‘I’m not a commercial director – I’m not even a professional film-maker’: Jim Jarmusch on the seven-year journey to make his new film

The 73-year-old has been at the cutting edge of US independent cinema since the 1980s. As Father Mother Sister Brother opens in the UK, he talks about grief, greed and ‘doing crazy shit’ with Steve Coogan

In 1991, Jim Jarmusch was casting for his anthology film Night on Earth. The premise was simple: five taxi drivers in five cities pick up passengers, set to a soundtrack by Tom Waits. The writer-director wanted Gena Rowlands to play a passenger, but she took some persuading. “Night on Earth was the first film she’d made since losing John [the director John Cassavetes, her husband] and she wasn’t sure. Eventually she said: ‘OK, I’ll be in this film for you.’” Jarmusch does a perfect impression of Rowlands, as he does with everyone he quotes – it’s quite a talent.

In the first vignette, Winona Ryder picks up Rowlands, who plays a casting director. Ryder, chewing gum, baseball cap on backwards, lights a cigarette; Rowlands, all old-school Hollywood elegance, sits in the back, asking Ryder about her hopes and dreams. Ryder turns down Rowlands’ offer of potential stardom, declaring that her dream is not to act, but to be a mechanic.

Published: April 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair review – the TV magic they’ve created here is absolutely miraculous

This revival does the impossible: it’s effortlessly funny and refreshing, and Bryan Cranston’s performance is unmissable. They have to make more

At this point, Bryan Cranston is firmly entrenched as one of the world’s finest actors. He has seven Emmys, two Tonys and a Golden Globe to his name. History, quite rightly, will remember him as one of the greats. That said – and this really wasn’t a sentence I expected to write a couple of hours ago – there is a distinct possibility that the greatest work of his entire career might be the scene in the Malcolm in the Middle revival where he thrashes around naked as he is overcome by a drug-induced ego death.

Perhaps this does make some small amount of sense. Although Malcolm in the Middle became best known as an absurd counterpoint to Breaking Bad – the sheer dramatic intensity of the latter playing against the generic sitcom daddery of the former – those of us who always loved the show knew that Cranston spent a lot of it going full throttle.

Published: April 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Experience: my house was taken over by 70,000 bees

My daughter complained of monsters in her closet – at night she could hear a hum in the wall

It started in September 2023, when my daughter Saylor was three years old. She began having trouble sleeping, and said there were monsters in her closet. She could hear a hum in the wall. We thought it was because she loved the movie Monsters, Inc, given it’s about monsters who visit children’s bedrooms at night. We calmed her down by giving her a bottle of water, which we called monster spray.

But soon she was scared again. By February, she was back in our room. Later that month, I saw a giant cluster of bees buzzing by the attic laundry vent outside the house. I was pregnant with our third child, exhausted, and thought I was hallucinating.

Published: April 10, 2026, 4:00 am

How to defeat Trump every time | Robert Reich

Iran, Minneapolis, Harvard and other Trump opponents have employed a similar strategy

An hour before Trump said he’d cause the death of a “whole civilization” if Iran didn’t open the strait of Hormuz, an Iranian official said the shipping channel would be reopened for two weeks if the United States stopped bombing Iran. The US has now stopped bombing Iran.

So we’re back to the status quo before Trump began his war. Only now, Iran can credibly threaten to close the strait if it doesn’t get what it wants from Trump – thereby causing havoc to the US and world economies. Trump’s only remaining bargaining chip is his threat of committing war crimes.

Published: April 9, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘They’re gonna make me cry’: I competed at a speed puzzling championship

You might think of puzzling as leisurely, but it’s now a sport. I entered a national competition and discovered a passionate community

A PhD student in Berkeley. A 12-year-old in Texas. A content creator in Washington. An undergrad at Stanford. A former math teacher turned homeschool mom in Texas. After a three-day competition in Atlanta, Georgia, these people became national champions for a burgeoning hobby: speed jigsaw puzzling.

I have been a lifelong jigsaw puzzle lover. But in recent years, I have observed the quintessential way to slowly pass time transform into a competitive sport. So I traveled to the USA Jigsaw Nationals to test my skill against the best puzzlers in the country.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

Melania says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?

The first lady unleashed a barrage of denials – and put one of her husband’s biggest political liabilities back on the agenda

• US politics – live updates

• Video: Melania Trump says she ‘never’ had relationship with Epstein

When Donald Trump launched a seemingly random war against Iran, there was a whiff of suspicion of a Wag the Dog ploy to divert attention from how badly the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was going.

So when Trump’s wife Melania made a mysterious appearance at the White House on Thursday to put Epstein front and centre again, was it an elaborate ruse to divert attention from how badly the Iran war is going?

Published: April 9, 2026, 10:17 pm

Middle East crisis live: Trump casts doubt on Iran war ceasefire over continued closure of strait of Hormuz

Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade strikes as Trump tells US media he has asked Netanyahu to be more ‘low-key’ in Lebanon. Follow live news

• Netanyahu says there is no ceasefire in Lebanon as Israel launches fresh strikes

The streets of Islamabad are on strict lockdown as Pakistan’s capital prepares to play host to historic negotiations between Iran and the US that have dangled the promise of an end to war that has devastated the Middle East.

Even as the US-Iran ceasefire looked increasingly precarious, amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon and disputes over the terms of the talks, Pakistani officials insist that the make-or-break peace negotiations will be going ahead over the weekend as planned

Published: April 10, 2026, 5:54 am

‘Mental breakdown’: oil tanker workers stuck in Gulf for six weeks are reaching their limit

Seafarer tells of ‘impossible’ situation, with strait still so unsafe that crew would not cross even if told to sail

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

‘You can try to minimise the impact that this situation has on your mental health but it’s becoming impossible.” After six weeks stranded in the Gulf, one of the 20,000 seafarers trapped by Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz is reaching their limit.

Yet with the fragile Middle East ceasefire already fraying, the oil tanker worker – who first spoke to the Guardian a month ago – said any hope they may soon be free to leave had already evaporated, if it ever felt real at all.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:16 pm

Did Israel attack Lebanon to spoil Iran war ceasefire?

Israel claims attacks on densely populated residential areas that killed more than 200 people were aimed at Hezbollah

• Middle East crisis – live updates

What was the point of Israel’s surprise mass strikes on Lebanon that killed more than 300 people and drew widespread international condemnation?

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have claimed the largest strike against Hezbollah during the month-long war against Iran was carefully aimed at members of the armed group, but the attacks appeared to be as much a piece of violent spectacle to benefit Netanyahu as militarily useful.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:27 pm

Melania Trump says she did not have relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

First lady calls on Congress to hold hearing with survivors of late financier’s abuse in statement delivered at White House

• US politics – live updates

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Melania Trump, the first lady, told reporters on Thursday that she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

It was unclear which specific accusations spurred the first lady to respond publicly. She delivered her scripted remarks at a podium in the same room Donald Trump used to address the nation on the war in Iran last week.

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:37 pm

US defense official overseeing AI reaped millions selling xAI stock after Pentagon entered agreement with company

Expert said federal law bars officials from taking actions in their jobs that benefit their own financial interests

A high-profile US defense department official who oversees the agency’s artificial intelligence efforts made a profit of up to $24m selling a private investment he held in Elon Musk’s AI company earlier this year, according to government ethics records released this month. The value of his stake totaled a maximum of a million dollars when he joined the department.

Emil Michael, who is the Pentagon’s under secretary for research and engineering under the Trump administration, oversees negotiations with AI companies and has been pushing the defense department to rapidly increase the widespread use of AI.

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:35 pm

Xi tells Taiwan opposition leader people on both sides of strait are Chinese in rare meeting

Cheng Li-wun’s visit to Beijing has sparked controversy in Taiwan, with critics accusing her of being too close to China

In a rare meeting with Taiwan’s opposition leader, China’s leader Xi Jinping declared people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and want peace.

Friday’s meeting in Beijing between Xi and Cheng Li-wun, the chair of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT), is the first such contact in a decade. The visit has sparked controversy in Taiwan, with Cheng’s critics accusing her of being too close to China, a country that many in Taiwan see as a threat.

Published: April 10, 2026, 5:06 am

‘We can’t lose’: all eyes on potential 2028 Democratic contenders at big party gathering for this year’s midterms

Leading party figures gather at the National Action Network convention in New York to strategize for midterm elections

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Some of the Democratic party’s most prominent figures – and possible 2028 presidential contenders – descended on New York City this week for the annual National Action Network (NAN) convention hosted by the Rev Al Sharpton, where discussions centered around the upcoming midterms, affordability, the war in Iran and the future of the Democratic party.

“Now more than ever, it’s on all of us to stand up for the future of our country, doing some public service – at a minimum, everybody has to go vote in this coming election,” the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, told the crowd on Thursday.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:02 pm

Cuban president tells NBC he won’t resign under US pressure, as Russia backs old ally

In his first television interview with an American broadcaster, Miguel Diaz-Canel says revolutionaries don’t give up and step down

The Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, said he would not resign under US pressure in his first television interview with an American broadcaster, while Russia insisted it would never abandon or betray its ally.

Diaz-Canel told NBC News on Thursday: “We have a free sovereign state, a free state. We have self-determination and independence, and we are not subjected to the designs of the United States.

Published: April 10, 2026, 2:47 am

Artemis II crew hails ‘golden age of space travel’ as they prepare for return

Crew fielded questions of trip with ‘limitless potential’ from members of the Congress ahead of splashdown

With the crew of Artemis II set to return to Earth on Friday following its historic 10-day lunar flyby mission, the astronauts celebrated their lunar expedition and hailed the “golden age of space travel”, saying they hoped the historic mission would inspire the next generation.

Speaking from on board the Artemis II on Thursday evening, the crew fielded questions from members of Congress as they prepared for their return to Earth.

Published: April 10, 2026, 1:59 am

Smithsonian museum director to move to Guggenheim: ‘a moment of change’

Melissa Chiu, 54, director of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, led the institution for 12 years

A museum director at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has announced that she is leaving to take over at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Melissa Chiu has been director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall for 12 years. In an interview on Thursday, she insisted that her departure is not related to Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere with the Smithsonian.

Published: April 10, 2026, 12:12 am

Afrika Bambaataa, hip-hop pioneer, dies aged 67

The Bronx born rapper and DJ helped introduce hip-hop to the mainstream and was also accused of child sexual abuse

The American rapper and DJ Afrika Bambaataa has died aged 67. The musician died in Philadelphia at around 3am local time due to complications from cancer, TMZ reported.

The Hip-Hop Alliance, a group headed by musician Kurtis Blow, wrote: “Today, we acknowledge the transition of a foundational architect of hip-hop culture, Afrika Bambaataa. As the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, Afrika Bambaataa helped shape the early identity of hip-hop as a global movement rooted in peace, unity, love, and having fun.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:27 pm

California files felony charges against 21 people in alleged $267m hospice fraud scheme

Suspects allegedly bought 14 hospice companies and used stolen identities to fraudulently bill state health plan

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California authorities have filed felony charges against 21 people, who they say orchestrated a hospice fraud scheme that cost the state $267m, the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced on Thursday.

The suspects allegedly bought personal identifying information for non-California residents from the dark web and used the stolen identities to enroll in Medi-Cal, a state program that gives low-income residents free or low-cost health care.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:51 pm

Trump news at a glance: Melania Trump’s weird disavowal of Epstein is getting weirder

It was unclear which specific accusations spurred the first lady to respond publicly – key US politics stories from Thursday 9 April at a glance

Melania Trump stood at a podium in the same room Donald Trump used to address the nation on the war in Iran last week to make an announcement: she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

It was unclear which specific accusations spurred Trump to respond publicly. The first lady went on to say that she and the president were invited to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time” as “overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach”.

Published: April 10, 2026, 12:53 am

US judge rules Pentagon has violated his order in press access case

Paul Friedman grants New York Times’s motion to force implementation of earlier ruling that gutted restrictive new policy

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Pentagon has not complied with an order last month that undid much of a restrictive new press pass policy implemented by the Department of Defense, and ordered the return of credentials to seven New York Times reporters.

The newspaper, which sued the Trump administration in December, had urged the judge to compel implementation of his 20 March ruling after the Pentagon responded to the judge’s determination by creating a new press access policy, which the newspaper called an “end-run” around the judge’s ruling. The Pentagon had also announced the closure of the work space known as “correspondents’ corridor”.

Published: April 9, 2026, 10:43 pm

JD Vance’s claims about Orbán, the EU and Hungary fact-checked

US vice-president said bloc tried to ‘destroy’ country’s economy, despite it being a net recipient of EU funds

During his visit to Budapest, where he heaped praise on the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, days before the country’s decisive election, JD Vance claimed the EU was responsible for “one of the worst examples of election interference” he had ever seen.

Standing alongside Orbán on Tuesday, the US vice-president said: “The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy-independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they’ve done it all because they hate this guy.”

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:15 pm

George Clooney calls Donald Trump’s ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ threat to Iran a war crime

White House says only person committing war crimes is actor ‘for his awful movies and terrible acting ability’

The long-running war of words between George Clooney and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning actor criticised Donald Trump’s threat to Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight”.

On Wednesday, in a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy, Clooney said the US president had committed a war crime with his threat.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:12 am

As RFK Jr allies hailed Mississippi’s rollback of strict school vaccine rules, whooping cough surged and a baby died

The campaign to change the rules was years in the making, orchestrated in part by two men with close ties to US health secretary RFK Jr

When a federal judge in Mississippi ordered a sweeping rollback of the state’s strict school vaccine rules in 2023, the ruling hit some doctors like “a gut punch”.

Mississippi had for years achieved some of the highest vaccination rates in the US for children – a point of pride in a place that consistently ranks at the bottom of other health measures.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:36 pm

Who is Péter Magyar, the man leading the polls as Hungary prepares for election?

Former Viktor Orbán loyalist and his Tisza party have enjoyed meteoric rise as opposition movement grows

As a child growing up in Budapest, Péter Magyar had a poster of Viktor Orbán – at the time a leading figure in the country’s pro-democracy movement – hanging above his bed. Orbán was one of several political figures that adorned his bedroom, Magyar told a podcast last year, hinting at his excitement over the changes sweeping the country after the collapse of communism.

Now Magyar, 45, is the driving force behind what could be another momentous political change in Hungary: the ousting of Orbán, whose 16 years in power has transformed the country into a “petri dish for illiberalism”.

Published: April 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Islamabad prepares to host historic negotiations between Iran and the US

In Pakistan’s capital, the army has been deployed, a public holiday has been declared and the streets are eerily empty

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The streets of Islamabad were on strict lockdown as Pakistan’s capital prepared to play host to historic negotiations between Iran and the US that have dangled the promise of an end to war that has devastated the Middle East.

Even as the US-Iran ceasefire looked increasingly precarious, amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon and disputes over the terms of the talks, Pakistani officials insisted that the make-or-break peace negotiations would be going ahead over the weekend as planned.

Published: April 10, 2026, 3:00 am

The daughters of Dominican immigrants achieved the American dream. They’re bringing sweet chocolate success back to the homeland

Janett and Erika Liriano built a chocolate factory in their parents’ homeland – and gave farmers a stake in the company

Janett and Erika Liriano grew up in Queens, the daughters of Dominican immigrants who pushed them to dream big. Their encouragement paid off: by the time they were in their late 20s, Janett had been named a Forbes 30 Under 30 Listmaker and was the chief of staff at a biopharmaceutical firm; younger sister Erika was making a name for herself in venture capital.

But something was missing. “We were both comfortable but not happy with our jobs,” Janett said. “I felt unfulfilled and anxiously wanted to move forward.” But towards what, she wasn’t sure.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:12 pm

Dream-pop at its most divine: Cocteau Twins’ 20 greatest songs – ranked!

Forty years on from the release of their Victorialand album, we rank the Scottish band’s 20 best tracks, from goth beginnings to weightless masterpieces

At first, Cocteau Twins gave every impression of being a goth band: check out Wax and Wane’s Banshees-esque ambience – the guitar is very John McGeoch – flanged bass and drum machine. But the chorus soars out of the metaphorical cloud of dry ice, and Elizabeth Fraser’s voice is already outpacing her influences.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:01 pm

A day in the life of a 19-year-old in ICE detention: ‘I feel that this nightmare is not going to end’

Olivia has been detained for months at the sprawling Dilley center in Texas. She has lost 20lb, and wakes up every day with a headache

Each day in detention feels like 48 hours for Olivia.

The 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been at the Dilley Immigration processing center in Texas for more than four months.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:00 am

The Miniature Wife review – Matthew Macfadyen is wasted in this pointless comedy

Lower those expectations, Succession fans. The star plays a scientist who shrinks his wife (Elizabeth Banks) to 6in tall, in a screwball sitcom that should have been so much better

I wonder what it’s like to be the go-to actor whenever anyone needs a morally questionable, sappy-looking, fundamentally weak character to play the whipped dog to someone else’s headline character? You’ll always have work but … you’d have to be pretty secure in yourself, no?

But all actors are, of course, so it’s probably OK to be Matthew Macfadyen, who started his career in a 1998 TV film adaptation of Wuthering Heights as Hareton Earnshaw – Heathcliff’s whipped dog – and has been giving us brilliant incarnations of beta cucks ever since. Even when he made it to Mr Darcy (opposite Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennet) it was unfortunately 10 years after Colin Firth (opposite Jennifer Ehle and coming out of a lake) had rendered all future versions redundant milksops. Most recently, of course, he gave us the greatest – oh GOD, there is no single word for Tom Wambsgans unless it is in fact “Wambsgans”, so let’s go with that – Wambsgans there will ever be, courtesy of Jesse Armstrong’s masterpiece Succession. Jeremy Strong’s intensity drew the headlines, but Macfadyen’s performance, like a worm twisting round an oiled tightrope, was endlessly clever, subtle and just as astonishing.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘He sent someone to intimidate me’: Christopher Anderson, the photographer who shot Jeffrey Epstein

A new book collects the acclaimed photojournalist’s images of everything from conflict zones to Donald Trump’s inner circle. He describes how his pursuit of truth even led to an unsettling encounter with the disgraced financier

It didn’t come as a great shock to Christopher Anderson to find out that his name was in the Epstein files. In 2015, he was assigned by New York magazine to photograph the American financier for a planned profile interview by the American journalist Michael Wolff.

“I didn’t know who Jeffrey Epstein was at all,” says Anderson. He admits that he often didn’t research the people he was photographing, and went into the job unaware that Epstein was a child sex offender who had been convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor, and had served 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail in Florida. “What I knew was that this guy is a rich and powerful man connected to rich and powerful men.”

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Anna Wintour’s Vogue cover is more than a cameo – it’s a power play

Her rare cover appearance with Meryl Streep may be to promote The Devil Wears Prada sequel, but it also marks a shift from elusive editor to carefully curated personal brand

In the world of magazines, when someone announces they’re leaving a job, their colleagues will traditionally present them with their own personalised mock-up of the magazine’s front cover. Perhaps their face is superimposed on the body of a previous celebrity cover star. There are probably some witty cover lines referencing memorable office moments or their favourite snacks. It’s a rite of passage – and this week, Anna Wintour was bestowed with her very own cover. But instead of a jokey imitation bidding her adieu, it was the real, glossy deal, coming to a newsstand near you on 28 April.

In a somewhat surprising effort to promote the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2, Vogue’s May issue sees Wintour share the cover with Meryl Streep, whose steely Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fictional title Runway, is said to have been inspired by Wintour. “Seeing Double. When Miranda met Anna” reads the cover line. While Wintour has fronted various industry titles, including Interview in 1993 and Ad Week in 2017, it’s the first time an editor has placed themselves as the subject. In another fun twist, both Wintour and Streep are wearing Prada.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:26 pm

Jimmy Kimmel on US ceasefire negotiators: ‘We’d be better off with Alvin and the Chipmunks’

Late night hosts reacted to Trump’s threats to Iran, unclear war timeline and JD Vance headlining a Viktor Orbán rally

On Wednesday night, late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump’s threat to wipe out Iran, the trio who are leading ceasefire negotiations in the region and JD Vance’s trip to Budapest in support of Viktor Orbán.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:59 pm

‘I had poked the bear right in the eye’: my fight to renounce my Russian citizenship

When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act

One morning in May 2025, I walked briskly down Bayswater Road along the northern edge of London’s Kensington Gardens until I reached the gates of the Russian embassy. Its formidable outer wall, already topped with razor wire, now had the additional protection of a crowd control barrier. But there was no crowd, just a lone man feebly protesting from the other side of the road. In the early days of the war, the embassy was besieged by angry protesters. Back then, you couldn’t walk down a British street without spotting the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. That time was long gone.

Feeling uneasy, I was ushered inside by a guard who patted me down and checked the contents of my backpack before pointing the way inside. I knew this routine from my previous visits. Even the guard – a friendly Nepali man who knew about three words of Russian – hadn’t changed in years. I used to come here to renew my Russian passport and, on one noteworthy occasion, in March 2000, to vote in the Russian presidential elections. This time, I had an altogether different purpose: I was here to renounce my Russian citizenship.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 am

Even if Victor Orbán is ousted on Sunday, Hungary’s return to liberal democracy is not guaranteed | Gabriela Greilinger and Cas Mudde

Challenger Péter Magyar is no progressive – and after 16 years of creeping authoritarianism, the PM has embedded Fidesz in the Hungarian state

On Sunday, Hungarians will go to the polls to decide on their country’s direction for the next four years in an election that looks as if it will be a nail-biter. Viktor Orbán, Europe’s longest-serving prime minister – who has been in power for 16 years and transformed his country into an electoral autocracy – could lose the election. Ahead of the vote, EU officials have high expectations for change in Hungary under a potential new leadership. Politico reported that “the Brussels establishment is praying for [Péter] Magyar to win, hoping a Tisza government will deepen ties with the EU”.

Magyar became a trailblazer when he entered the Hungarian political scene in 2024 after a political scandal implicating the former president Katalin Novák and the minister of justice, Magyar’s ex-wife, Judit Varga. By addressing the socioeconomic concerns of ordinary Hungarians, politicising the run-down healthcare and education systems and highlighting the country’s deteriorating economic situation and corrupt government practices, Magyar has steadily risen in the polls.

Published: April 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Israel’s attacks on Lebanon could unravel the US-Iran ceasefire | Mohamad Bazzi

Trump is on the verge of squandering a ceasefire that serves US interests for the sake of an unreliable ally

When Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, announced that the US and Iran, along with their allies, had agreed to an immediate ceasefire on Tuesday night, he made clear that the truce applied “everywhere including Lebanon”. But hours later, the Israeli government insisted that the deal did not include halting its attacks on Lebanon, which had become one of the deadliest fronts of the regional war instigated by the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran.

By Wednesday afternoon, Israel had launched its largest and most destructive attack on Lebanon in years, killing at least 300 people and wounding more than 1,100. Dozens of Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on 100 targets across Lebanon within 10 minutes, with the Israeli military claiming it was targeting Hezbollah “command centers” in an operation it called “Eternal Darkness”. But Israeli warplanes leveled several buildings in crowded residential neighborhoods of Beirut, spreading panic in the Lebanese capital and overwhelming hospitals with hundreds of casualties. Israel also continued bombing Lebanon’s infrastructure, destroying the last remaining bridge that linked southern Lebanon to the rest of the country.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:41 pm

Stephen Lillie on the return of the Artemis II crew – cartoon

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Published: April 9, 2026, 1:56 pm

Cannes looks beyond Hollywood as US film-makers mostly fail to make the grade

The 79th edition of the influential festival boasts an auteur-heavy lineup – with one, very big, country conspicuous by its almost total absence

• Gillian Anderson and Cara Delevingne to hit Cannes as auteur heavyweights dominate festival lineup

Has Europe fallen out of love with the US? Has Cannes fallen out of love with Hollywood? Will the festival, like Nato, become a non-American institution? Either way, the annual announcement of the Cannes selection has revealed a list that skews away from Hollywood towards a renewed dominance of world-cinema auteurs and heavy hitters, including Pedro Almodovar, Cristian Mungiu and Asghar Farhadi. There’s certainly nothing to compare with last year’s Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible extravaganza, although there are directorial offerings out of competition for Andy Garcia (also starring) with his crime drama Diamond, and John Travolta directs Propeller One-Way Night Coach, expressing his love of aviation, based on his own novel. There are no British directors announced (as yet), although Polish auteur Paweł Pawlikowski, in competition with his Thomas Mann movie Fatherland, could be cheekily claimed for the UK as he lived here for a long time.

Festival watchers and Cannesologists will be looking for the contemporary relevances and the now familiar talking points. The festival, under director Thierry Frémaux, has stuck to its refusal to admit streamer-only movies and won the argument by seeing its films do well at the Oscars. On the AI debate, perhaps Cannes is less purist. Steven Soderbergh’s documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview is based on John and Yoko’s final three-hour interview for RKO Radio shortly before Lennon’s murder, and for the visuals Soderbergh has reportedly used AI to reconstruct and reimagine the encounter. Some are intrigued, others uneasy.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:05 pm

Why was a Florida woman forced to have a C-section? | Tayo Bero

Medical coercion is alive and well in the US healthcare system – especially if you’re a Black patient giving birth

A harrowing recent ProPublica report tells the stories of two Black women in Florida who were forced to have cesarean sections despite clearly stating they didn’t want them – a reminder that medical coercion is alive and well in the American healthcare system.

In the case of Cherise Doyley, the state had filed an emergency petition. The state and hospital wanted to force Doyley to undergo a C-section “in the interest of her unborn child”, ProPublica reported. Doyley, who worked as a birthing doula, had been clear that she didn’t want a C-section unless there was an emergency. At an hours-long online court hearing conducted from her hospital bedside – while she was in labor – a judge ruled she could continue to labor, but if there were an emergency, the hospital could operate whether she wanted it or not. Hours later, she woke up to find herself being wheeled into surgery – doctors said the baby’s heart rate had dropped for seven minutes overnight – and she gave birth via C-section.

Published: April 9, 2026, 10:00 am

I took up the ukulele after a chance encounter. It’s made me as happy as falling in love | Melanie Tait

Singing with a group of women brought back the nourishment that only making music with a group of people you’re in step with can provide

Avowed ukulele lover George Harrison once wrote in a note to a friend “Everyone I know who is into the ukulele is ‘crackers’... you can’t play and not laugh!” I’m crackers for the ukulele. The instrument has lit up my life like the nine o’clock fireworks – it’s sparkly, fun, wholesome and everyone’s welcome.

It all started a few months ago with an invitation to a “ladies salon” house-warming party, asking us to come with an offering. So, I baked a cake, not realising the offering was meant to be a poem or a song or a performance of some kind.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:00 pm

The Guardian view on Hungary’s election: a bellwether contest for the global far right | Editorial

Defeat for Viktor Orbán on Sunday would be celebrated in Brussels, mourned in Washington and Moscow, and would give his country its democracy back

Hungary has a population of less than 10 million and an economy that produces a modest 1.1% of the European Union’s GDP. But on Sunday it will hold the most important election in Europe this year. After 16 years as prime minister, during which he has dismantled the checks and balances customary in a democracy, Viktor Orbán faces the most serious threat to his power in that time. Polls consistently place the centre‑right party led by his main challenger, Péter Magyar, ahead by a substantial margin.

Mr Orbán was once described by Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon as “Trump before Trump”. In his political hour of need, luminaries of the global far right have duly turned up en masse to support him. Last month, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Geert Wilders made the pilgrimage to Budapest. This week, the US vice-president, JD Vance, paid a tub‑thumping election-eve visit, as his boss issued apocalyptic threats to have Iran “taken out in one night”. Risibly, given the explicit purpose of his trip, Mr Vance spent much of it inveighing against alleged EU interference in the forthcoming vote.

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Published: April 9, 2026, 5:30 pm

Rory McIlroy holds share of Masters lead after flying start to his title defence

• Champion shares lead with Sam Burns after opening 67

• McIlroy: ‘I was nervous, I was anxious like I always am’

So this is what Rory McIlroy’s new normal looks like. The defending champion is footloose and fancy-free at Augusta National. He is plainly no longer of a mind to revel in the events of the 2025 Masters. McIlroy returned to Augusta, for so long a place that exacted psychological torture on him, to deliver an emphatic statement. The floodgates are wobbling.

Parallels between McIlroy on day one at this major and his win 12 months ago are valid. In both instances he played swashbuckling, theatric golf (and not always from fairways). Rafa Nadal, anxious to watch every swing from the galleries, must have admired what he witnessed. After round one, McIlroy is firmly on course to become only the fourth man to successfully defend at Augusta. Those who believed the 36-year-old’s history-making concluded with playoff glory over Justin Rose last year may be sorely mistaken.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:03 pm

Michael Jordan’s second act: how the Jumpman became Nascar’s hottest owner

After years of frustration as an NBA executive, the basketball legend’s 23XI Racing team has surged to the front of the Cup series, reshaping his legacy

Michael Jordan the basketball player is success personified, the legend against whom all others are measured. Michael Jordan the sports executive, on the other hand, has spent much of the past three decades falling short of his own impossible standard.

In 1999, Jordan joined Abe Pollin’s Washington Wizards ownership group as a history-making minority partner, but neither his star power nor a brief return from retirement translated into sustained team success. Eleven years later, he took over the Charlotte Bobcats, replacing BET co-founder Robert Johnson as the league’s only Black majority owner – but poor roster moves, questionable hires and three playoff appearances in 13 years, with nary one series victory, ultimately became his legacy as the principal steward of the retro-branded Charlotte Hornets.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:43 am

McIlroy attacks Augusta as champion with big grin and hell of a swing | Andy Bull

No longer like a man carrying a vase across a slippery floor, the 2025 winner uses attack as the best form of defence

Can Rory McIlroy win back-to-back Masters titles? Jack Nicklaus will tell you that McIlroy’s already done the hardest part. “Well, the key is to win two years in a row,” Nicklaus said with a grin after hitting the honorary tee shot on Thursday morning, “and I think Rory’s the only one that’s got a chance to do that this year.” Nicklaus did it back in 1965 and ’66. “Rory’s talented enough,” he added. “Now he’s got that monkey off his back, I think he has a very, very good chance to repeat.”

In his first 17 years coming here, McIlroy played Augusta National just about every which way he could think of: he’s attacked it, endured it, and overthought it, played it carelessly, played it cautiously, and played it consideredly. The one thing we had never seen was how he would go about it once he had finally won the thing. Turns out the answer is he would do it with a big grin and a hell of a swing. His very first shot at Augusta as Masters champion, at 10.30am on a bright, blue and dry Augusta morning, was a whistling 332-yard drive that carried the entire hill and shot off into the gallery over the left side of the fairway.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:32 pm

Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

There are protests planned at Anfield as Roberto De Zerbi starts his Tottenham tenure and Everton eye Europe

Nuno Espírito Santo has rolled back the years in an attempt to save West Ham. He has gone old-school, switching to a gung-ho 4-4-2 system to give his side more threat in the final third. Pablo Felipe and Taty Castellanos, both January arrivals, have altered the face of the attack, but neither forward has been prolific. Castellanos has scored three goals in all competitions since joining from Lazio and Pablo, who is yet to open his account in English football, failed to convert during last week’s penalty shootout defeat by Leeds in the FA Cup. As a pair, though, Castellanos and Pablo have been oddly effective. Are they any good? Unclear. Do they run around a lot and give a previously ponderous West Ham more energy? Undoubtedly. Played together, Pablo and Castellanos do a worthy job for the team. Importantly, they create space for the wingers, Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville, who hopes to return from a calf injury for Friday night’s vital home game against Wolves. Bowen and Summerville are the big threats; they are West Ham’s main source of goals, but both are more dangerous with Pablo and Castellanos in the team. Jacob Steinberg

West Ham v Wolves, Friday 8pm (all times BST)

Arsenal v Bournemouth, Saturday 12.30pm

Brentford v Everton, Saturday 3pm

Burnley v Brighton, Saturday 3pm

Liverpool v Fulham, Saturday 5.30pm

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:01 pm

Max Verstappen’s F1 future in further doubt with race engineer to leave Red Bull

• Gianpiero Lambiase set to join McLaren after 2027 season

• Verstappen has worked with Lambiase since 2016

Max Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase is to leave Red Bull to join McLaren in a shock move that throws further doubt on the four-time world champion’s future in Formula One.

Lambiase has worked with Verstappen since the Dutchman joined Red Bull in 2016 and has been at his side through the driver’s four titles, the pair forging a close bond. Their radio interactions during races have been closely followed in what has been an enormously successful professional and personal relationship, sharing great joy and some blunt exchanges.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:34 am

‘For the first time I’m the hunter’: Fury relishes return to face Makhmudov

• Fury: ‘I’m going to make an example of him’

• Russian lifts Fury in the air during final face-off

A cheerful Tyson Fury has promised his latest comeback to the ring will begin with a destructive knockout of Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Saturday night. “It’s going to be different because, for the first time in forever, I’m the hunter,” Fury said at the fight’s final press conference. “I’m not the hunted, and we all know that when I’ve always been the hunter in the past, I’ve always fucked people up.

“I actually feel sorry for Makhmudov because I’m going to make an example of him. He’s a big six foot seven lump, 18 or 19 stone. But I’ll knock his head right off his shoulders. I’m going to lay him unconscious like the gamecock on top of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He will be knocked spark out on the canvas looking up, thinking: ‘What just happened there?’ But it’s no shame because he’s fighting the great Tyson Fury.”

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:13 pm

Julián Alvarez is proving that he’s more than second fiddle | Jeff Rueter

The Atlético Madrid and Argentina striker’s sensational freekick against Barcelona showed that the consummate team player is capable of more

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Julián Alvarez has his detractors, but even they can no longer deny he belongs at the game’s highest levels. Still only 26, the Argentinian striker has an impressive collection of honors: two Premier League titles, a Champions League, a Copa Libertadores, two Copa Américas, a pre-bloat Club World Cup. And oh yeah, the 2022 World Cup and 2023 Champions League, won within in a half-year span.

He has been key for many of the teams that won those titles, yet is often cast as a supporting player rather than a star. Those Premier Leagues and the Champions League with Manchester City were more directly (and rightly) credited to Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, and Rodri. When Argentina snapped their international drought with a Copa, a World Cup, and another Copa for good measure, it was framed almost entirely in the context of Lionel Messi’s legacy.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:47 pm

Tom Watson blasts PGA Tour over returns of LIV Golf rebels Reed and Koepka

• ‘I thought LIV players were supposed to be banned for life’

• Player tells Woods to ‘not drive a car and get a chauffeur’

The honorary first drive was not the only shot Tom Watson played on the first morning of the 2026 Masters. Moments after taking part in the ceremony Watson, who won eight majors, lambasted the PGA Tour over its recent decision to allow Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed to return from LIV Golf.

Watson said by reinstating Reed and Koepka the Tour had reneged on the promises it made to the players who had remained loyal to it during the schism. “I thought the LIV players, when they left, were supposed to be banned for life,” he said.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:45 pm

Watkins doubles up to punish Bologna and put Aston Villa in driving seat

There was a heady atmosphere in Bologna before this match, with flags flying everywhere and the legend “weareone” plastered on the walls of the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara. Into this fervent atmosphere stepped Aston Villa, with warnings against complacency from their manager ringing in their ears. The Premier League side did not play well and were second best for much of the night, but they did stay supremely cool and turned the nervous energy of their hosts back on them to take a two-goal lead home to Birmingham.

Ezri Konsa opened the scoring after a gaffe by the goalkeeper Federico Ravaglia, before a second-half double from Ollie Watkins determined the outcome of the match and overwrote Jonathan Rowe’s late goal for the hosts. Bologna’s Englishman, a former Norwich City winger, was likely the man of the match, but Watkins’ ability to remain calm in pressured situations will surely prove the more decisive factor in this tie.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:10 pm

Ukraine war briefing: First official ceasefire agreed after Zelenskyy push succeeds

Vladimir Putin paints Easter pause in fighting as Russia’s idea, but Ukraine’s president made repeated offers. What we know on day 1,507

Ukraine and Russia appeared to be on the brink of what could be their first official theatre-wide ceasefire since the February 2022 full-scale invasion after Vladimir Putin acquiesced to concerted offers by Volodymyr Zelenskyy of a pause in hostilities to mark Orthodox Easter, which is observed this weekend. The 32-hour ceasefire would start on Saturday afternoon.

Zelenskyy responded early on Friday: “Ukraine has repeatedly stated that we are ready for reciprocal steps. We proposed a ceasefire during the Easter holiday this year and will act accordingly … People need an Easter without threats and a real move towards peace, and Russia has a chance not to return to attacks even after Easter.”

The Kremlin attempted to portray the initiative as its own: “We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow the example of the Russian Federation,” said a statement. “Orders have been issued for this period to cease hostilities in all directions.” Russia left itself an opening, though, for continuing armed action: “Troops are to be prepared to counter any possible provocations by the enemy, as well as any aggressive actions,” said the Kremlin statement.

Previously in the full-scale war there have only been unofficial, ill-defined and patchily observed truces; or localised halts to allow for surrenders, the exchange of prisoners, handing over the dead or letting civilians flee the frontline. There was a limited “energy truce” declared in March 2025 that was supposed to halt strikes on oil, gas and electrical facilities as well as sea targets. Moscow – while rejecting numerous previous ceasefire initiatives that were accepted by Ukraine – has also tried to unilaterally declare ceasefires, for example to allow Russia to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Soviet victory in the second world war.

Considering the Trump administration’s repeated and lengthy courting of Putin to no avail over the past year, the Easter truce appeared to come about with minimal US involvement as the US president and his officials remained preoccupied with the Iran war and their own tenuous ceasefire. Zelenskyy did say in recent days that he had transmitted his truce offers to Russia via the US. Reuters said that according to its sources, Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev was in the US as of Thursday. Putin may be looking for a reprieve as successful strikes by the Ukrainians have dealt a heavy blow to Russia’s oil export industry, which earns revenue for the war; while Ukraine itself has been struggling with the impact of Russian strikes on its civilian energy grid.

Russia’s federal security service (FSB) said on Thursday that a former freelancer for Radio Free Europe had been detained in the city of Chita for treason, the Russian Tass news agency reported. The FSB said the man, whose name was not disclosed, was accused of committing treason by cooperating with Ukraine. In Moscow the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta said masked security service agents searched its offices on Thursday and barred its lawyers from entering. State news agency RIA quoted law enforcement officials as saying the search was linked to an investigation into the illegal use of personal data.

Britain and allies including Norway sent warships to prevent any attacks on undersea cables and pipelines as Russian submarines prowled around them earlier this year, according to the UK defence minister, John Healey. Britain accused Russia of conducting a covert operation in the High North maritime region, home to key shipping routes and critical infrastructure such as undersea cables.

“To President Putin, I say we see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences,” Healey said. Russia’s embassy in London said Healey’s statement was “impossible to either believe or verify … Russia does not threaten undersea infrastructure, which is of critical importance to the UK. Nor do we employ aggressive rhetoric in this regard.”

Published: April 10, 2026, 12:32 am

Woman with three deadly diseases has ‘remarkable’ recovery after cell therapy

Treatment reset wayward immune system of patient with life-threatening conditions, say scientists, in a world first

A woman who lived with three life-threatening autoimmune diseases for more than a decade has returned to a near-normal life after a cell therapy reset her wayward immune system.

The 47-year-old had had nine different treatments, none of which had a lasting impact, before receiving the therapy last year at University Hospital Erlangen in Germany. At the time, she required daily blood transfusions and permanent blood thinning medication to control her illness.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:00 pm

California man shot by ICE says officials falsely labeled him a gang member

Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez was hit by more than six bullets, says lawyer, with ICE facing scrutiny over shooting

A California man shot by US immigration agents said officials have falsely accused him of being a gang member and that officers fired on him without justification during a traffic stop.

Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, 36, was pulled over and shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on Tuesday in Patterson, a rural agricultural town in California’s central valley. Patrick Kolasinski, Hernandez’s attorney, visited him in the hospital on Thursday morning and summarized his client’s comments.

Published: April 9, 2026, 8:54 pm

MEPs raise alarm about possible Russian meddling in Hungary elections

Von der Leyen urged to act over allegations of disinformation and intimidation on behalf of Orbán’s party

The European Commission is being urged to investigate whether Hungary’s elections are being undermined by Russian manipulation, intimidation of journalists and voter coercion by the ruling party.

Three days before decisive parliamentary elections that threaten the 16-year grip on power of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a group of MEPs have written to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the commissioner responsible for the rule of law, Michael McGrath, calling for action.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:17 pm

US conservatives sue to dismantle Native Hawaiian healthcare scholarships

Do No Harm activist group alleges ‘racial discrimination’ in program designed to support under-served communities

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Conservative campaigners are targeting a decades-old federal scholarship program designed to provide Native Hawaiian students with funding to pursue healthcare careers and place practitioners in the state’s most medically under-served communities.

Do No Harm, a Virginia-based advocacy group for healthcare clinicians “focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice”, filed its federal lawsuit challenging the US health department’s Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program (NHHSP) last week.

Published: April 9, 2026, 8:50 pm

Pink to host 2026 Tony awards: ‘It’s the honor of an entire lifetime’

The artist will follow in the footsteps of Ariana DeBose, Cynthia Erivo and Kevin Spacey this June

The Tony awards have turned to a singer with a reputation for a high-energy, physical live show to be the next telecast host – Pink.

The three-time Grammy award winner will make her debut as emcee for the awards on 7 June at its familiar home of Radio City Music Hall.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:40 pm

Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices

Up to 2m e-readers made before 2013 will no longer be able to download new titles

Amazon is to stop supporting older Kindle models leaving longtime ebook fans unable to access new content from the Kindle store.

Devices released during or before 2012 will no longer receive updates from 20 May, affecting owners of older Kindles, including the earliest models such as the Touch and some Fire tablets. It is thought that 2m e-readers could be affected.

Kindle: Kindle 1st generation (2007), Kindle DX and DX Graphite (2009 and 2010), Kindle Keyboard (2010), Kindle 4 (2011), Kindle Touch (2011), Kindle 5 (2012) and Kindle Paperwhite 1st generation (2012).

Kindle Fire: Kindle Fire 1st generation (2011), Kindle Fire 2nd generation (2012), Kindle Fire HD 7 (2012), Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (2012).

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:17 pm

‘The danger and value of water are in my blood’: how rain fences are making Dutch homes more climate resilient

Housing corporations are adopting rainwater storage in garden fences, reducing pressure during downpours and preserving water for times of drought

Good fences make good neighbours – but rain fences could make even better ones.

That is the hope of housing corporations in the Netherlands, which are adopting rainwater storage in their garden fences.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

US agency proposes rolling back rules for safe disposal of toxic coal ash

Advocates warn changes could increase risks of pollutants contaminating water and exposure to toxic waste

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed weakened rules governing the safe disposal of ash produced by burning coal. Those regulations were strengthened under the Biden administration as part of a wider crackdown on pollution from coal-fired power plants.

The Trump administration proposed easing standards for monitoring and protecting groundwater near some coal ash sites, rolling back rules forcing the cleanup of entire coal properties instead of just places where ash was dumped. The revisions would also make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes.

Published: April 9, 2026, 8:28 pm

‘A dream come true’: Brazil’s blue-and-yellow macaws return to Rio after 200 years

An ambitious ‘refaunation’ project is bringing the much-loved birds and other lost species back to the city’s national park

Images of the iconic blue-and-yellow macaw can be spotted all over Rio de Janeiro. Yet the real thing has been seen so rarely in the Brazilian city that some wondered if it ever really existed there at all.

The French explorer Jean de Léry first described an abundance of the giant, colourful parrots around Indigenous tribes in the 16th century, and the Austrian naturalist Johann Natterer sighted the Ara ararauna in the city in 1818.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:00 am

US had hottest March on record as nation faced ‘unprecedented’ heat

The continental US registered its most abnormally hot month in 132 years of records, according to Noaa data

March’s persistent unseasonable heat was so intense that the continental United States registered its most abnormally hot month in 132 years of records, according to federal weather data. And the next year or so looks to turn the dial up on global warmth even more, as some forecasts predict a brewing El Niño will reach super strength.

Not only was it the hottest March on record for the US but the amount it was above normal beat any other month in history for the lower 48 states. March’s average temperature of 50.85F(10.47C) was 9.35F (5.19C) above the 20th-century normal for March.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:49 pm

Man charged with US firebomb plot is linked to group whose leaders back violence against Palestinians

Revealed: JDL 613 Brotherhood has platformed a convicted terrorist and its video recordings display an obsessive antipathy to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani

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A man who has been charged with plotting to firebomb a pro-Palestine activist’s home is tied to a group whose leaders support violence against Palestinians and have platformed a convicted terrorist who fundraises for a violent settler movement in the occupied West Bank.

Video recordings by the group, called JDL 613 Brotherhood, also reveal its leaders possess an obsessive antipathy to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani. They feature the organization’s founder, Yisrael Yaacob Ben Avraham, describing Mamdani as a “Muslim terrorist”, a “cancer”, and his election a “harbinger” of “a creeping Islamic takeover of America”.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Am I going to die?’: more women join challenge to Arkansas abortion ban

Case argues law violates state constitution’s guarantee to life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness

Leitaea Lowrimore had hallmark symptoms of a dangerous ectopic pregnancy in February: vaginal bleeding, sharp pain, low hormone levels and no visible embryo on a uterine ultrasound. The 28-year-old mother and former nursing assistant was stunned when an Arkansas emergency room doctor said he wanted to discharge her, as ectopic pregnancies – or when an embryo implants somewhere other than the uterine lining – are never viable and can be life-threatening.

She and her husband refused because they lived 45 minutes away in rural Oklahoma. The doctor agreed to admit her for monitoring, eventually saying that her pregnancy was probably ectopic, but if he treated her now, “he could do 10 years in prison”, Lowrimore said. This doctor was far from the only one to deny Lowrimore medical care: over the course of a week, a total of three emergency rooms in two states – Arkansas and Oklahoma, which also bans abortion – either denied her screenings or discharged her.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

Traffic stop leads California law enforcement to two homicide victims

Authorities arrest driver and passenger of car after finding large amounts blood and unresponsive man in rear seat

Northern California law enforcement officals pulled over the driver of a Chevrolet Suburban on Easter Sunday morning for a suspected registration violation, and came upon a grisly scene that ultimately led them to two homicide victims.

The California highway patrol said in a statement that two people, the person driving the vehicle and a passenger, had been arrested in connection with the killings. The passenger attempted to flee when officers stopped the SUV in Clearlake, about 100 miles north-east of San Francisco, but was quickly detained, according to CHP.

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:43 pm

Meta debuts new AI model in first test of costly ‘superintelligence’ team

Muse Spark was competitive with models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic in language, but lagged in coding

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Meta on Wednesday unveiled Muse Spark, the first artificial intelligence model from a costly team it assembled last year to catch up with rivals in the AI race.

US tech companies are under pressure to prove their huge AI outlays will pay off. The stakes are especially high for Meta after it hired Alex Wang, Scale AI CEO, last year in a $14.3bn deal and offered some engineers pay packages of hundreds of millions of dollars to staff a new “superintelligence” team, an attempt to propel itself back into the AI world’s top ranks after a disappointing showing with its Llama 4 models early last year. Superintelligence refers to AI machines that could outthink humans. Muse Spark is the first in a new series of models, known internally as Avocado, from that team.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:47 pm

Wild chimpanzees recorded waging ‘civil war’ with coordinated attacks between two groups

New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself

On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.

In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:00 pm

US accused of pressuring Latin America to cut ties with Cuban doctors program

Cuba accuses US of ‘extorting’ countries in pushing them to axe deals with Havana to send doctors on medical missions

Cuba’s foreign minister has accused the United States of “extorting” Latin American countries by putting pressure on them to cancel decades-old deals with Havana for the supply of doctors.

Bruno Rodríguez said the United States was trying to “strangle” the economy of the communist island, which earns billions from its foreign medical missions, after several countries stopped deploying Cuban doctors.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:59 pm

UK navy foiled Russian submarines surveying undersea cables, defence minister says

John Healey says warship and aircraft forced Russia to abandon activity in North Sea in month-long operation

A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines trying to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they fled the area, the defence secretary, John Healey, has said.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:12 pm

OpenAI shelves Stargate UK in blow to Britain’s AI ambitions

Artificial intelligence company cites high energy costs and regulation for putting landmark project on hold

OpenAI has put on hold plans for a landmark UK investment citing high energy costs and regulation, in a blow to the government which has put AI at the centre of its growth strategy.

Stargate UK was a part of the UK-US AI deal announced last September, in which US companies appeared to commit £31bn to the UK’s tech sector, part of a larger series of investments intended to “mainline AI” into the British economy.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:13 pm

Death of a Salesman review – Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf hypnotize in revival

Winter Garden Theatre, New York
Arthur Miller’s 1949 autopsy of the American dream finds new urgency in a stripped-back production

Somewhere in New York, in the middle of the night, a tired man returns home from work. His shoulders are hunched, his gait shuffling and weary. Given the retro coupe he drives, the style of his briefcase and the fact that this is Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic play, he’s seemingly in the midst of America’s postwar boom, that “great” era so many would like to return to. But the stage at New York’s Winter Garden Theatre appears curiously period-agnostic. The salesman’s home is not a house but a garage, whose sheet metal door and pockmarked pillars bring to mind any number of industrial storefronts still visible throughout Brooklyn. In this revival of the great American tragedy, with stage design by Chloe Lamford, the Loman family shuffles and agonizes and rages about a “home” of benches, a table and that car in ashy grayscale. Their feet stir up literal dust. Even in sepia-hued, nostalgia-tinted flashbacks, they persist within decay.

I’m as skeptical of the voguish turn toward theatrical minimalism as the next person, but the purgatorial effect of this tremendous new Death of a Salesman, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, is appropriately unsettling, at once an updated reading of the mid-century text and an answer to the outstanding question of why it is arriving on stage again, and so soon. Though Miller’s masterwork has been canon since long before I, like many US high school students, wrote compulsory essays on the failures of the American Dream, it has only been revived six times on Broadway – in part, because the three-hour play is a massive ask of audiences as well as its Willy Loman, a role that has challenged such venerated actors as Dustin Hoffman and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And in part, perhaps, because the play’s long arc toward utter humiliation is maybe not the message New York theater audiences want to hear.

Published: April 10, 2026, 2:00 am

Paul Dano: ‘Nobody needs to know about my high-school band!’

The actor on singing with Brian Wilson, why War and Peace is the best book ever written and what drew him to his latest film, The Wizard of the Kremlin

You were wonderful as Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy. Did you get any feedback from the great man himself? Fran2016 and Aubrey26
Thank you. I spent a bunch of time with Brian before filming. If you asked him about the world, you might only get a little bit out of him. But if you asked about music, he’d light up. I loved talking with him. I also got to sing with him and his touring band a few times, which was amazing. We filmed in the studio in which they recorded Pet Sounds, and he came on set, which was a trip. I didn’t get much feedback in terms of my performance – it was more getting to know each other and learning about his life.

Which was more challenging in Little Miss Sunshine – the first half where you don’t speak, or the second half where you break your vow of silence? mattyjj
I remember the first few days, filming the dinner table scene where they’re eating chicken and I don’t speak. It felt like the directors were saying: “OK, maybe give us a little more,” because they couldn’t quite see what I was doing. But when they watched it back, they said: “It’s there, we see it,” which was a wash of relief. It’s a great question, because sometimes the words are harder, but stepping into the unknown of not speaking was pretty challenging.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

You Are the Führer’s Unrequited Love by Jean-Noël Orengo review – Hitler, Speer and beyond

This unconventional exploration of Albert Speer’s duplicity during his Nazi years and into his rehabilitation is a masterful forewarning of the post-truth era

In April 1975, Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor whose efforts to track down Nazi war criminals had earned him the title of “Nazi hunter”, wrote a letter to Albert Speer, the Nazi war criminal. Wiesenthal thanked him for a psychology book Speer had sent him, and forwarded a copy of the French edition of his own memoir. Their decade-long correspondence also includes holiday postcards and birthday wishes. It ends with a personal note from Speer’s widow Margarete on her husband’s death in 1981, telling Wiesenthal how important their friendship had been to him.

Wiesenthal’s friendship was a private echo of the extraordinarily warm international welcome that Speer received as a public intellectual after his release from Spandau prison in 1966. Speer had served as minister of armaments in wartime Nazi Germany, and was found guilty of crimes against humanity; yet when he died, he was in London to promote his new book on the BBC.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:00 am

Outcome review – Keanu Reeves sends himself up in Jonah Hill’s Hollywood satire

Hill writes and directs in-joke and insider-laden spoof about a nice-guy mega-star actor hiding a drug addiction, whose career is threatened when he’s blackmailed over a compromising video

The famous paparazzi shot of Keanu Reeves sitting alone on a bench spawned “sad Keanu”; this comedy gives us “sad asshole Keanu”. It’s a Hollywood in-joke, in a film written and directed by Jonah Hill who has persuaded his actor mates to appear, including Reeves, who plays Reef Hawk, one of the most well-known actors in the world. Like Reeves, he has a reputation for being Hollywood’s nicest celebrity: kind, humble, possibly vegan. But under the saintly exterior, Reef is a narcissist recovering from a messy heroin addiction, which has been covered up for years by his crisis lawyer Ira (played by Hill with a shaved head and terrifying veneers).

The plot is a whodunnit without a body. Reef is being extorted by persons unknown who claim to have a video of him in a compromising situation. Ira tries to work out what’s in the video (“Have you ever killed anyone? I’m not a judgy person.”) Hill’s dialogue is straight from Hollywood’s inner sanctum, and his script, co-written with Ezra Woods, is frequently though not consistently hilarious. At the bidding of his lawyer, Reef sets off to apologise to everyone he’s ever wronged and to sniff out the blackmailer. His two best friends from high school, played by Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer, tag along.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

You, Me & Tuscany review – slick romcom offers solidly charming getaway

Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page flirt their way through expected genre tropes in a watchable, if a little unspecific, slice of formulaic fantasy

You, Me & Tuscany is a perfectly wholesome and harmless meet-cute that starts by asking: “What if the Little Mermaid had a Lady and the Tramp-style hookup with the season one heart-throb from Bridgerton, spaghetti and all?”

Halle Bailey is Anna, hopelessly navigating life after the death of her mother, torn between the worlds of adult responsibility and inner child whimsy. A freelance hustle as a house sitter helps make ends meet, but her impulse to fully inhabit her clients’ lives constantly threatens her livelihood. A gig watching over a spectacular Central Park West apartment seems out of a dream. But it quickly goes awry when the lady of the house (Nia Vardalos in a sly cameo) returns early and catches Anna cosplaying as a Park Avenue princess in her premium lingerie. Embarrassed, Anna retreats into the arms of her bestie Claire (Aziza Scott of One of Them Days), the luxury hotel clerk whose barbed sisterly advice is well worth enduring for the one-liners and the potential discount on a short-term residency.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 am

Big Mistakes review – Schitt’s Creek creator Dan Levy excels in new cringe comedy

He plays a pastor on the run from a gang in this dysfunctional family sitcom. The cast is ace, with Taylor Ortega as the hilarious sister – and it has a blindsiding twist

There are, broadly speaking, two types of television shows: the ones that make stars and the ones made by stars. The former includes the ensemble productions that turn unknowns into household names – Bridgerton, Euphoria, Industry – as well as the labour-of-love projects that make their camera-ready creators scalding-hot industry property (Fleabag, I May Destroy You, Baby Reindeer). Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy’s sitcom about a once-wealthy family forced to slum it in a dingy motel in the arse end of nowhere, belongs firmly in this category. Levy, 42, did have something of a leg-up in the entertainment world – he co-created the show with his father, American Pie’s Eugene Levy, who also played the clan’s clueless patriarch – yet for all intents and purposes Schitt’s Creek was a grassroots success story, debuting in 2015 on Canadian network CBC before gradually becoming a global hit after it was picked up by Netflix a couple of years later.

And what about the second kind? Well, these are the ones that couldn’t exist without the first: they are the post-breakthrough, difficult-second-projects made by freshly minted stars such as Levy, who have been handsomely rewarded for the popularity of their dazzling brainchild with a very lucrative streaming contract. Historically, these deals haven’t always seemed like the wisest investment: Amazon has reportedly paid Fleabag Creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge $100m, but a similar blockbuster is yet to materialise. Netflix have had a fraction more luck with Levy, who made a film for them in 2023 called Good Grief – although you suspect a melancholic indie movie wasn’t exactly what the platform was hoping for when they signed up the maker of a rambunctious family comedy for an eight-figure sum.

Big Mistakes is on Netflix

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:01 am

My New Band Believe review – beautiful ideas burst from ex-Black Midi man’s lovable debut album

(Rough Trade)
Smoothing out the jump-cut chaos of his previous band, Cameron Picton brings entirely acoustic instrumentation to bear on these lovely, beguiling songs

In the middle of Hellfire, the final album by British art-rockers Black Midi, lurked a song called Still. It was easy to overlook. As you may recall, Hellfire was a rock opera that – even by the standards of rock operas, seldom the first place to look for a linear, elevator-pitch-friendly plot – made no sense whatsoever: there was some business about a boxing match, an actor who exploded on stage, and a set of army recruits with names such as Tristan Bongo and Mrs Gonorrhoea. It was admittedly difficult to pay attention to the narrative, distracted as one was by the sound of Black Midi continually doing their nut in their traditionally maximalist style: scrabbly riffs, jagged chords, free-blowing sax, bursts of noise, cocktail jazz interludes, Beefheartian rhythms, bursts of accordion, the sound of the kitchen sink being dragged into the studio etc. Amid all that, what price a sweetly lambent acoustic track, with a little country and a dab of bucolic Canterbury prog in its DNA, sung not by frontman Geordie Greep in one of his apparently fathomless array of funny voices, but by bassist Cameron Picton, a man possessed of an understated, guileless vocal style?

It’s hard not to think of Still when considering Picton’s first post-Black Midi album as My New Band Believe, recorded with a host of left-field and improv-friendly musicians, among them veteran drummer Steve Noble, once of skronky 80s post-punk hellraisers Rip Rig + Panic. While Greep’s 2024 solo debut The New Sound offered the full sonic smorgasbord familiar to Black Midi fans – all the sudden leaps from samba to heavy riffing and Zappa-ish jazz-rock your heart might desire – My New Band Believe’s eponymous debut could be read as an album that takes Still as its starting point.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:00 am

‘They should use Mambo No 5 for torture’: Sarah Beeny’s honest playlist

The presenter wakes her family up by blasting out Cal Orff and gets the ick from Chris de Burgh, but which lyrically problematic rap banger is she a secret fan of?

The first song I fell in love with
When I was a teenager, I went to a charity shop in Basingstoke, just happened to buy Jolene by Dolly Parton, then played it non-stop.

The first single I bought
Save a Prayer by Duran Duran, from HMV in Reading. Simon Le Bon was gorgeous, wasn’t he? I liked Morten Harket from A-ha as well.

Published: April 9, 2026, 8:00 am

The Housemaid author Freida McFadden reveals her true identity

The bestselling US novelist, who writes under a pseudonym and appears in public wearing a wig, said she’s ‘tired of this being secret’ as she announced her real name is Sara Cohen

The bestselling thriller writer known as Freida McFadden has revealed her real identity, ending years of speculation about the author behind a string of hugely popular novels.

McFadden, whose books include bestseller The Housemaid, appears in public in a wig and glasses and writes under a pseudonym. But the US author has now confirmed that her real name is Sara Cohen.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:09 pm

The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit review – a manual for coping with change

In the midst of violent upheaval, the author and activist reminds us of the power and promise of transformation

In 2004, Rebecca Solnit released Hope in the Dark, a series of extended essays in response to the war in Iraq. She offered a vision of solidarity and tenacity. The book experienced a sharp surge in popularity after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, selling out in short order. Returning to Hope in the Dark 10 years later, I remembered why it was so lauded. It is a slim, steady book full of sensible reminders about the limits of the intellect and the dangers of becoming poisoned by pessimism. “Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed,” Solnit wrote. Humility requires us to acknowledge that no matter how damningly certain the future may seem, it remains fundamentally unknowable. That’s where hope begins.

Her timely new book picks up this thread: “You do not have to picture the destination to reach it or at least draw closer to it, you just need to choose a direction and keep on walking,” she tells us. Solnit has written more than a dozen books since 2004, but in format, design, and theme, The Beginning Comes After the End feels like the direct successor to Hope in the Dark: a novella-length essay broken into short but wide-ranging chapters that cite history, philosophy and contemporary writing, paying special note to moments of reparation and progress.

Published: April 9, 2026, 8:00 am

World Press Photo 2026 winners – in pictures

Striking stories of the human impact from global events including the climate crisis, US aid cuts and drone wars. The World Press photo of the year and two finalists will be announced on 23 April

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Helen DeWitt turns down $175k Windham-Campbell prize over promotional requirements

The novelist says she couldn’t accept the award after being told it would entail ‘extensive promotion’

US writer Helen DeWitt has spoken out after being chosen as one of the original eight recipients of this year’s Windham-Campbell writing prizes, worth $175,000 (£130,000) each, but ultimately having to turn down the award because she was unable to participate in the promotional activities that the prize requires.

In a blog and a series of posts on X, the cult author of books including The Last Samurai said that she had been told she had won the award in February, but that receiving the money was “contingent on extensive promotion”, including participating in a festival, a podcast and a six- to eight-hour filming session for a promotional video.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:26 pm

Gillian Anderson and Cara Delevingne to hit Cannes as auteur heavyweights dominate festival lineup

The 79th edition of the film festival will see work by Pedro Almodóvar, Hirokazu Kore-eda and László Nemes considered for the coveted Palme d’Or

Gillian Anderson, Rami Malek, Cara Delevingne and John Travolta are expected to walk the red carpet at Cannes this year, as the world’s most influential film festival unveiled an auteur-heavy lineup for its 79th edition.

Competing for the coveted Palme d’Or will be new films by heavyweights Pedro Almodóvar, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Paweł Pawlikowski, László Nemes and Asghar Farhadi.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:04 pm

Hit New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Conchords reunion gigs sell out in minutes

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement announce four shows at Wellington venue Meow Nui from next week – their first gigs since 2018

New Zealand’s self-described “fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo-a cappella-rap-funk-comedy-folk duo” Flight of the Conchords sold out their first shows in eight years in minutes this week, sparking a frenzy among fans.

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement formed the musical comedy act in 1998, soaring to worldwide fame off the back of their HBO comedy series of the same name with tunes including Business Time and Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenoceros.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:29 am

You be the judge: should my girlfriend stop mixing gold and silver jewellery?

Alda feels Rachel should follow jewellery ‘rules’, but Rachel likes to mix things up. You decide whose argument rings true
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I know she’s expressing herself, but when you mix everything up, it looks thrown together and cheap

They’re not Alda’s hands to worry about – I like my mismatched mess. Why does it matter to her?

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:00 am

My father-in-law lives with my young family but I don’t want to ‘sandwich parent’. What should I do? | Leading questions

You don’t have to compromise your or your child’s wellbeing, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Whatever happens, you need better information going forward

• Read more Leading questions

At my suggestion, my husband and I moved his father to live in a granny annexe of our home. This was for two reasons. First, he was experiencing health issues and getting visibly older and we thought he’d end up needing to live with us eventually. Second, we wanted to start a family and I naively thought we could have some live-in childcare.

We now have a toddler and although my father-in-law is useful in many ways he isn’t able to provide childcare as he is emotionally and physically frailer than I thought, and we are also having to deal with his very sensitive and difficult moods that are exacerbated by his ageing.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:00 pm

I've tested nearly every Sonos product – here's the good and bad about its portable speakers

They’re pricier than the competition, but have key features: the music doesn’t skitter when you step out of Bluetooth range and they can handle water and dust

• How do Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 compare against hearing aids? I put them to the test

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Over the past eight years, I’ve reviewed dozens of portable speakers from every top brand. And I can confidently say that Sonos makes three of the best portable speakers of them all.

There’s Sonos Play, the brand’s newest portable and the Goldilocks of its lineup in size, sound and features. The Roam 2, a Toblerone-shaped speaker that’s small enough to go anywhere. And the Move 2, a powerhouse that doesn’t sacrifice bass performance.

The little one:
Sonos Roam 2

Published: April 9, 2026, 7:15 pm

The best USB chargers in the US for phones, laptops, travel and more

These are the best USB chargers in the US to keep devices juiced up quickly and safely for all your tech needs

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USB chargers power the world. From phones to laptops and even bike lights, the gadgets we use every day increasingly rely on USB connections for power, making chargers an indispensable tool to keep your life running.

Though the U in USB stands for “universal,” you sadly can’t expect every USB charger to work with every USB device. Modern devices use different charging speeds, protocols and ports. That means if you’re still relying on the brick that came with your phone from a decade ago, it’s time for an upgrade. A high–quality USB charger will cover all your bases to charge devices quickly and safely, all in a compact package.

Best overall USB charger:
Baseus PicoGo AE11

Best budget USB charger:
Anker 511 Nano 3

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:40 pm

From fat transplants to LED mittens: how the fear of ‘old lady hands’ mobilised the beauty industry

After decades of focusing on faces, manufacturers, beauticians and surgeons are offering us younger-looking hands. Is this more about money or scientific progress?

I lay my hands on the table, palms down, for inspection. I’m in the consulting room of the president of the British College of Aesthetic Medicine (BCAM) in London. Like most people, I use my hands a lot. I type for hours a day. I go bouldering, which means I have a lot of calluses. I cook, clean, cup my chin while staring out the window. What I’ve never done is to look at my hands as objects of interest in their own right. They’re an afterthought. The means to an end. But now that Dr Sophie Shotter has picked them up in hers and is weighing my flesh and pushing at the skin with her thumbs to see how it moves, I can see faint ripples of diamonds, the texture of crepe paper.

“Your facial skin is very clear, very smooth. When we look at your hands, you’ve got a bit more of that laxity going on,” Shotter says. “You don’t have pigmentation. You’re not covered in sunspots. But the veins and tendons testify to a loss of volume. The extreme end of that is one day we get what people describe as ‘old lady hands’ – significant volume loss with skin fragility overlying it.”

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:00 am

AI can’t wield a paint brush, but it did help me transform my home

In the final week of Rhik Samadder’s diary, he basked in the rosy glow – literally – after AI’s wall paint suggestion

• Sign up for AI for the People, a six-week newsletter course, here

Sometimes, when the hose of my vacuum cleaner knocks over a potted plant, adding a layer of drudgery to an already miserable chore, I feel ground down by domesticity. Futurity once promised us robot butlers. What happened?

The despair led me to this week’s quest. Can AI actually transform my day-to-day existence?

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 am

Injured and abandoned: hundreds of Gaza amputees left stranded in Egypt

At the peak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, 10 children a day were losing one or both legs. For those who cross the border for medical help, physical recovery is only the start of their struggle

Ola Jamal, 36, was breastfeeding her two-month-old son, Zain, when the missile struck al-Nasr hospital in Gaza in November 2023. When the explosion hit the building, the shrapnel went through Jamal’s arm while she held her infant.

“I ran with my family to the hospital and stayed there to hide,” she says at a prosthetic centre in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. “We thought it would be safe because it’s a children’s hospital.”

A row of customised prosthetic limbs, labelled with the names of patients, lined up in a clinic wall

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:00 am

A missing wolf and a Sydney sunset: photos of the day – Thursday

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

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:24 pm