heat star scored the second-most points in a game in NBA history on Tuesday night. Some may question exactly how he got there

Second in points, last in ethics?

That will be the accusation against the Miami Heat and Bam Adebayo, after the big man moved into second on the NBA’s single-game scoring list with 83 points against the woeful Washington Wizards on Tuesday. Adebayo surpassed the 81 points that Kobe Bryant scored in a 2006 game and left only Wilt Chamberlain, with 100 in a game in 1962, ahead of him on the all-time list.

Published: March 11, 2026, 12:07 pm

‘LOL THAT’S IT?’: politics aside, the UFC’s White House card isn’t worth the price of admission | Karim Zidan

Donald Trump promised that June’s event would bring us some of the greatest fights in history. The truth appears to be rather different

When Donald Trump first announced that the White House would host a UFC event to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary, the US president told supporters it would be a “big deal”. Evidence over the last week suggests that, not for the first time, Trump may be exaggerating a little.

Trump has promised a spectacle unlike anything the UFC has staged before. “They’re going to have eight or nine championship fights – the biggest fights they’ve ever had,” Trump said in December of plans for the White House event. “Every one is a championship fight, and every one is a legendary type of fight.”

Published: March 11, 2026, 9:00 am

Trump-endorsed Republican in Louisiana accused of rape in 2007

Blake Miguez, 44, not criminally charged over allegation reported to local police but never disclosed to public

A Louisiana Republican congressional candidate endorsed by Donald Trump was the subject of a 2007 rape accusation that was reported to local law enforcement the same day of the alleged assault – but never disclosed to the public or, reportedly, the president’s team as he became one of the rising stars in the state’s Republican party.

That has raised concerns within the White House that Blake Miguez “either wasn’t fully vetted or wasn’t forthcoming about discoverable documents from his past” before securing Trump’s backing, the Atlantic reported on Wednesday, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the endorsement process.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:26 am

‘A few beatings won’t kill you’: judge rejects divorce request of woman abused by husband in Afghanistan

Under new Taliban laws, a husband is allowed to beat his wife as long as it is not done with ‘obscene force’, which the woman must prove in court

The shocking level of physical violence against women permitted under the Taliban’s new laws has been revealed this week by the case of a woman in northern Afghanistan, who said she was beaten with a cable wire by her husband and told by a judge: “You want a divorce just because of that? … A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you.”

Farzana* said her husband was quick-tempered and often resorted to beating her. He regularly humiliated her and called her “disabled”, she said, because her right leg was slightly shorter than the left. She had tolerated the abuse for the sake of their children, but one evening, she said, his violence went too far.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution

Cycle lanes, electric cars and other interventions have helped 19 global cities slash levels of pollutants by more than 20%

London, San Francisco and Beijing are among 19 global cities that have achieved “remarkable reductions” in air pollution, analysis has found, having slashed levels of two airway-aggravating pollutants by more than 20% since 2010.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:00 am

Noma chef resigns amid allegations of physical abuse of staff

René Redzepi also steps down from non-profit board after accusations of physical and psychological abuse

René Redzepi, the head chef and co-founder of Noma, has announced his resignation from his internationally acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant following allegations he physically abused his staff.

Redzepi had been facing protests in Los Angeles before a four-month pop-up that launched this week. His resignation on Wednesday comes after the New York Times detailed allegations of physical and psychological abuse, including claims that he “punched employees in the face, jabbed them with kitchen implements and slammed them against walls”.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:13 pm

Estée Lauder sues Jo Malone over use of her name on Zara fragrance

Cosmetics firm takes legal action against London-born perfumer who sold brand and rights to her name in 1999

Estée Lauder is taking legal action against the British perfumer Jo Malone after she used her name on a fragrance for the fashion chain Zara.

Malone sold her perfume brand to Estée Lauder Companies in 1999 in a deal under which she was blocked from using her name for particular commercial reasons including the marketing of fragrance.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:44 am

Venice Biennale risks losing EU funding over planned Russia involvement

European Commission says it will suspend €2m grant if organisers of arts festival go ahead with proposals

The European Commission has warned it will cut funding for the Venice Biennale if organisers go ahead with plans to include Russia.

The commission reiterated that any breach of ethical standards by the art festival would be treated as a violation of contract, leading to suspension of the €2m (£1.7m) agreement.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Jack Osbourne names baby daughter Ozzy to honour late father

TV star announces birth of Ozzy Matilda Osbourne on social media, alongside image of cuddly bat

Jack Osbourne, the only son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, has honoured his late father by naming his baby daughter after him.

Jack, 40, announced the birth of Ozzy Matilda Osbourne on social media alongside his wife, Aree, whom he married in 2023. The newborn Ozzy was pictured lying next to a cuddly bat toy: another reference to his father, who famously bit the head off a real bat during a 1982 concert believing it was made of rubber.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:57 am

‘Kast is more like Trump’: Chile’s environmentalists prepare to do battle for the country’s future

Fears are growing that the new far-right president will slash environmental protections in favour of foreign investment

In Chile’s most northerly region, Arica y Parinacota, Andrea Chellew, 62, relies on tourists for her cafe. They usually travel from the coastal city of Arica to the unique biosphere of the Andean highlands, which rise well above 5,000 metres and host nature reserves and wetlands.

At 3,000 metres (9,800ft) above sea level, along Highway 11, she lives by the trade route that brings raw materials and goods between Bolivia and Chile. Yet the cafe remains empty as fewer tourists come, amid more reports of increased mining activity near environmentally protected areas, such as the Lauca national park.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

Quit fossil fuels to stem deadly floods in Brazil’s coffee heartland, say scientists

Global heating linked to rising risk of extreme rain that causes devastating landslides and rising coffee prices

The record floods that have brought death and destruction to the heartland of Brazil’s coffee industry are expected to intensify if people continue to burn fossil fuels, analysis has shown.

Dozens of residents in the state of Minas Gerais have been buried alive in landslides or swept away as roads turned into rivers over the past month. Thousands more have been forced to evacuate their homes, while the wider, longer-term effects are likely to include higher prices for coffee across the world.

Published: March 12, 2026, 3:01 am

Countries must seek energy independence through renewables and nuclear, says John Kerry

Former US secretary of state says oil shock driven by war in Iran highlights dangers of reliance on fossil fuels

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Countries must seek energy independence through renewable resources and nuclear energy for their national security, and to avoid the “choke points” of fossil fuel supply, the former US secretary of state John Kerry has warned.

The war in Iran has sent oil prices soaring, as refineries and fields have closed down in several Middle Eastern countries and many tankers are stranded in the strait of Hormuz, with economic impacts beginning to be felt around the world.

Published: March 11, 2026, 2:36 pm

‘Severe water stress’: why desalination plants are the Gulf’s greatest weakness

Recent attack on plants led to fears of escalating strikes, but Iran knows drought has left it equally vulnerable

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In 1983, the CIA determined that the most crucial commodity in the Gulf was its desalinated potable water.

Although the loss of a single plant could be handled, “successful attacks on several plants in the most dependent countries could generate a national crisis that could lead to panic flights from the country and civil unrest”. And the greatest threat to the region’s water supply? “Iran.”

Published: March 11, 2026, 12:01 pm

Man charged with threatening Trump and Democratic representative Swalwell

Diego Villavicencio also made violent threats against an unnamed individual, who appears to be Jerome Powell

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A Florida man was charged with making threats against Donald Trump, the Democratic representative Eric Swalwell and an unnamed individual who appeared to be Fed chair Jerome Powell.

A federal grand jury in the northern district of Florida returned a four-count indictment against Diego Villavicencio, who is accused of making violent threats against a member of Congress and the president of the United States. A lawyer for Villavicencio declined to comment.

Published: March 11, 2026, 11:20 pm

California billionaires up political action with multimillion-dollar donations

Google founder backs both Republican and Democrat in governor’s race while ex-CEO fights billionaire tax

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Tech billionaires are adding to their already huge spending spree on California politics as campaigns for governor and a proposed wealth tax heat up. According to recently released campaign finance disclosures, big names pouring millions into state politics include current and former chief executives from Google, DoorDash, Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook – evidence of Silicon Valley’s increasing involvement in politics.

Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt has become a major donor, contributing $1.04m to an independent committee, the California Business Roundtable, that is campaigning against the proposed Billionaire Tax Act, according to new filings released by the state government. The union-backed tax proposal, opposed by almost all of the state’s mega-rich, aims to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs.

Published: March 11, 2026, 10:05 pm

New satirical statue depicts Trump and Epstein as doomed lovers from Titanic

Latest sculpture titled ‘King of the World’ includes plaques with pointed commentary on pair’s past association

A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets. The appearance of a golden statue depicting Donald Trump and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as doomed lovers from the movie Titanic is confronting Washington with a murkier mystery.

The nearly 12ft sculpture, unveiled on Tuesday on the National Mall, is the third piece of guerrilla art satirising Trump’s past relationship with Epstein attributed to The Secret Handshake, a shadowy collective whose members remain anonymous.

Published: March 11, 2026, 7:40 pm

‘Devastating blow’: Atlassian lays off 1,600 workers ahead of AI push

Layoffs to affect 10% of workforce amid Australian company’s restructuring plan to push into artificial intelligence and enterprise sales

Software giant Atlassian has announced it is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 1,600 positions, and replacing its chief technology officer as it restructures to invest further in artificial intelligence.

More than 900 affected positions were involved in software research and development, a spokesperson said. Most of Atlassian’s employees work in software engineering and design, accounting for over 50% of its 13,813 full-time workforce in June 2025.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:22 am

Shell CEO’s pay jumps 60% despite slump in profits at oil company

Campaigners say people unlikely to ‘look favourably’ on package for Wael Sawan, which rose to £13.8m in 2025

The chief executive of Shell saw his pay jump more than 60% to almost £14m in 2025 despite a slump in profits at the oil company and prospects of rising pump prices related to war in the Middle East.

The package for Wael Sawan, who took the top job in 2023 and has refocused the company on fossil fuels, rose from £8.6m in 2024 to £13.8m in 2025.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:10 pm

Elon Musk’s Tesla given go-ahead to supply electricity in Great Britain

Ofgem licence means firm can replicate Texas setup of powering homes, businesses and EVs

Elon Musk’s Tesla has won approval to supply electricity to households and businesses across Great Britain, as the tech billionaire expands his energy ambitions.

The energy regulator, Ofgem, has formally granted Tesla an electricity supply licence, enabling it to provide electricity to domestic and business premises in England, Scotland and Wales.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:17 am

‘Light in this darkness’: communities push back against Cape Town gang culture

Volunteers are working to carve out safe spaces in townships with initiatives such as football training and dance classes

In 2015, Deniël de Bruyn moved almost 300 miles to Cape Town, to live with relatives and try to overcome a drug problem. Nine months later, he was dead, shot in what gangsters in the township of Wesbank claimed was a case of mistaken identity, according to De Bruyn’s cousin Lindy Jacobs.

The shooting was witnessed by Jacobs’s 12-year-old son Zunadin. “My son’s life was never, never ever the same again,” she said. In 2018, Jacobs said, gangsters tried to kill Zunadin. She went to the police. But just two months later her son was dead too. Jacobs is now raising her 12-year-old grandson Noah, whose father was another casualty of gang violence.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

Hungary’s Orbán claims Ukrainians ‘threatened’ his family as election campaign ramps up

Prime minister makes claim as accusations mount that he is using row with Ukraine for political gain in run-up to elections

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has accused Ukrainians of plotting to attack his family, as an increasingly bitter standoff between Kyiv and Budapest continues.

Orbán and his allies appear to be using the dispute for maximum political gain before the election due next month that could end the 16-year rule of his nationalist government.

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:33 am

‘Life is such a pain in the ass’: what Talk Easy host Sam Fragoso has learned in a decade of grilling celebs

The presenter of hit series Talk Easy has pioneered a style of candid chat that has seen the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Salman Rushdie squirming in their seats – so far only one guest has stormed out

Most episodes of Sam Fragoso’s interview podcast Talk Easy begin with a disarmingly simple question: “How are you doing today?” It primes his high-profile guests – Patti Smith, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salman Rushdie – to be met where they’re at, and sets the stage for what has, over the decade since it began, become a masterclass in interviewing, a singular property in a market so waterlogged that people commonly joke that microphones should be taxed.

Fragoso, 31, eschews the gimmicks and pally celebrity chat of many podcasts. With its crackly jazz theme and commitment to depth, Talk Easy oozes class; in 2020, Fragoso pressed a vinyl record of his interview with US writer Fran Lebowitz. Describing himself as where underground journalist Nardwuar (disarmingly well researched) meets NPR legend Terry Gross (sensitive, direct) meets late talkshow host Dick Cavett (intellectual, sophisticated), he is a freakishly intuitive listener. “The way you construct the narrative of my life is so true that it’s just a little startling,” actor Michelle Williams told him in 2023. In December, the Obamas signed Talk Easy to their production company.

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:00 am

‘It feels like flying!’ Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe on child stardom, passion and the heady rush of Romeo and Juliet

Fresh from Stranger Things and Hamnet, the pair are surprised to find themselves playing Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers in the West End. They talk chemistry, dating apps – and what they’ve taught director Robert Icke

Noah Jupe and Sadie Sink are comparing their CVs. “Noah has more Shakespeare experience than me, for sure,” says Sink. “Oh yes, I think so,” replies Jupe. “How many lines?” asks Sink. “Quite a few, actually,” he reports. “More than 10!”

If Jupe wanted to flex, he could say in all truth that he played Hamlet when he was only 19. That was two summers ago, when he stood on the stage in a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre and asked “To be or not to be?” in Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Hamnet.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Reminders of Him review – contrived Colleen Hoover romance has its charms

The third big screen adaptation of the BookTok-loved author’s novels is ludicrously plotted yet slickly made and easily consumed

Nearly two years on, it seems we’re still futilely chasing the high of summer 2024. Charli xcx’s hedonistic Brat-era mockumentary just flopped on the big screen. Espresso still plays at the grocery store but doesn’t hit the same. Kamala Harris is maybe considering a run for something. And the movie It Ends With Us, the glossy adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel that became a somewhat surprise late-summer blockbuster, refuses to die.

That film, directed by Justin Baldoni and starring Blake Lively, should have been a Hollywood success story: a deceptively sharp melodrama that proved that frankly sentimental, female-led, 90s-style studio fare could still draw audiences to cinemas, that schlocky BookTok material need not necessarily beget schlocky movies and that Lively could appeal to the Target demographic. Nevertheless, it cast a dark shadow. The legal mudslinging over Baldoni’s alleged sexual harassment on set has tainted primarily her reputation, and extinguished any box office glow. (Lively v Baldoni – her case, not his, as the latter was dismissed – will go to trial in May.) And then there’s the inevitable pipeline of follow-ups with near-guaranteed diminishing returns, the first of which, a dreadful grief/love quadrangle/YA mess called Regretting You, threatened to kill the buzz for CoHo adaptations entirely last October.

Published: March 11, 2026, 4:37 pm

Scarpetta review – this Nicole Kidman show is a dire mess … with an AI chatbot as a main character

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis – who exec produced this adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s novels – have terrific chemistry. But this trashy drama is just weird

Scarpetta has been a rather long time in the making. Demi Moore was attached to the role of Patricia Cornwell’s crack forensic pathologist in the 90s, as was Angelina Jolie in the 00s. In a recent interview, the author said she had even approached Jodie Foster and Helen Mirren along the way. Now it has finally come to our screens, thanks in part to Jamie Lee Curtis, who is both an executive producer and one of its stars, with Nicole Kidman in the title role, continuing her run as TV’s hardest-working A-lister. What a shame, then, after such a long wait, that it is so dire: a boilerplate mess that insists on stripping the original work for parts and putting a cynical techy spin on proceedings to boot.

There are – for no good reason, really – two timelines in the series. In the present, Kidman plays Virginia’s chief medical officer Kay Scarpetta – a little icy, professional but prone to overstepping, haunted by secrets from the past. She is called to a crime scene where a woman’s naked body – sans hands – has been bound together with rope. We flash back to the 90s, where young Scarpetta (Rosy McEwen) is on the trail of a similar killer, who leaves a strange, glittery residue on his victims. Initially, at least, it seems as though this could be an interesting proposition, despite all the to-ing and fro-ing between past and present, which wasn’t part of Cornwell’s original novel. The idea that Scarpetta and her colleague and brother-in-law Pete Marino (played by Bobby Cannavale) may have got the wrong man in the 90s – when DNA evidence was still in its infancy – could have been the basis for a smart whodunnit. Instead, we get a sluggish procedural that barely bothers to build tension. Moments of gore come out of left field; major revelations in the case come to Scarpetta as sudden, deus ex machina revelations; and the dead women are mere plot fodder in a way that feels positively retro and grubby. The tone is strange – sometimes it’s The Silence of the Lambs, sometimes Diagnosis: Murder.

Published: March 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere review – why doesn’t he focus more on the impact on women?

It’s refreshing to see him dial down the ignorant-ingenue approach and go harder than usual. But there is too little examination of how online misogyny affects those who didn’t choose to be part of it

He’s a bit late to the party, is the first thought that crosses your mind when faced with the prospect of 90 minutes of Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere. I’ve lost count of the number of documentaries there have been on either specific leading lights in the lucrative online misogyny business, such as Andrew Tate, or the general phenomenon (the latter most recently by James Blake with Men of the Manosphere).

Still, can a subject really be said to have been “done” until we have seen what Louis T makes of it? Evidently not, so here he is, repeating his shtick as he covers ground that other less high-profile documentarians have done before him. To be fair, he approaches his interviewees with a slightly harder, less ignorant-ingenue vibe than usual. This is pleasing on many levels. I find the latter quite an effortful pose and increasingly hard to endure, and he rightly intuits that the full version wouldn’t fly here. It’s also simply getting old. We know he is an intelligent man who lives in this world – the silent supposed bafflement and dependence on giving people enough rope to hang themselves, which are such a large part of his arsenal, look like increasingly feeble weapons when the matters are of such increasing importance in all of our lives.

Published: March 11, 2026, 12:01 am

The Black Crowes: A Pound of Feathers review | Stevie Chick's album of the week

(Silver Arrow)
​With Keef-style riffs and full-blooded commitment to the bit, resurgent brothers Chris and Rich Robinson​ resurrect​ the rocker lifestyle of eras past

Time is not linear for Chris and Rich Robinson. When their group the Black Crowes first surfaced in the late 80s, music was deep into one of its magical transitional eras, technological advances sling-shotting pop into unexpected futures as techno, hip-hop and acid house left rock’n’roll looking like a period piece. The Robinsons clearly hadn’t received the memo, arriving in a blaze of paisley and patchouli with an inspired Otis Redding cover that dragged its 60s Stax strut all the way into the early 70s, redressing it in bell-bottomed denim and Sticky Fingers swagger.

Almost 40 years later, little has changed within the Crowes’ hermetically sealed hotbox. There have been calamitous splits, amicable hiatuses and radical lineup rejigs, to the point where the brothers are the only founding Crowes left. Yet they remain proud exiles from Main Street, and from the 21st century. It makes their 10th album an irresistible pleasure. In this grimmest of moments, with war and genocide and maniacs at the wheel across the globe, who could blame anyone for escaping into the simpler world conjured here, governed by Keef-worthy riffs, infallible slip-slide grooves and the kind of rock’n’roll misadventure that’s always been rejuvenated in the Crowes’ hands?

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘Uncool rules’: the lo-fi pop pranksters reviving the Dutch answer to dada

Cheeky and rebellious, the Netherlands’ own brand of ‘ludiek’ zaniness thrived in the 1960s protest era. Now, the New Dutch Naivety movement is bringing it back with songs about chocolate, good transport and no-smoking policies

Imagine a song about the noisy centre of Amsterdam turning magically into chocolate, prompting children to go wild and eat it. The edifice then melts away, once you get the train from Amsterdam Lelylaan to Haarlemmermeer. This is the story of Amsterdam is opeens van chocolade (“Amsterdam is suddenly chocolate”), a song written by the young alt-pop musician, Thor Kissing. It is an example of a cheeky and rebellious aspect of 20th-century Dutch popular culture, ludiek (“playfulness”), which may be on the rise again.

Kissing is a central figure in a new project that tries to capture what ludiek music means in the 21st century: two compilation albums called Nieuwe Nederlandse Naïviteit (“New Dutch Naivety”), promoting a disparate bunch of contemporary alternative Dutch-language pop artists. In October 2024, the first volume was launched in a spartan youth centre in an out-of-the-way Zaandam suburb. Volume two is set for release this March, in “hip” Amsterdam.

Published: March 12, 2026, 7:00 am

How gen Z women are conquering country music: ‘Fans are speaking louder than gatekeepers’

This month, Ella Langley and Megan Moroney became the first pair of women in country music to top both the US albums and singles charts

Country radio still has a gender parity problem. That hasn’t stopped Ella Langley and Megan Moroney from achieving historic success. Last week, Langley and Moroney became the first two women in country music ever to top the all-genre Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts simultaneously. Langley’s Choosin’ Texas unseated Taylor Swift’s Opalite to claim its second non-consecutive week atop the singles chart, while Moroney’s album Cloud 9 reached number one thanks to Target exclusive physical editions and strong streaming numbers.

“These aren’t flukes or one-off viral hits,” said Leslie Fram, co-founder and CEO of FEMco, a Nashville-based consulting collective. “Megan Moroney built her base through relentless touring and social buzz. Ella Langley’s incredible song has real staying power and even non-country crossover appeal.

Published: March 11, 2026, 9:04 am

‘My family was threatened multiple times’: Arab-American rockers Prostitute on confronting an Islamophobic US

The Michigan band satirically adopt Muslim stereotypes in their songs, pushing back against post-9/11 hate. As their incendiary debut is reissued, they explain their ‘evil’ music

‘I’m the motherfucker who took down the towers,” screams Prostitute’s Moe Kazra on All Hail, opening their nightmarish, theatrical debut album Attempted Martyr. Over crushing fusions of industrial punk with elements of Middle Eastern, African and east Asian music, the band explores the vilification of Arabs in a post-9/11 US by inhabiting vicious characterisations – ones levelled at their Arab-majority community in Dearborn, Michigan. “A lot of Arabs in the area are coming to us and being like ‘that was very potent’, or ‘that was beautiful’. I didn’t really expect that,” says Kazra, who is Lebanese American. “The music is evil.”

The album’s lyric sheet, written by Kazra and drummer Andrew Kaster who join me on a call, is a flurry of violent fantasies, paranoid ramblings and literary references ranging from The Arabian Nights to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Written when they formed in 2020 but only self-released in late 2024, it became a sleeper hit with punk fans. Now signed to Mute, which will reissue the record this week, they are among the most exciting, unorthodox breakthroughs in recent American rock.

Published: March 11, 2026, 10:49 am

In Bloom by Liz Allan review – an electric debut of grunge and teen spirit

Four fatherless girls in a band set out to escape their deprived Australian coastal town, in a dark, raw tale of friendship and abuse

Liz Allan’s powerful debut novel smells unmistakably like teen spirit. Plunging the reader into the cauldron of suburban malaise that is an Australian seaside resort in 1994, it is narrated collectively by the Bastards, a band of 14-year-old riot grrrls bringing Kurt Cobain’s gospel to their dead-end backwater – in their own eyes, at least. To their schoolmates, they are three fatherless losers, tainted by poverty.

But the Bastards don’t care; they’ve got a ticket out of Vincent, “capital of teen pregnancies and absent fathers”. For nine months, their beloved music teacher, Mr P, has been rehearsing them for the Battle of the Bands, a long drive away in the city of Geelong. Admittedly, they suffered a body blow when their lead singer, Lily Lucid, quit a year ago. But Mr P still believes in them.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:50 pm

Why Populists Are Winning and How to Beat Them by Liam Byrne review – a surprisingly original prescription

A former New Labour minister tackles the question of our times with rigour and verve – but blindspots remain

At first glance, the former New Labour minister Liam Byrne is not the ideal person to explain the rise of rightwing populism in Britain and beyond, and how it might be stopped. At the end of Gordon Brown’s government in 2010, Byrne infamously wrote a one-line letter to whoever would succeed him as chief secretary to the Treasury: “I’m afraid there is no money.” Both friendly advice and an inside joke, these words were used for years by the Tories and Lib Dems to justify their austerity policies – and were arguably one of the causes of the modern disillusionment with conventional politicians. This loss of faith, and the damage to society and public services from austerity, have fuelled populism ever since.

Byrne’s short but ambitious book is, in a sense, his attempt to make amends. Yet some of the arguments and evidence he presents, in quick, confident sentences which fit his past reputation as a clever but impatient minister, are unlikely to persuade many people that he is thinking afresh. He often cites and echoes centrist authorities such as the Tony Blair Institute and Keir Starmer’s former advisers Claire Ainsley and Deborah Mattinson, who have all long said that the way to defeat populism is to respect its supporters, however rightwing. Given that Reform UK has surged ahead in the polls, while Labour is regarded by most populist voters with contempt, this deference seems a dead end.

Published: March 12, 2026, 7:00 am

Do Not Go Gentle by Kathleen Stock review – the case against euthanasia

The philosopher offers a measured and reasonable argument against assisted dying

In this admirably clear and cogent book, the philosopher Kathleen Stock sets out the case against state-sanctioned assisted dying. Her immediate objection is to the end of life bill currently before the House of Lords, but her opposition extends to the principle in general. This is a polemic, but a polite one. Stock says she hopes that by the end of it we will share her objection to the ‘‘institutionalisation of death”.

It is not a popular place to start. Polls over the past few years consistently show that around three-quarters of Britons are in favour of assisted dying for terminally ill people. But Stock has never been afraid of swimming upstream. In 2021, she resigned from the University of Sussex following protests by some staff and students over her views, set out in the book Material Girls, that sex is binary and immutable and that this, rather than gender identity, should be the basis of laws to protect women.

Published: March 11, 2026, 9:00 am

Ron Howard, Emma Rice, Neil Tennant and more on Liza Minnelli: ‘She holidayed in my Cornish bungalow’

The showbiz legend has spent her whole life in the spotlight. As she turns 80, her friends and collaborators share their stories from Hollywood singalongs to acid house raves

I first met Liza in 1963 when I was playing Eddie in a movie called The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. I was seven years old and I got this choice role, which was directed by the great Vincent Minnelli. There were no other kids on this movie, so I had a welfare worker who was also the studio teacher, and I was alone in my little second-grade classroom. But one day, Vincent introduced me to his daughter, who he said was just going to hang around.

Published: March 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Marathon is a stylishly merciless video game built for cut-throat times

A lot is riding on the success of the latest multiplayer online shooter from Halo creator Bungie, a DayGlo spectacular that whisks players to a far-off planet mired in an endless battle for resources

In rare quiet moments playing Marathon, you may find yourself overcome by the iridiscently pretty planet Tau Ceti IV. This fictional world seems to radiate a chemical glow: powdery pink skies and lurid green vegetation fill the screen alongside supermassive architecture emblazoned with ultra-stylish, neon graphic design. Yet enjoy the scenery for a split second too long and you might catch a bullet, causing your character to bleed an icky blue substance. In such moments, the camera locks – meaning you must stare down at their unceremonious expiry. Marathon’s considerable beauty is matched only by its clinical brutality.

The road to Marathon’s release has been long and contentious. This extraction shooter – so-called because you must do as much shooting and looting as you can in a given level before making an escape – was first shown off in 2022 with a ravishing trailer (below). Among many startling images, it showed tiny robotic bugs, a little like silkworms, weaving a synthetic body into existence. The game, made by Halo and Destiny creator Bungie, looked weird in a way that blockbuster shooters rarely do, causing excitable stirrings among both shooter stalwarts and art-game aficionados.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

With its fluorescent characters and ASCII text, Marathon is a masterclass in 90s nostalgia

The revival of this 90s favourite is a retro-futuristic fever dream that is first incomprehensible, then thrillingly evocative. Plus, Donald Glover’s Yoshi debut

Back in the mid-1990s, when I was a staff writer for Edge magazine, Marathon was our multiplayer shooter of choice. We all worked on Apple Macs, not PCs, so Bungie’s sci-fi opus was one of the only networked shooters we could all play together. At the end of every day, staff from magazines around the company loaded it up and played for hours (usually with Chemical Brothers or Orbital blasting from the stereo). This was the era in which video games discovered club culture – Sony employed the legendary Sheffield studio the Designers Republic to create its box art and licensed the latest dance tunes for its marketing and game soundtracks. Western developers swooned over cyberpunk anime, newly available thanks to video distributors such as Viz Media and Manga Entertainment, and the internet was emerging as a weird, wild global meeting place. It felt, for a while, as if we were living in a William Gibson novel.

I’m reminded of these things while playing the new version of Marathon, released this week by Bungie and heavily inspired by 1990s futurism. It’s now an online sci-fi extraction shooter in which players beam down to the planet Tau Ceti IV to scavenge for loot, carry out missions and potentially blast each other in the process. Its closest rival is Arc Raiders, which makes a similar use of stylised retro-futurism. In a recent Twitter exchange, Bungie’s global franchise director, Philip Asher, namechecked Sony’s Wipeout game, its Mental Wealth ads for PlayStation and its translucent Dual Shock controllers as inspirations.

Published: March 11, 2026, 3:00 pm

‘People will actually fall asleep’: how Claudia Winkleman faces the biggest week of her TV career

The Traitors host has repeatedly joked that she’ll be ‘awful’ at presenting her new chatshow. But its launch is the highest profile thing she’s ever done – and it’s about to happen

‘They’ve given me a talkshow,” says Claudia Winkleman in the trailer. “Agreed, an error. It might be excruciating.” Such wry self-deprecation continued in the official announcement. “I’m obviously going to be awful,” she said. “That goes without saying but I’m over the moon the BBC are letting me try.”

On Friday the 13th – lucky for viewers? – the 54-year-old hosts the inaugural edition of her eponymous chatshow. The Claudia Winkleman Show’s title might not be the most exciting, but it’s a quietly revolutionary TV moment. It also makes this arguably the biggest week of the presenters’s career. No pressure.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:46 pm

Naples museum to allow visually impaired visitors to experience art through touch

Sansevero Chapel Museum will host day of guided tours where visitors will be able to feel marble sculptures

The Sansevero Chapel Museum in Naples will allow dozens of visually impaired visitors to take part in a rare tactile experience, letting them touch celebrated works of art including the Veiled Christ, which is widely regarded as one of the most striking masterpieces in the history of sculpture.

On 17 March, the museum will host an initiative called La meraviglia a portata di mano – Wonder within reach – organised in partnership with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired of Naples, offering about 80 blind and partially sighted visitors a chance to encounter the marble masterpieces.

Published: March 12, 2026, 1:26 pm

Bruce Springsteen, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp to appear on all-star Shane MacGowan tribute album

Irish artists, British indie legends and US stars such as Tom Waits also contribute, with Springsteen writing essay about the ‘bottomless humanity’ of the late Pogues frontman

Bruce Springsteen has written an essay celebrating the “flashing, alive and historically rich” songwriting of the late Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, as an all-star covers album is announced featuring Springsteen, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp and others.

Springsteen’s cover of A Rainy Night in Soho is out now, the first song to be released from 20th Century Paddy: The Songs of Shane MacGowan, which is out 13 November.

Many, unsurprisingly, led difficult lives not easily bound by the shackles of convention. They were natural rebels unable to stifle or heed the impulses that led them to their glory and personal hardships. Great art is by nature lawless. We do not get to choose our obsessions. We do not get to dictate our blessings or our transgressions. It’s a little joke the gods play on us. Shane’s voice was so deeply real, profane and honest, his writing so flashing, alive and historically rich its genesis appeared as a mystery to all including, I believe, its creator. The dangerous joy, the glee and courage, the humour in the face of fate, the wild ramble of a life driven towards the artistic heavens and the daily balm of self-obliteration. Shane was all naked bottomless humanity. Threatening to force us to ask ourselves if we were living deeply, authentically. He was raw, hilarious, no apologies and profound. His soul was filled with the transgressive and ecstatic properties of the saints. I don’t know who’ll be listening to my music in 100 years but I know they’ll be listening to Shane’s.

Published: March 12, 2026, 6:00 am

Billie Eilish set for big screen acting debut in Sarah Polley’s adaptation of The Bell Jar

Grammy-winning singer is in advanced talks to lead an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s novel for Oscar-winning writer-director

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Billie Eilish is set to make her big screen acting debut in an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar.

According to Deadline, the 24-year-old will take on the lead role for Sarah Polley, the writer-director who previously won an Oscar for her Women Talking screenplay. Eilish is reportedly in advanced talks for the part.

Published: March 11, 2026, 6:29 pm

‘Highly problematic behavior’: Noma residency in LA starts with PR crisis

After stories of René Redzepi’s abuse of staff resurfaced, protests and sponsorship cancellations eclipsed the restaurant’s pop-up

It was always going to be an indulgence for René Redzepi, the Danish-Albanian chef of Noma fame, to bring his exacting, innovative vision of haute cuisine to Los Angeles and spend several weeks tickling the palates of well-heeled diners at a hilltop estate once dubbed “the most beautiful home in Hollywood”.

The timing has certainly been unfortunate, since the US is now fighting a destabilizing war in the Middle East and food prices are climbing so steeply that many ordinary Americans can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s, much less contemplate the counterintuitive delights of tacinga cactus, bougainvillea petals, mealworms and giant tuna eyes.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:23 am

Life with my autistic sons: ‘How do you explain all the worries, the sleepless nights?’

When James Hunt began posting about his boys online, it was a way to describe the emotions and experiences of their extraordinary lives. In sharing his family’s joy and struggles, he realised they weren’t alone

My conversation with James Hunt begins the usual way: an exchange of hellos, followed by the most mundane of questions. “How are you?” I ask.

Although he responds predictably – “I’m all right … I’m good” – we both know that underneath this answer lurks a whole world of experience, and the plain fact that some people’s everyday lives are lived in extraordinary circumstances.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Dress for who you are’: how to start finding your personal style

Experts share tips on dressing as the most authentic version of yourself and avoiding the draw of the latest microtrends

How would you define your personal style? Is it cottagecore? Tomato girl? Whimsigoth? Quiet luxury? Maybe you don’t know what these terms mean (congratulations) and maybe you do (my condolences).

Like unwelcome nose hairs, new microtrends seem to sprout from the depths of social media every other week. In some ways, their pervasiveness has made style seem more accessible than ever. They reduce aesthetics to mathematical equations that you can solve by buying up a bunch of fast fashion. By the time these cheap, mass-produced items dissolve into microplastics – which they will, quickly – other aesthetic trends will have replaced them.

Published: March 11, 2026, 4:00 pm

At 56, I woke to silence: the strange, sudden loss that changed everything

Since the US has no federal mandate for hearing aid coverage, I found myself in a quandary – I couldn’t communicate with the hearing or the deaf

At the end of my second American Sign Language (ASL) class, during which I had fingerspelled my name Deborah as “F-E-B-O-R-A-H”, I thought it prudent to type a question into my Notes app rather than trying to fingerspell it. “How do I sign, ‘I’m hearing impaired?’” I wrote, showing the typed sentence to my teacher, Courtney Rodriguez. Then I pointed to one of my hearing aids.

Sixty percent of ASL, Courtney had just taught us, consists of non-manual markers, meaning most of the communication in ASL comes from facial expressions. Puffed cheeks, for example, indicates something big. Pursed lips means small. From the puffed cheeks and pained look on my deaf teacher’s face, I could sense I had hit a big nerve.

Published: March 11, 2026, 12:00 pm

My mother’s best advice: learn to raise one eyebrow at the world

It took almost a year of practice and then I was too embarrassed to show off my talent. But finally, during a stage performance, I elevated a solitary brow and the crowd went wild

When I was about 10, my mother mentioned something to me about the advantage of being able to raise one eyebrow. I can’t remember quite how she put it – I think she described it as an actor’s trick, a useful skill for conveying inner thoughts.

We both spent a couple of minutes trying to lift one eyebrow without the other following it. Neither of us could manage it. It was harder than Mr Spock made it look, and possibly not so much an acting skill as a genetic predisposition, like being able to roll your tongue.

Published: March 11, 2026, 5:00 am

Jess Cartner Morley on fashion: rugby shirts are key to athleisure’s preppy new makeover

No longer under the tyranny of compression fit leggings, today’s athleisure is something looser, with a wink of nostalgia

Athleisure is not to be confused with serious fitness wear. No one is running a marathon or playing a game of football in the shoes pictured above. Notice how, in a made-up noun that is a compound of athletics and leisure, the first has been shrunk to three letters. The only personal best that concerns you here is having an optimal Saturday morning.

Athleisure is fashion, not kit, so it moves with the times just as much as it moves with you. And it looks very different now than a few years ago, when every outfit was anchored by snazzy leggings. Tight legging sets with dazzling graphics were the parade uniform of the imperial age of Lycra. Under the cheerful tyranny of compression fit, starburst-pattern leggings with matching sports bras ruled the roost. These were outfits designed to be watched in a mirror with a rousing soundtrack: perky and sculpting, lingerie-like in their obsession with matching two-piece sets and with bottoms.

Published: March 11, 2026, 2:00 pm

My mother’s best advice: always play it by ear

In her wisdom, Mum taught me to roll with the punches, and reassured me that she’d always be there – even when I staggered in much the worse for wear

What my mum taught me best is her expression: “Let’s play it by ear.” That might sound like an excuse for disorganisation and procrastination, but what she’s really saying at the end of every phone call is: “Life happens, plans change, and we’re always here for you – whatever time you decide to roll up.”

That’s her to a T – putting everyone else first. Even now, at 50, if I go out for a drink or to a gig with my brother and crash at my parents’ place, Mum will still stay up to be sure I’ve made it home safe.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘I took two bites and had to spit it out’: candy makers are phasing out real cocoa in chocolate

Due to the volatile cocoa market, companies like Hershey are using replacement ingredients such as sugar, oil, milk and nuts

Just before Valentine’s Day, Brad Reese bought a bag of Reese’s Unwrapped Peanut Butter Creme Mini Hearts from his local convenience store in West Palm Beach, Florida. It was a brand-new product, released especially for the holiday, tagline: “We’ll never break your heart.”

Reese is a Reese’s aficionado who makes a point of trying everything the company produces. This isn’t a coincidence: he’s one of the Reeses, a grandson of HB Reese, the former Hershey dairy farmer who invented the peanut butter cup in 1928. Although he’s never worked for Reese’s or Hershey, which acquired the peanut butter cup company in 1963, Reese considers himself a custodian of HB’s legacy. He also takes an avid interest in the Hershey company and its leadership.

Published: March 11, 2026, 3:00 pm

Promotion burnout: why women are quitting the race to be boss

In a survey of 1,000 professional women, more than half said they felt less motivated to progress in their jobs than they did two years ago

Name: Promotion burnout.

Appearance: Disturbingly feminine.

Published: March 11, 2026, 3:49 pm

A moment that changed me: I was planning to be a musician – then I had my ears syringed

Until that point, all my life’s dreams revolved around becoming a saxophonist. But with sudden and significant hearing loss, I had to face up to a new reality

The first sign that something was wrong was a static noise that emerged suddenly in my left ear. It was 2008 and a doctor had just syringed my ears, washing out the antibiotic drops she had prescribed a week earlier, and which had rendered my world temporarily muffled. I was so relieved the drops were out that I didn’t question the strange new noise. I simply thanked her and left.

As I lay on my pillow that night, trying to ignore the new whooshing sound in my ear, a puzzling crunching noise caught my attention. My brain tried to unscramble the disturbance until, confused and now wide awake, I lifted my head up, only to realise it was our grandfather clock, chiming away the hour. My left ear, I realised, was no longer hearing sounds as they really were.

Published: March 11, 2026, 6:45 am

Peak interest: Toronto’s snow mountains that refuse to melt are a toxic hazard

Reaching up to 100ft, these massive piles contain tonnes of salt that keep roads clear – but pose environmental risks

Most mountains take tens of millions of years to form. Toronto’s newest mountain took just days.

Towering atop the crowns of evergreens, it has no skeleton of limestone or granite. There are no spires, cornices or headwalls. It is simply piles upon piles of snow, mixed with a toxic cocktail of road salt, antifreeze, oil, coffee cups and lost keys. It is the final resting place for the forces of nature that have battered the city in recent weeks – and a daunting environmental hazard.

Published: March 11, 2026, 11:00 am

The California town that lost its mayor to gun suicide

For nearly three decades, Jim West transformed San Juan Bautista. After his shocking gun suicide, a local behavioral health agency dove in to help a community in mourning

Any other night, the small California town of San Juan Bautista is shrouded in darkness, lit only by scattered streetlights and the dim glow of a few saloons. But on the first Saturday of December, a parade lights it up. Dozens of cars wrapped in Christmas lights roll through streets that look as if they were pulled from an old western. Since its inception in the 2000s, the parade has become a tradition in this village in the foothills of the Gabilan range, just 100 miles (160km) south of San Francisco.

Anthony Botelho, a county supervisor, had never missed one. In 2018, exhausted from a trip from Arizona, he meant to stay home, until his longtime friend Jim West, the town’s mayor, convinced him otherwise.

Published: March 11, 2026, 3:00 pm

José Antonio Kast, the Pinochet fan about to swerve Chile to the far right

The new president won office by promising to clean up crime, but his background is red rag to a bull for many

Just south of Santiago, the tiny rural town of Paine is a quiet grid of painted adobe facades, shaded squares and shuttered shop fronts as the summer holidays draw to a close.

But the white-knuckle fear of crime that propelled its most famous son, José Antonio Kast, to a resounding victory in December’s presidential election is as present in sleepy Paine as it is the length of Chile.

Published: March 11, 2026, 8:00 am

An earthquake anniversary and a Renaissance exhibition: photos of the day – Wednesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Published: March 11, 2026, 1:58 pm