Trump warns ‘nothing will stop me’ at rally to celebrate 100 days in office

President holds campaign-style event in Michigan, attacks Democrats and ‘communist’ judges, and repeats 2020 election lie

Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”

The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.

Published: April 30, 2025, 1:18 am

Trump border pick accused of ‘cover-up’ over death of man beaten by US agents

Former top official calls for Rodney Scott to be blocked from CBP role over handling of investigation into Anastasio Hernández Rojas’s death

Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has been accused by a former top official of orchestrating a “cover-up” over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico, according to a letter obtained by the Guardian.

Scott is a former US border patrol chief who has supported the president’s vow to build a wall along the border with Mexico and criticized Joe Biden’s handling of immigration policy. As commissioner of CBP, Scott would lead one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies, which encompasses the border patrol and staffs ports of entry across the United States.

Published: April 30, 2025, 12:41 am

Middle East crisis live: US backs Israel’s stance on Unrwa at ICJ hearing

US official tells international court of justice about ‘serious concerns’ over agency’s impartiality

There is now a live feed from the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where the US is giving evidence (see 8.52am). You may need to refresh the blog to see it.

An Iranian man convicted of espionage and intelligence cooperation with Israel was executed on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:33 am

Man charged with attempted rape of person who died on New York subway

Felix Rojas, 44, arraigned after video showed him performing sexual acts on unresponsive passenger

Authorities in New York have charged a man with attempted rape after surveillance video taken showed him performing sexual acts on an unresponsive passenger who was later determined to have died.

Police have been looking for suspects in the case for weeks, after footage captured two different people robbing the corpse of a man on a train traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan, one of whom allegedly sexually violated him.

Published: April 30, 2025, 1:05 am

UK launches Yemen airstrikes, joining intense US campaign against Houthi rebels

RAF Typhoons targeted buildings used to make drones, officials say, in British military’s first involvement since Trump took office

• Middle East crisis – live updates

British fighter jets joined their US counterparts in airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels overnight, the first military action authorised by the Labour government and the first UK participation in an aggressive American bombing campaign against the group.

RAF Typhoons, refuelled by Voyager air tankers, targeted a cluster of buildings 15 miles south of the capital, Sana’a, which the UK said were used by the Houthis to manufacture drones that had targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:00 am

‘Trump wanted to break us’, says Carney as Liberals triumph in Canadian election

Party written off months ago completes remarkable comeback after US president’s threats boosted campaign

• Results tracker

Mark Carney has used his victory speech to claim Donald Trump wanted to “break us” as he led Canada’s Liberal party to a fourth term in office, in a race that was upended by threats and aggression from the US president.

The Liberal triumph capped a miraculous political resurrection and marked a landmark victory for Carney, the former central banker and political novice who only recently succeeded Justin Trudeau as prime minister. Results on Tuesday confirmed that the Liberals fell just short of a majority government and would therefore need the support of political rivals to govern.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:37 pm

Europe live: Germany’s SPD approves coalition deal with conservative CDU/CSU to form next government

The conservative-SPD coalition was the only path to a majority government after both major parties suffered steep losses in the February federal election

In other slightly encouraging news for the new government, the German economy grew faster than expected at the start of the year, AFP reported.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in Europe’s biggest economy expanded 0.2 percent from January to March compared to the previous quarter, according to provisional figures from federal statistics agency Destatis.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:21 am

Piers Morgan warns rise of YouTube is a ‘wake-up moment’ for traditional media

Presenter is expanding his own business on the platform and likens change to when vinyl music went digital

The media world is undergoing a “sea change” in which some traditional titles disappear, Piers Morgan has predicted, as he said some YouTube channels would soon have as much power as traditional network television.

The presenter and former newspaper editor, who is holding funding talks to expand his YouTube business, predicted more established media figures would soon follow him to the increasingly influential streaming service as audience habits continue to shift.

Published: April 30, 2025, 5:00 am

Swedish police detain 16-year-old after deadly attack in Uppsala

Three people were killed in shooting at hair salon in university city north of Stockholm

Sweden’s prosecution authority has said that a 16-year-old had been detained on suspicion of shooting and killing three people in the city of Uppsala on Tuesday.

Police had earlier confirmed in a press conference that a detained person was suspected of murder and was one of several people being interrogated as part of the investigation, although they did not provide an age.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:41 am

Runaway kangaroo on the loose named Sheila shuts down Alabama interstate

Marsupial spotted hopping along side of interstate before police surrounded area and owner used dart to tranquilize it

A runaway kangaroo named Sheila shut down a stretch of interstate in Alabama on Tuesday before state troopers and the animal’s owner wrangled the wayward marsupial.

The Alabama law enforcement agency said the kangaroo was spotted on Tuesday hopping along the side of Interstate 85 in Macon county, which is between Montgomery and Auburn.

Published: April 29, 2025, 10:25 pm

Readers give their verdict on Trump’s 100 days: ‘Extraordinary destruction’

The president promised an ‘extraordinary’ first 100 days in office but for many that has been true in all the wrong ways

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have polarized the United States and the world.

Public opinion polls show the president’s approval rating is around 40% – having flipped from positive to negative since his inauguration. A vast majority of Americans are worried about a recession and how his trade war will affect the economy.

Published: April 30, 2025, 8:00 am

Trump 100 days: Trump’s whirlwind start to his second presidency

The president has begun his second term at a whirlwind pace, slashing the government, upending international alliances, challenging the rule of law and ordering mass deportations

Law-abiding migrants sent to foreign prisons. Sweeping tariffs disrupting global markets. Students detained for protest. Violent insurrectionists pardoned. Tens of thousands of federal workers fired. The supreme court ignored.

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have shocked the United States and the world. On the eve of his inauguration, Trump promised the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”, and what followed has been a whirlwind pace of extreme policies and actions that have reshaped the federal government and the US’s role in the world.

Published: April 29, 2025, 10:10 pm

Trump news at a glance: US president attacks Democrats and ‘communist’ judges at campaign-style rally

Donal Trump celebrates 100 days in office with Michigan event, saying ‘nothing will stop me’ – key US politics stories from Tuesday 29 April at a glance

Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”

The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.

Published: April 30, 2025, 2:35 am

Trump 100 days: delusions of monarchy coupled with fundamental ineptitude

Trump has wasted no time in trying to remake the US in his image – with results that are sweeping, vengeful and chaotic

• 100 days of Trump

He has blinged it with gold cherubim, gold eagles, gold medallions, gold figurines and gilded rococo mirrors. He has crammed its walls with gold-framed paintings of great men from US history. In 100 days Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into a gilded cage.

The portraits of Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan and other past presidents gaze down from a past that the 47th seems determined to erase. Trump is seeking to remake the US in his image at frightening speed. The shock and awe of his second term has challenged many Americans’ understanding of who they are.

Published: April 29, 2025, 8:00 am

Inside Taganrog: beatings, electrocution and starvation at prison where Ukrainians were tortured

Russia is holding an estimated 16,000 civilians in arbitrary detention at 180 separate facilities. Taganrog was the most notorious.

Some weeks after being detained as she attempted to leave a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine in January 2023, Yelyzaveta Shylyk was given a polygraph test. As her interrogators attached the lie detector’s wires to her, they calmly issued a threat about what would happen if she failed the test: “You’ll go to a place where you’ll regret being born.”

That place, she would later find out, had a name: Sizo number 2, a pre-trial detention centre in the southern Russian city of Taganrog.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:00 am

Cocaine, corruption and bribes: the German port under siege by Europe’s criminal drug gangs

After seizure in Hamburg of 16 tonnes of high-purity powder, state attorney is accused of being on payroll of gang he was supposed to be prosecuting

In Hamburg’s spring sunshine, 200,000-tonne cargo ships almost half a mile long, piled high with the same weight in shipping containers, are docked quayside along the Elbe River. Cranes slowly offload the metal boxes packed with everything from raw materials to food and electronics, and, in some, cocaine.

Between 2018 and 2023 cocaine seizures rose by 750%, marking out Germany as another major European hub in the ever-expanding global trade. But the influx is not just ramping up addiction, it is also fuelling corruption in a country perceived as being one of the least corrupt in the world.

Published: April 30, 2025, 2:00 am

The white Afrikaners lining up to accept Trump’s offer of asylum

Thousands of South Africans are hoping to move to the US to escape crime – and what they say is discrimination against white people

Kyle believed God was looking out for him when he survived a violent farm robbery in South Africa eight years ago with only a black eye and broken ribs. The robbers failed to get the kettle and iron working, so were unable to burn anyone. Then the gun trigger jammed when they tried to shoot Kyle in the spine.

“They specifically said they were coming back for this farm … [that] it was their land,” said the 43-year-old, who did not want to use his full name. “Only afterwards, we found out that the guy that stays on the plot was actually killed … the farmhand … I don’t know what his name was.”

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:49 am

‘I don’t date at all now’: one woman’s journey into the darkest corners of the manosphere

When Jess Davies was 15, a boy leaked pictures she’d shared with him. At 18, she was a glamour model. A few years later, another man violated her trust. Then she fought back

Jess Davies was a 15-year-old schoolgirl, sitting in an art lesson, absorbed in her fairytale project about a princess and a postman, when her Nokia phone began to vibrate with messages. “Nice pictures,” read one. “I didn’t think you were that type of girl,” said another.

To this day, she remembers the racing thoughts, the instant nausea, the hairs prickling up on her legs, the sweaty palms. She had shared a photograph of herself in her underwear with a boy she trusted and, very soon, it had been sent around the school and across her small home town, Aberystwyth, Wales. She became a local celebrity for all the wrong reasons. Younger kids would approach her laughing and ask for a hug. Members of the men’s football team saw it – and one showed someone who knew Davies’s nan, so that’s how her family found out.

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:00 am

Thunderbolts* review – Florence Pugh is saving grace of Marvel’s hit-and-miss mess

The Oscar nominated actor is the most impressive member of a ragtag Suicide Squad-esque team in an often charmingly unusual yet still baggy adventure

Thunderbolts* can be messy. Not just the movie, with its clumsily forced narrative beats and whiplash tonal shifts. But also, its title characters, the broken and lonely souls who ditch the colourful costumes and wear their emotions on their sleeves, as if it’s their brand.

These reluctant heroes, led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, the troubled sister to Scarlett Johansson’s late Black Widow, are defined by how much they need therapy. They wrestle with themselves more than the bad guys, in a way that’s more pronounced than the most unstable among Marvel’s stable of wisecracking world saviors. They’re endearingly vulnerable, at times devastatingly so, and yet still fun and exciting enough to save Marvel.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:00 pm

The experts: neurologists on 17 simple ways to look after your brain

Sleep well, swap butter for olive oil, learn a musical instrument – or embrace some other ‘magnificent obsession’. Here is what doctors do themselves to delay the onset of cognitive decline

As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:00 am

‘Still some fuel in the tank’: the perks and perils of launching a business after 60

Growing numbers of older people are creating enterprises in everything from baking to biodiversity – but does the freedom make up for the graft?

Kari Johnston felt ready to retire after 45 years in nursing when, at 63 years old, she decided to launch her own business – a professional decluttering and organising service.

She had read about decluttering and, fascinated, quickly created a website and advertised. Her first clients were friends. Three-and-a-half years later, Johnston, from St Monans in Fife, is now fully retired from nursing, and feels delighted with the success of her new venture.

Published: April 30, 2025, 5:00 am

Carême review – a sexy French romp about a chef who’s too spicy to handle

It’s hard to resist this moreish story about Napoleon’s renegade pastry chef (who is also a spy). Orgies, opium and tantalising fun with whipped cream are all on the menu

Much like the desserts whipped up by its titular cook, Carême is a rich, moreish and knowingly indulgent treat. This swashbuckling French period drama follows the “world’s first celebrity chef” Antonin Carême as he cavorts around Paris in the early 1800s under the watchful eye of first consul Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he has sworn to hate as he holds him responsible for the death of his adopted sister. It is about as understated as a 12-course tasting menu. But as it scoffs and seduces its way through the Napoleonic era, it’s hard not to fall for the extravagant charms of the Bake Off: extra spice.

Carême (a twinkly-eyed Benjamin Voisin, in full rock-star mode) is a principled young renegade and preternaturally talented pastry chef who makes his disdain for Napoleon clear from the beginning. Despite being midway through a steamy, whipped cream-based encounter with his sometime girlfriend Henriette (Lyna Khoudri), he is called away from his, ahem, tasting session and asked to cook for the troops. “Should I poison them?” he asks, cheekily, before setting to work. He does not choose to commit mass murder, but does reluctantly end up saving Napoleon’s life, leaving Carême in a bind. Should he work for the man he despises? Does he have a choice?

Published: April 30, 2025, 5:00 am

Cheat: Unfinished Business review – the single worst show that has ever been created

Eight ex-couples who split up due to infidelity are sent to a luxury villa together. It’s a grim cross between Love Island and Jeremy Kyle – and somehow also unforgivably boring

First, an important point of order. The new Netflix television series Cheat: Unfinished Business should not be confused with the Netflix television series Cheat. The latter was a 2023 gameshow hosted by Danny Dyer, notable for being forgettably bad. The former is a 2025 reality show hosted by Amanda Holden, notable for being the single worst thing that has ever been created in the history of humankind.

You might think this is an exaggeration, but that’s only because you haven’t just watched four episodes of Cheat: Unfinished Business in a row, and haven’t found yourself involuntarily clawing at your eyes in a doomed bid to injure any part of your brain that might remember watching it. I have. Quite frankly it’s a wonder I can still type.

Published: April 30, 2025, 7:00 am

Is muscle soreness after a workout good or bad?

When it comes to workouts, how much pain – specifically, how much post-workout soreness – is actually a good thing? The answer: it depends

Humans have long glamorized suffering, hailing it as an essential ingredient of growth. In the ancient Greek tragedy Elektra, Sophocles wrote: “Nothing truly succeeds without pain.” In the 1980s, the actor and aerobics instructor Jane Fonda told people: “No pain, no gain.”

But when it comes to workouts, how much pain – specifically, how much post-workout soreness – is actually a good thing? The answer: it depends.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:00 pm

‘Shipwrecked in the 21st century’: how people made it through Europe’s worst blackout in living memory

Daring rescues were attempted, quick commutes turned into hours-long odysseys, cars were directed by baguettes – but the show went on in the world’s best restaurant

The ski lifts, carrying 16 people, dangled high above the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. As parts of Spain and Portugal were plunged into a blackout on Monday, the swaying gondolas had come to a halt metres above the ground, leaving people trapped inside.

About four hours later, video posted online by the ski station showed a rescuer lowering themselves into a gondola to set up a system of ropes that allowed the skiers to rappel to the ground.

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:20 pm

Why is the US sleeping as autocracy approaches? | Governor Jay Inslee

The country’s future depends on law firms, universities and media companies – as well as everyday Americans – breaking their silence

When a woman asked me a couple of weeks ago why leaders were not standing up to Donald Trump, my thoughts went immediately to political leaders. When I started to answer, she corrected me and said: “No, no, I’m talking about college presidents and law firms. Where the heck are they?”

Where indeed? From all observations, most have been asleep as the US president dismantles democracy piece by jeweled piece. They are either cutting sweet little deals on their knees, or just remaining silent as the fruits of 250 years of national labor and life are strangled by Trump’s tentacles. From the cowering of major media companies to the shameful capitulation of some law firms, and oppressive silence from virtually all of them, the nation is sleepwalking into a slow but ever encroaching totalitarian state.

Published: April 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Russia has offered a short ceasefire in Ukraine – but here’s what Putin really wants | Andriy Yermak

As part of the price for peace, Moscow would like sanctions on Russian airlines lifted. That’s no surprise: they’re vital to the Kremlin’s war machine

On Monday, the Kremlin offered a three-day pause in hostilities against Ukraine in May, to coincide with Moscow’s celebrations of the end of the second world war. In a context where Ukraine is calling for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, and the US a permanent one, Russia wants concessions before a lasting pause or permanent peace can even be discussed. Central to the Kremlin’s demands is the removal of sanctions – especially those restricting its aviation sector.

We must be cautious not to make concessions prematurely, under the guise of quick progress. The short pause offered would not make a meaningful difference to the war, and accepting it would enable a regime that has repeatedly shown intent to prolong its war of aggression and undermine this chance for a just, fair and lasting peace.

Andriy Yermak is head of the Ukrainian presidential office

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:00 am

The ‘womanosphere’ is the latest cultural propaganda assault on young womanhood. Will it work? | Van Badham

A conservative movement seeking to harness female fandoms and pop culture gossip is the new front in the hard right’s endless culture war

Fun news from the Guardian’s “Everything is Awful” desk this week: the “womanosphere” cometh. The article heralds the arrival of “a crop of conservative personalities … convincing young women of a gender-essentialist worldview”.

What does such essentialism entail? The woman holding a sign reading “Make him a sandwich” is a strong clue. “Be thin, fertile and Republican” is the Guardian’s conclusion.

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:11 am

The uniting theme of Trump’s presidency? Ineptitude | Robert Reich

From deportations to human rights to the economy, the president’s actions have resulted in mayhem. Here’s a sampling

Some Democrats fear they’re playing into Donald Trump’s hands by fighting his mass deportations rather than focusing on his failures on bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living.

But it’s not either-or. The theme that unites Trump’s inept handling of deportations, his trampling on human and civil rights, his rejection of the rule of law, his dictatorial centralization of power, and his utterly inept handling of the economy is the ineptness itself.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:00 pm

The grass is not always greener on US stock markets

Narrative that US listings outperform European ones has been popular for years, but analysis shows a different story

Donald Trump is doing an excellent job of demonstrating that US stock markets don’t always outperform European ones.

On-off tariff wars, threats to fire the head of the Federal Reserve and general unpredictability have prompted a reappraisal of boring old Europe. The S&P 500 is down 6% this year, versus a gain of 2.5% for FTSE 100 index and a 3% improvement in the pan-European Stoxx Europe 600. The differences aren’t enormous but they mark a reversal from recent years.

Published: April 29, 2025, 11:01 pm

Dembélé and Donnarumma give PSG edge over Arsenal in Champions League

The optimistic reading for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal is that it is not over. Yet if they are to keep alive their shot at history, the pursuit of a first Champions League triumph, they are going to need something extraordinary in the second leg of this semi-final next Wednesday.

The atmosphere at the Parc des Princes will be red-hot and Paris Saint-Germain will not easily be shifted from the advantage that Ousmane Dembélé’s fourth-minute goal has given them. The French champions showed why they have won so many admirers across the continent this season, calling the tune for the opening 35 minutes or so. And again towards the end when they expertly retightened their grip.

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:08 pm

Luka Dončić pays entire cost to restore vandalized Kobe Bryant mural

• Lakers star makes $5,000 donation to GoFundMe page
• Kobe and Gigi Bryant died in January 2020

Luka Dončić has stepped up to pay the entire expected cost of restoring a vandalized mural depicting Kobe and Gigi Bryant in downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ new guard made a $5,000 donation on Tuesday to cover the entire goal of a GoFundMe page created by artist Louie Palsino. He wants to restore the mural, titled Mambas Forever, at 14th and Main Streets.

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:54 pm

Rory McIlroy moves into ‘new chapter’ and targets more big prizes

Masters triumph was unique but Northern Irishman knows more silverware will follow if he maintains his fine form

When you have spent so long labouring under a burden associated with the reaching of targets, it would seem ridiculous to set more. At Augusta National this month Rory McIlroy didn’t just win the Masters. He didn’t just complete his career Grand Slam. He didn’t just end a wait for a fifth major that had stretched back to his halcyon summer of 2014. McIlroy did all of this at once; his emotion on the 18th green was partly because of the almighty weight that had been prised from his shoulders.

McIlroy’s subsequent celebration was endearing, but also thought-provoking. He spent time with his parents, his wider family, his lifetime coach and childhood friends. There was no open-top bus parade through the streets of his native Holywood or wild party at the golf club bearing the same name. No public lap of honour. All of that can wait.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:37 am

The stadium myth: new grounds won’t rescue your club – or your city

From the Premier League to MLS and the NFL, huge stadiums with gargantuan costs are a symptom of elite sport’s unrealistic promises

“Nil satis nisi optimum,” boasts the motto of Everton FC: “Nothing but the best is good enough.” Performances on the pitch over the past few seasons have suggested otherwise (what’s Latin for “Anything to stay up will do?”) but in the form of the sparkling new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which will replace Goodison Park as Everton’s permanent home from the start of next season, the club now has tangible proof that its historic aspiration to excellence is at last being met.

Based on the renderings and early footage of its interior, Everton Stadium (it will be a while before that bland placeholder is draped in the capitalist rococo of the “TeslaDome” or “Open AI’s ChatGPT Arena” or “Palantir Presents Bramley-Moore Dock”) appears to be a pleasingly raked and compact arena that should retain at least some of the raucousness of Everton’s old home. The stands are at the steepest pitch that regulations will allow, sightlines are unobstructed from every seat, and judging from the promotional videos, fans will never be more than 50 metres from either a toilet or a scouse pie, which seems like a key metric of success for any stadium in Liverpool.

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:00 am

Billions behind the badge: Neom joins Saudi Arabia’s football revolution

Backed by same force as Newcastle, Neom’s promotion signals era of spending in futuristic city that is yet to exist

Europe’s biggest clubs may not pay much attention to Saudi Arabia’s second division, but a new and curious force in the international transfer market is emerging from that league. Neom Sports Club (SC) have not only never played a top tier game before but also represent a city that does not yet exist.

Neom won promotion to the Saudi Pro League last week and will, from next season, take their place alongside the so-called ‘Big Four’: Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr of Riyadh, and Jeddah giants Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli. This group, home to Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Riyad Mahrez, are to become the ‘Big Five’. That is because Neom SC belong to the planned futuristic urban area of Neom, backed by the Public Investment Fund behind the aforementioned quartet, as well as Newcastle.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:40 am

Djokovic pulls out of Italian Open on back of three-match losing streak

• World No 5 to skip ATP Tour event before French Open
• Serb will arrive at Roland Garros with lone win on clay

Novak Djokovic has reacted to his run of poor form by pulling out of the Italian Open in Rome next week. The 24-time grand slam champion is on a three-match losing streak, having crashed out of the Madrid Open following defeat by Matteo Arnaldi.

Tournament organisers announced on social media that Djokovic would not be playing in the Italian capital, with the Serbian writing on Instagram: “Rome, I will miss you. I hope we meet next year.”

Published: April 30, 2025, 8:27 am

FIA president hints at climbdown amid F1 driver standoff over swearing fines

• Mohammed ben Sulayem suggests rule ‘improvements’
• F1 drivers raised concerns over fines and free speech

The standoff between drivers and the president of Formula One’s governing body over the contentious issue of swearing may have taken a step towards resolution.

Ahead of this week’s Miami Grand Prix, the FIA’s Mohammed ben Sulayem posted on Instagram that after “constructive feedback” from drivers across the world of motorsport he is considering making “improvements” to the document which lays out the punishments for a range of offences ranging from physical violence to political statements and swearing.

Published: April 29, 2025, 3:43 pm

Raphinha goes from missing man to Barcelona’s Ballon d’Or contender

The former Leeds forward was on the periphery but is now key to Hansi Flick’s team thanks to his hunger for goals

To score, first you have to learn how to miss. Raphinha, to be fair, misses a lot. Most common of all, perhaps, is the low screamer, dragged across goal with the left foot, disappearing into the advertising hoardings with an unseen thud as the goalkeeper calmly strolls off in search of a fresh ball. If you close your eyes and try to picture Raphinha missing, this is almost certainly the miss you are imagining.

But Raphinha can miss in a plethora of other ways, too. The wild slice at the back post is another favourite. The free-kick into the wall. The mistimed header sailing harmlessly over the bar and Raphinha has never been the greatest header of a ball, but he is going to keep making the run nonetheless, again and again, all night if he has to. If it feels weird to begin a discussion of one of Europe’s most prolific forwards by listing all the ways he can miss then one helps to explain the other. Raphinha is a winger rather than a pure striker, but the trait he has in common with all the world’s great goalscorers is the ability to prize volume over grace, to put the last miss out of his mind, to keep coming and keep shooting with a ruthless, relentless hunger.

Published: April 30, 2025, 7:00 am

UN climate talks will be ‘uphill battle’ amid Trump rollbacks, says Cop30 chair

Tariffs and environmental cuts will make meeting challenging, says summit president André Corrêa do Lago

Crucial United Nations climate talks this year will be a “slightly uphill battle” due to economic turmoil and Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the effort to tackle global heating, the chair of the upcoming summit has admitted.

Governments from around the world will gather in Belem, Brazil, in November for the Cop30 meeting, where they will be expected to announce new plans to deal with the climate crisis and slash greenhouse gas emissions. Very few countries have done so yet, however, and the world remains well off track to remain within agreed temperature limits designed to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown.

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:59 pm

Trump dismisses contributors to key US report on climate crisis preparedness

The assessment, mandated by Congress, is used by federal and local governments to prep for climate disasters

Donald Trump’s administration has dismissed all contributors to the US government’s flagship study on how to prepare for climate change impacts, prompting strong criticism from experts over a “senseless” move.

The climate assessment is used by federal and local governments to understand how to prepare for climate crisis impacts including from extreme heat, hurricanes, flooding and drought.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:06 pm

What caused the blackout in Spain and Portugal and did renewable energy play a part?

The countries boast high levels of wind and solar on their grids, leading to speculation about the robustness of the technology

• Europe live – latest updates
• Pedro Sánchez vows to find the cause of huge power cut in Spain and Portugal

Spain and Portugal suffered the worst blackout in living memory in Europe this week. About 55 million people were affected and it lasted more than half a day. Some have blamed renewables and net zero emissions targets, as the two countries boast high levels of wind and solar on their electricity grid and lead Europe in the technologies. But is this true?

Published: April 29, 2025, 1:56 pm

‘Last chance for humanity’: the cold reality of monitoring global heating on a glacier

Scientists on Union glacier in Antarctica fear the region is reaching a dangerous tipping point

• Words and photographs by James Whitlow Delano

Every time Dr Ricardo Jaña crosses the turbulent seas that separate Chile from Antarctica, it feels like his first time. The glaciologist at the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach) has sailed each year for 12 years through the Drake Passage, where the prevailing westerly winds, unimpeded by any land mass, raise the waters in chaotic waves that lash his boat.

“I feel powerless and resigned to the forces of nature,” says Jaña, who is the research chief at the Union Glacier Joint Scientific Polar Station.

Jaña skis around the glacier making global navigation satellite system measurements

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:00 am

Denied, detained, deported: the people targeted in Trump’s immigration crackdown

These are some of the people ensnared by the administration’s unprecedented measures to target people it believes oppose its agenda

Donald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administration set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting people requesting asylum and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.

Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:56 pm

More than 50,000 Los Angeles county workers strike disrupting key services

Two-day walkout begins after contract negotiations fail amid ‘unprecedented stresses’ on county budget

More than 50,000 Los Angeles county workers were on strike again on Tuesday, closing libraries and disrupting administrative operations across the nation’s most populous county.

The two-day walkout that began on Monday followed failed negotiations with the county for a new contract after the last one expired in March, according to the Service Employees International Union Local 721.

Published: April 29, 2025, 5:16 pm

Harvey Weinstein rape retrial: witness who testified in 2020 takes stand

Miriam Haley testifies as ex-producer faces charges involving two women from original trial

The first of three accusers expected to testify at Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial took the witness stand on Tuesday, reprising her testimony from his first #MeToo trial five years ago.

Miriam Haley, a former TV and movie production assistant, alleges that the former movie mogul forcibly performed oral sex on her at his New York City apartment in 2006.

Published: April 29, 2025, 8:48 pm

Angry Florida voters hold ‘empty chair’ town halls for absent Republicans

Republican committee advises against holding town halls as cases of lawmakers berated over federal cuts go viral

Angry voters are holding empty chair town halls as Republican members of Congress are refusing to hold those meetings with constituents.

Weeks into Donald Trump’s second term as president, Republican members of Congress were advised by the National Republican Congressional Committee against holding in person town halls with constituents, as several cases of Republican members of Congress being berated by constituents over federal worker firings and cuts went viral.

Published: April 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Los Angeles approves $4bn payout to settle thousands of sexual abuse claims

Deal represents largest aggregate settlement in US history as officials issue apology for ‘reprehensible acts’

Los Angeles county officials on Tuesday approved a $4bn payout to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959.

The agreement reached on April 4 far surpasses a $2.6bn settlement reached in 2022 with the Boy Scouts of America that was the largest aggregate sexual abuse settlement in US history at the time.

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:25 pm

Why effects of Michigan’s ice storm will linger for months, perhaps years

Climate experts say warming atmosphere from climate change could fuel severe freezing rain and ice storms like the one that hit the upper midwest last month

Winter has been slow to release its icy grip from the upper midwest this year, and in northern Michigan, its effects will be keenly felt for months, perhaps years.

A devastating ice storm that hit late last month has left an estimated 3m acres of trees snapped in half or damaged from the weight of up to an inch-and-a-half of ice across the northern part of lower Michigan.

Published: April 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Amazon takes on Musk’s Starlink with launch of first internet satellites

First 27 satellites launched into space from Florida, part of $10bn effort to beam broadband internet globally

The first 27 satellites for Amazon’s Kuiper broadband internet constellation were launched into space from Florida on Monday, kicking off the long-delayed deployment of an internet from space network that will rival SpaceX’s Starlink.

The satellites are the first of 3,236 that Amazon plans to send into low-Earth orbit for Project Kuiper, a $10bn effort announced in 2019 to beam broadband internet globally for consumers, businesses and governments – customers that SpaceX has courted for years with its powerful Starlink business.

Published: April 29, 2025, 3:19 pm

New Orleans Catholic diocese ordered to defend bankruptcy case from dismissal

Judge orders church to court to defend case for protection from mounting claims of child sexual abuse by priests

In a major development for the second-oldest Catholic diocese in the country, a US bankruptcy judge has ordered the Archdiocese of New Orleans to appear in court in June and show why its five-year-old bankruptcy case should not be dismissed.

Judge Meredith Grabill’s order suggests little concrete progress has been made since 13 September 2024, when the archdiocese and a committee representing more than 500 clergy abuse claimants filed competing plans for settling the bankruptcy.

Published: April 29, 2025, 12:40 pm

Pete Hegseth scraps Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security program citing DEI

Defense secretary dismissed it as a ‘woke … Biden initiative’ despite it being a Trump achievement from his first term

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has abruptly banished the Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security program as part of his crusade against diversity and equity – dismissing it as “woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative” despite it being a signature Donald Trump achievement from his first term.

In a post on X, Hegseth wrote: “This morning, I proudly ENDED the ‘Women, Peace & Security’ (WPS) program inside the [Department of Defense]. WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.”

Published: April 29, 2025, 5:02 pm

US fighter jet rolls off aircraft carrier as ship reportedly swerves Houthi fire

Crew members jump out of Super Hornet before jet and towing tractor fall into the Red Sea

US sailors had to leap for their lives when a fighter jet fell off a navy aircraft carrier that was reportedly making evasive maneuvers to avoid Houthi militant fire in the Red Sea on Monday.

The F/A-18 fighter Super Hornet jet, along with the vehicle towing it into place on the deck of the USS Harry S Truman, rolled right out of the hangar and into the water, the navy said.

Published: April 29, 2025, 1:15 pm

Spanish PM calls on private energy firms to help find cause of massive power cut

Pedro Sánchez says changes needed to guarantee ‘supply and future competitiveness’ of electricity after blackout

• Europe live – latest updates

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called on private energy operators to help his government establish the cause of Monday’s unprecedented power cut across the Iberian peninsula, and said changes and improvements must be made to guarantee “the supply and future competitiveness” of the country’s electrical system.

Spain and Portugal suffered a massive power loss that began shortly after 12.30pm on Monday and lasted into the night. At least five people are thought to have died in Spain as a result of the blackout, which left passengers trapped on paralysed trains and in the static lifts of apartment blocks and offices.

Published: April 30, 2025, 8:38 am

Trump ‘makes trade deal with UK second-order priority’ in blow to ministers

Exclusive: US officials have split negotiations with countries into three phases, sources say, with South Korea taking priority

Donald Trump has made a trade deal with the UK a second-order priority, sources have told the Guardian, hampering British attempts to meet their mid-May deadline.

US officials have decided to split their negotiations with more than a dozen other countries into three phases, with the UK being placed in either phase two or three, according to people who have been briefed on the talks.

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:31 pm

Unrwa says Israel has abused detained staff and used some as human shields

Accusation from UN agency comes as Red Crescent medic held since deadly Israeli attack on ambulances is freed

The embattled UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, has accused Israel of abusing dozens of its staff in military detention and using some as human shields.

The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said that more than 50 staff members, including teachers, doctors and social workers, had been detained and abused since the start of the 18-month-long war in Gaza.

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:00 pm

Exercise can counter side-effects of cancer treatment, biggest review of its kind shows

Exercise such as aerobic and resistance training and yoga found to reduce heart and nerve damage and brain fog

Exercise can counter the detrimental effects of cancer treatment, according to the most comprehensive review of its kind.

Several studies have evaluated how physical activity affects the health outcomes of patients with the disease, but significant gaps in the evidence have remained until now.

Published: April 29, 2025, 10:30 pm

$30m salvage operation on Mike Lynch’s superyacht to begin

Investigators hope hoisting craft will yield clues about last year’s sinking and recover two super-encrypted hard drives

Recovery operations to raise the 56-metre British-flagged superyacht Bayesian from the seabed off Sicily, where it sank last summer killing seven people – including the British tech entrepreneur, Mike Lynch – will begin on Wednesday, weather permitting, according to the Italian port authorities.

On 19 August 2024, the luxury vessel, with a 75-metre (246ft) mast, was anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello, in the province of Palermo, when it was struck shortly before dawn by a violent storm. Lynch, once described as Britain’s Bill Gates, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were among the victims.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:06 pm

Ukraine war briefing: UN slashes humanitarian aid after ‘sharp’ fall in funding

Official says UN and its partners have ‘reprioritised’ operations in Ukraine, amid wider drop in aid funding from the US. What we know on day 1,162

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:53 am

France and Germany avoid recession as eurozone growth accelerates; Taiwan’s GDP boosted by pre-tariff surge in exports – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including growth figures from across Europe

• UK house prices fall but market ‘likely to pick up’ during summer
• China manufacturing activity plummets amid Trump tariff war

France’s economy is likely to “flirt with stagnation” throughout the year, despite the small rebound in GDP in the last quarter, predicts Dutch bank ING.

Charlotte de Montpellier, ING’s senior economist for France and Switzerland, explains:

The additional customs duties in the US and their direct and indirect impact will delay the French economy’s rebound. We estimate that the direct effect of a permanent 10% import duty in the US on French GDP (via a reduction in exports) will be around -0.1%.

Adding to this are the effects of uncertainty, the global economic slowdown and more restrictive fiscal policy, all of which will weigh on French economic activity throughout the year. The cooling in the labour market is likely to limit the recovery in household consumption, and the savings rate is set to remain high.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:22 am

India and Pakistan already sweltering in ‘new normal’ heatwave conditions

Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat

The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.

Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:00 am

Company supplying critical EV metal ‘did not disclose’ Erin Brockovich pollutant in drinking water

Leaked documents indicate Harita, owner of key nickel mine in Indonesia, did not reveal water contamination

One of Indonesia’s largest nickel-mining companies, which supplies a mineral critical to the global electric car industry, did not tell the public that local drinking water was polluted, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Indonesia has become the world’s biggest producer of nickel, used in the production of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. But observers have voiced concerns that regulatory oversight in the country has failed to keep up with the rush to develop mines to satisfy booming global demand.

Published: April 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Celebrations in Ho Chi Minh City mark 50 years since end of Vietnam war

Thousands gather to see parade featuring marching troops and an air show of Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters

Thousands of Vietnamese people have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, in what the country’s communist leader said was a “victory of justice over tyranny”.

Celebrations culminated in a grand parade in Ho Chi Minh City with thousands of marching troops and an airshow featuring Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters, as Vietnamese waved red flags and sang patriotic songs.

Published: April 30, 2025, 3:55 am

From the archive: The last phone boxes: broken glass, cider cans and – amazingly – a dial tone – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.

This week, from 2022: Five million payphone calls are still made each year in the UK. Who is making them – and why?

By Sophie Elmhirst. Read by Emma Powell

Published: April 30, 2025, 4:00 am

Mehdi Hasan on Trump’s first 100 days – podcast

Guardian US columnist Mehdi Hasan on the start of Donald Trump’s second term as president and the threat to democracy in the US

“So many things have shocked me about the past 100 days,” says the Guardian US columnist and author of Win Every Argument, Mehdi Hasan.

“Even for me, even the person who was saying it’s going to be so bad, it’s much worse than even I thought.”

Published: April 30, 2025, 2:00 am

Arsenal book their spot in the Champions League final – Women’s Football Weekly

Faye Carruthers is joined by Sophie Downey, Ameé Ruszkai and Marva Kreel to discuss Arsenal’s win, Chelsea’s loss and latest action across the WSL and the Championship

On this week’s Guardian Women’s Football Weekly, Faye is joined by Sophie Downey, Ameé Ruszkai and Marva Kreel. The panel discuss Arsenal’s 4-1 second-leg victory over Lyon, the north London side knocking out the eight-time European champions and securing their place in the final. However, it won’t be a full English affair after Chelsea’s dreams were dashed by a rampant Barcelona.

The panel review the latest action across the Women’s Super League and the Championship as the season nears its conclusion and relegation spots are confirmed.

Published: April 29, 2025, 2:15 pm

Why did Just Stop Oil just stop? – podcast

Just Stop Oil, the climate activism group behind motorway blockades, petrol station disruption and tomato soup attacks on major artworks, has disbanded after staging a final action in London this weekend. To find out why the group has decided to hang up the famous orange high-vis, Madeleine Finlay hears from our environment correspondent Damien Gayle who has been covering Just Stop Oil since its inception. He explains how policy wins and policing crackdowns combined to bring the movement to a close, and what the future of climate activism could look like in its wake

What next for climate activism now Just Stop Oil is ‘hanging up the hi-vis’?

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:00 am

Labour v Reform UK: on the road in Runcorn – podcast

Helen Pidd heads to the industrial town before this week’s byelection. How will Labour fare in its first big electoral test since taking power? Kiran Stacey reports

Runcorn, a town in Cheshire, has not been the most politically interesting place in recent memory. In fact Runcorn and Helsby has been a safe Labour seat for decades. Then the MP Mike Amesbury resigned after punching a constituent, triggering a byelection. Now Reform UK are nipping at Labour’s heels in the battle for the ward.

Helen Pidd has been out in the town to find out what voters think about the government and Nigel Farage. She spoke to voters who are angry at Reform’s tactics of focusing on migration, but who also feel let down by Labour. She visits Labour’s almost empty electoral nerve centre and notices the optimism in Reform’s office. Even a passing Liberal candidate is struck by the efficiency of the Reform machine and the apparent enthusiasm for it. And she also heads to a hotel that has been housing asylum seekers to see how it has become a flashpoint in local politics.

Published: April 29, 2025, 2:00 am

Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade review – reverential reminiscence takes its time

There’s potentially too many run-of-the-mill I-met-Lennon anecdotes from talking heads and fans, but enough wheat among the chaff to keep things interesting

We have recently seen a slew of intriguing movies about John Lennon’s post-Beatles existence: The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, about Lennon’s brief relationship with his assistant May Pang, and Kevin Macdonald’s excellent archive-clip-collage study One to One: John & Yoko. Now here is a lengthy and self-consciously reverential film, which is sadly the weakest of the group. It doesn’t quite get to grips with the implications of its own title (was Lennon on “borrowed time”, exactly, in the 1970s?) and there’s an awful lot of hot air from an awful lot of talking heads in its lengthy running time, some of whom are regaling us with less-than-premium-quality anecdotes – often just beamingly recalling the pinch-me moment they actually met John Lennon and, wow, he said hi and they couldn’t believe it.

The film covers the whole period from Lennon’s arrival in New York right through the decade, the solo albums, quarrels with Paul, protests, interviews, joint ventures with Yoko, the struggle to get a green card, the “lost weekend” with Pang, and finally his murder at the time he was planning an ambitious new global tour. Beatles-expert veterans like Ray Connolly and Philip Norman offer their reminiscences, along with broadcasters like Andy Peebles, Bob Harris and Tony Palmer – but, frankly, there are no alpha-level surviving intimates of Lennon.

Published: April 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Jon Stewart on Trump’s first 100 days: ‘I am so tired’

Late-night hosts discuss chaos and lies in Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, and his blue suit at the pope’s funeral

Late-night hosts delve into Donald Trump’s historically low poll numbers after his chaotic first 100 days in office.

Published: April 29, 2025, 3:36 pm

Playing with words: why novelists are becoming video game writers – and vice-versa

While the novel remains a high-status cultural form, video game writing is still seen as a throwaway art – despite some of the biggest names in fiction being involved

I’ve been working in games for a little more than 15 years, and the main thing I’d say about it at this point is that it’s a pretty annoying job to explain at parties. People often say something like, “Oh, I don’t really play games,” which is surely an odd thing to tell a game designer moments after you’ve been introduced; I don’t really eat croissants, but that’s not the first thing I bring up if I meet a patissier.

So one of the joys of publishing my first novel last year was the option to sidestep all of that, and say: “Oh, I’m a writer.” I wrote a novel; I’m working on another one; job done, the conversation can move on. Nobody says, “Oh, I don’t really read books,” even though that’s at least as likely to be true.

Published: April 30, 2025, 8:00 am

Beyoncé review – ever-evolving star kicks off electrifying Cowboy Carter tour

SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, California

The singer delivers a rousing, seven-act spectacle as she performs many of her country songs on stage for the first time while also harking back to her previous dance-leaning era

Beyoncé doesn’t just take the stage – she takes the narrative back. On opening night of her Cowboy Carter world tour at the four-year-old SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, she brings forth a sweeping, theatrical spectacle that reclaims country music, reframes American identity and reminds everyone who’s still driving pop’s evolution after all these years. Her nearly three-hour, seven-act performance draws heavily from Cowboy Carter – her Grammy-winning country epic – and threads in nods to Renaissance, the ballroom-infused predecessor that lit up stadiums barely two years ago. Rather than stake a claim in country, Beyoncé goes deeper: celebrating the Black roots of the genre and exploding its boundaries with precision, power and polish.

Outside SoFi, vendors hawk more cowboy hats than you’d see at a Los Tigres del Norte show. Inside, anticipation sizzles. Projected across the massive stage-length screen: CHITLIN’ CIRCUIT – a nod to the historic Black music venues where blues, country and rock took shape. The show begins with American Requiem – the Sign o’ the Times-drizzled opener from Cowboy Carter – followed by a haunting Blackbiird. Then comes a defining moment: a Hendrix-inspired Star-Spangled Banner, laced with the thunder of Freedom, flashing red, white and blue. The screen reads: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.”

Published: April 29, 2025, 1:46 pm

‘I didn’t know they existed’: US exhibition highlights rarely seen Picasso artwork

Gagosian, New York

In collaboration with the artist’s daughter, an ambitious new exhibition finds unusual ways to pair better-known pieces with those lesser seen

Hosting a showing of Pablo Picasso’s art isn’t like putting together your normal gallery exhibition. For one thing, gathering the art of the prodigious Spaniard requires a lot more overhead than most shows. As Michael Cary, the resident Picasso expert at Gagosian gallery, told me: “Picasso shows are museumy. Most of them have lots of loans from museums, so these kinds of exhibitions are very costly to put on, with all the insurance and shipping and assorted costs with bringing these works to New York City.”

Yet there are great rewards for exhibiting Picasso. It is a huge prestige boost to any gallery that manages to pull all that art together, and the celebrity factor tends to drive tons of engagement from visitors. Moreover, just selling a single piece can put the whole enterprise in the black.

Published: April 29, 2025, 9:21 am

‘A human piñata’: Katy Perry reflects on online abuse following Blue Origin flight and latest tour

Pop singer’s tour has been mocked online and she was criticised for taking commercial spaceflight, but she tells fans ‘please know I am OK’

Following criticism of her latest tour, new music and her trip to the edge of space on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin craft, Katy Perry has written an emotional message explaining how the public opprobrium has affected her.

Perry wrote the message under an Instagram post by a fan group, who booked a billboard in Times Square to congratulate her on the opening week of her Lifetimes tour.

Published: April 30, 2025, 9:34 am

100 men v one gorilla: who would win – and why has the question gone viral?

People are still debating this online after five years, and suddenly more hotly than ever. Even if it is ever answered, that still leaves us to tackle man v bear ...

Name: 100 men v one gorilla.

Age: The debate seems to have begun in 2020, on Reddit, when a poster asked the question in a r/whowouldwin subreddit, a forum for hypothetical discussions on myriad subjects.

Published: April 29, 2025, 2:41 pm

My husband is more attractive than I am – and it makes me feel like an inadequate lover

He has a more typically masculine body, is older, more experienced and skilled in bed, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to perform

I am a gay man and have been married to my husband for 12 years. I sometimes lose my erection during sex, leading me to avoid it for long periods. My problem is my sexual script, which intellectually I don’t believe, but still cannot seem to set down. My husband has a larger penis, a more typically masculine and societally attractive body and is older, more experienced and more skilled a lover than I am. I know none of this matters and that sex should be about mutual pleasure and connection, but I cannot help but feel inadequate, leading to performance anxiety. My husband is kind and reassuring, but this has been going on for our whole relationship and I feel stuck and frustrated.

Being distracted during sex , whether it is due to any kind of anxiety, lack of confidence in your body, fear of losing your erection, fear of disease, germ phobia, stress about external life situations – or any one of many possible thought intrusions – will easily arrest your enjoyment of a sexual process, and often lead to sexual dysfunction. Rather than allowing negative thoughts and fears to intrude during erotic experiences, it is important to focus simply on the purpose of eroticism – pleasure. This is not easy for people who have become invested in achieving excellence of performance, or even just being able to maintain an erection. Switch your approach to sex, ask for your partner’s support and cooperation in being able to stop and relax whenever negativity intrudes and refocus on just giving and receiving pleasure. If your anxiety is generalised (it occurs in many other situations) it is important to seek formal treatment or proven methods to calm you.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

Published: April 29, 2025, 1:34 pm

A chiweenie with an overbite and 1.9m followers: how Tuna and Instagram’s other top dogs rake in thousands per post

Pampered poms and Chappell Roan-loving pugs are taking over social media – but what makes a successful petfluencer and how much can they earn?

Tuna is a chiweenie with a hyperbolic overbite, a tongue that sticks out aggressively when he sleeps, a neck shrivelled like a raisin – and 1.9m Instagram followers. Fans tune in to watch him pose as Harry Potter next to platform 9¾, dress as a spicy tuna roll or to savour no-frills shots of him in closeup.

The miniature dachshund and chihuahua cross first came to the internet’s attention around 2012 and has been eliciting heart-eye emojis, lolz and thousands upon thousands of comments of admiration ever since. “He looks like someone’s grandpa on the couch after a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes”, reads a typical one.

Published: April 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Share your stories and pictures of kitchen heirlooms

We would like to hear the story behind a cooking utensil passed down through generations of your family

As Bee Wilson writes in her Guardian long read, people can invest objects in their kitchens with strong meanings or emotions:

Many people told me that they could still feel the presence of a lost parent or partner in their china cupboard. I met someone who said that the one object belonging to his mother that he and his siblings all wanted when they cleared her house was a glass salad-dressing maker. His mother never rinsed out the garlic at the bottom, just adding fresh garlic before pouring in the oil and vinegar, meaning that this vessel carried the garlicky essence of decades of shared meals.

Published: April 29, 2025, 12:26 pm

‘Bombs and bullets were like rain’: 50 years on from the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam war

Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent who is now 96, recalls her entry into the city after South Vietnam’s surrender

The day that Saigon fell, Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent, could only hear shouting and commotion. It was 30 April 1975, and helicopters were frantically lifting personnel and civilians from the US embassy.

Phuong, who had travelled down from the north, was initially held back by troops who said fighting was still continuing. When she was finally able to reach the centre of the city the following day, 1 May, she found chaos. Clothes and luggage were scattered and discarded along the streets. Buildings were being looted.

Published: April 29, 2025, 5:39 pm

Cash, emergency food and wind-up radios: How to survive a power outage

Citizens across Europe have been getting advice about emergency planning, which may feel more urgent after blackout on Iberian peninsula

If the lights went out in your home or office, on your train home, or in your local supermarket – would you know what to do? That question became more urgent this week, after almost the entire Iberian peninsula suffered a mass electricity blackout, leaving tens of millions across Spain and Portugal without power.

As a result of the two countries’ outage on Monday, millions were left unable to get home from work, take out cash, buy food or in some cases escape lifts that were stuck between floors. Both nations declared states of emergency.

Published: April 29, 2025, 5:16 pm

‘Numerous signs of torture’: a Ukrainian journalist’s detention and death in Russian prison

The Guardian, working with media partners, has tracked down first-hand accounts to reconstruct Viktoriia Roshchyna’s final months

The exchange took place on a lonely forest road in February. Moving along a line of refrigerated lorries, the teams in hazmat suits went about their grim work: preparing the remains of 757 Ukrainian military casualties handed over by Russia for the journey back to Kyiv.

Clipboards in hand, intermediaries from the Red Cross checked their lists. For each body shrouded in white plastic, the Russians had provided a number, a name, a location, sometimes a cause of death. And then, at the very bottom of the last page, a mystery entry: “NM SPAS 757.” The letters were abbreviations, taken to mean “unidentified man” and “extensive damage to the coronary arteries”.

Published: April 29, 2025, 10:00 am

Carney gave a eulogy for Canada’s old relationship with the US. Now he must redefine it

Prime minister pledges to reduce country’s reliance on US trade – but must navigate competing visions for the future

In his victory speech early on Tuesday, Mark Carney wasted little time calling for a dramatic reshaping of his government’s relationship with the United States, arguing that threats from Donald Trump cast doubt Canada’s ability to function as a “free, sovereign, and ambitious” nation.

The former central banker and investment executive had for months focused his electoral campaign on the threats from Canada’s largest trading partner and longtime political ally.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:20 pm

‘They disappear them’: families of the detained see grim echo of Latin American dictatorships in Trump’s US

Mounting stories of ‘forced disappearances’ of Venezuelans in the US have left their loved ones distraught and disbelieving

Neiyerver Rengel’s captors came one sunny spring morning, lurking outside the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and pouncing as soon as he emerged.

The three government agents announced the young Venezuelan man had “charges to answer” and was being detained.

Published: April 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss

As they pass through different hands, cooking utensils can magically connect us to loved ones who are no longer with us

I have long felt that kitchen objects can have a life of their own. Even so, I found this eerie. One August day in 2020, I was going to fetch clothes out of the washing machine when suddenly a cake tin fell at my feet with a loud clang. It wasn’t just any cake tin. It was the heart-shaped tin I had used to bake my own wedding cake. I wouldn’t have thought much of it except that it was only two months since my husband had left me, out of the blue.

Nearly 23 years ago, this giant metal heart had been brand new. My husband-to-be had told me he liked fruit cake but hated glace cherries. For our wedding, I decided to bake him a rich, dark fruit cake with no cherries and chopped-up dried apricots to take their place. There are photos of us cutting the cake together looking blissfully happy. We would soon be on our way to Venice for our honeymoon.

Published: April 29, 2025, 4:00 am

Hungry children, an airport hare and a roofless house: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: April 29, 2025, 12:51 pm

‘A form of meditation’: a photographic haiku to Japan – in pictures

A poetic new exhibition of dreamlike black and white images captures the country’s contemplative beauty, from lonely Torii gates to sprawling temple trees

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:00 am

Lawnmowers, desserts and mix zones: FA Cup semi-final weekend

Playing host to two FA Cup semi-finals less than 24 hours apart, as well as more than 150,000 fans, means a busy time for staff at Wembley. We take a look at the preparations

It takes a great deal of organisation and a lot of staff, working in a variety of roles, to facilitate these two huge fixtures. More than 12,000 worked at Wembley over the two days. Many worked both days and through the night to ensure everything was in place.

Matchday mascots wait to greet the players as they arrive at Wembley for the first of the weekend’s FA Cup semi-finals.

Published: April 29, 2025, 6:01 am