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

‘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

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

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 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

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

Middle East crisis live: Israel ready ’to begin direct negotiations’ with Lebanon as Trump ‘optimistic’ about fragile ceasefire

Lebanese president says ceasefire must be in place before any talks; US president reportedly claims Iran’s leaders ‘talk much differently’ in private meetings

• Israel’s bombing of Lebanon after US-Iran ceasefire prompts condemnation

The UK foreign minister, Yvette Cooper, has said Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire agreement. In other remarks now being reported by Reuters, Cooper added that shipping through the strait of Hormuz must be toll-free.

Amid ceasefire talks, Tehran has proposed fees or tolls on vessels to safely pass through the strait. Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested the US and Iran could collect tolls in a joint venture, while the White House said the priority was reopening the strait without limitations.

And my principles and values made sure that our decisions were that we wouldn’t get involved in the action without a lawful basis, without a viable, thought-through plan.”

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:26 pm

The deadliest 10 minutes in decades: Lebanese reel from Israeli strikes that killed hundreds

Beirut residents and officials say civilians were main casualties in operation that bombed 100-plus targets in 10 minutes

• Middle East crisis – live updates

It took Israel only 10 minutes to carry out one of the worst mass-killings in Lebanon since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990.

Omar Rakha heard the war planes but did not feel the explosions; it was only when he woke up face down on the street, bleeding, that he understood what had happened: the building next to his in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut had been destroyed by two Israeli bombs. He then ran through the flaming wreckage to find his sister, screaming.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:00 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

Democrats to renew push to pass war powers resolution when Congress returns after symbolic effort fails – US politics live

Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democrat leader, said earlier in the day party was pushing for vote, accusing Trump of ‘unhinged behavior’

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has briefed some capitals that US president Donald Trump wants concrete commitments within the next few days for help securing the strait of Hormuz, two European diplomats told Reuters.

The report appears to confirm yesterday’s report in the German economic daily Handelsblatt, claiming Nato was considering a naval mission to secure the strait in a move to “appease” Trump.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:37 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

Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction

Record low levels of Antarctic sea ice are having grim consequences for penguins yet to grow waterproof feathers

The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction.

Emperor penguins rely on “fast” ice – sea ice that is firmly attached to the coast – for nine months of the year. It is where their fluffy chicks are hatched and grow until they have their waterproof feathers. Adults moult every year and also need a safe haven while their swimming feathers regrow.

Published: April 9, 2026, 9:00 am

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

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

‘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

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

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

Will deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon shatter US-Iran ceasefire? | The Latest

Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon, prompting Iran to warn it could withdraw from the ceasefire agreed with the US. Hundreds have been killed and wounded since the agreement was announced, after Israeli forces launched mass strikes on densely populated areas. Israel says the strikes are aimed at the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, while Iran claims they are a blatant violation of the ceasefire. Iran and Pakistan claim the agreement included Lebanon, but Donald Trump called it ‘a separate skirmish’. Lucy Hough speaks to Beirut-based reporter William Christou

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:29 pm

The daughters of Dominican immigrants achieved the American dream. They’re bringing sweet 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

Bitten by snakes 200 times – on purpose: US man’s quest to help deliver new antivenom

Tim Friede put his ‘ass on the line’ to help stop snakebite deaths – whose numbers appear to be rising amid the climate crisis

As we overheat and degrade our planet, more people are likely to come into contact, sometimes fatally, with venomous snakes. One man hopes to provide an unusual solution to this, after subjecting himself to 200 intentional snakebites to his body.

For nearly 20 years, Tim Friede, 58, allowed some of the most lethal snakes in the world to bite him so he could build up an immunity that could one day be developed into a universal antivenom.

Published: April 9, 2026, 10:00 am

‘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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading...

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:56 pm

I took up the ukulele after a chance celebrity encounter. It’s brought me more happiness than 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 Iran war is a warning: Britain must build resilience – at home and with our allies in Europe | Keir Starmer

We should not be at the mercy of events abroad. That’s why, from energy to defence to key social policies, we aim to remake our country

• Israel’s attacks on Lebanon should not be happening, says Keir Starmer

Britain has been buffeted by crises for nearly two decades now. And from the 2008 financial crash, through austerity, to Brexit, Covid, the Ukraine war and Liz Truss, the response from Westminster has always been the same. Manage the crisis, find a sticking plaster and then desperately try to reassert the status quo.

This time, it will be different. The war in Iran must now become a line in the sand, because how we emerge from this crisis will define all of us for a generation. And instead of hoping to return to the world of 2008, we will forge a new path for Britain – one that strengthens our energy, our defence and our economic security in a new age. Because the reality is the world has changed: no longer do we live in the benign conditions found during the early part of this century. The world today is more volatile and dangerous than at any other point in my lifetime. That will test and test again every element of our security. And over the years, that is a test for which Britain has too often been found wanting.

Keir Starmer is the UK prime minister

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

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:35 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 debuts 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 biopic 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

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.

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

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:30 pm

The Masters 2026: Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler under way at Augusta National – live

️ Latest news from the first round at Augusta National
️ Official Leader Board | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Matt

While we’re on the subject of blowouts, spare a thought for poor Carlos Ortiz. The 34-year-old Mexican is making just his second start at the Masters, and his first since 2021. A tie for fourth at last year’s US Open at Oakmont shows the man has proper major-championship game, but Augusta National is capable of besting any man, and Ortiz has suffered a nightmare start. A drive into the creek down the left of 2. A fluffed splash out of a fairway bunker at 5. He’s started 5-7-5-4-6, a run of three bogeys and two doubles. At +7 through 5, he’ll already be wishing he was back in the clubhouse, and a par at 6 to snap that disastrous run won’t do much to help his mood.

It’s also the 30th anniversary of this. Oh Greg.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:47 pm

Porto v Nottingham Forest: Europa League quarter-final, first leg – live

⚽ Europa League updates from Portugal; kick-off 8pm BST
⚽ Bologna v Aston Villa – live | Join us on Bluesky | Mail Will

Thiago Silva is at the back for Porto, at a very young 41. He must ruddy love football. I would have been a deck chair long ago. It is, however, nice to know there are still a few active footballers who are older than me.

This is relevant, in many ways, to this game.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:45 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

How Augusta National outwitted ticket resellers and kept door closed on Trump

One of the great lessons of the Masters is money only goes so far, with strict rules designed to keep out ticket touts

Jeffrey Epstein’s web of influence stretched from European palaces to Ivy League universities and Wall Street banks, but there was apparently at least one little corner of the establishment that seems to have been beyond his reach: Augusta National. In July 2019, Epstein sent an iMessage to Steve Bannon asking for his help with a particularly difficult problem. “Need to work magic to get brad Karp admitted to augusta golf club,” Epstein wrote. “The head of Paul Weiss Brad Karp?” Bannon replied. “Yes.”

Karp, the former chair of the legal firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, stepped down from his position in February because of his ties with Epstein.

Published: April 8, 2026, 8:00 pm

No more stars: Champions League ball to be redesigned after Nike wins rights

• Iconic star ball design has been in place since 2001

• Nike to pay $45m a year to supply Uefa club competitions

The iconic Champions League ball will be redesigned next year after Nike entered exclusive talks with Uefa to become the official match ball provider for the 2027 to 2031 cycle of the competition.

The US sportswear group has beaten off competition from incumbent supplier Adidas and fellow challenger Puma after offering to double Uefa’s current fee to around $45m per year.

Published: April 9, 2026, 5:41 pm

Noa-Lynn van Leuven banned from women-only darts events by PDC transgender ruling

• Van Leuven can no longer play in PDC Women’s Series

• DRA report determines darts is ‘gender-affected sport’

Noa-Lynn van Leuven will be banned from competing in any of the Professional Darts Corporation’s women-only events with immediate effect after a ruling from the sport’s regulatory body stated only biological females can now compete in women’s tournaments.

The Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) has ruled that transgender women will no longer be permitted to compete in women’s events. Van Leuven can therefore no longer participate in the PDC Women’s Series, where she has won six titles, and will be prevented from also competing in the Women’s World Matchplay, which she was on course to qualify for this summer.

Published: April 9, 2026, 4:38 pm

Liverpool announce Andy Robertson will leave at the end of the season

• Left-back who joined in 2017 is out of contract in summer

• Napoli, Juventus, Atlético and Spurs keen on Robertson

Andy Robertson is to bring his illustrious Liverpool career to a close at the end of the season, the club have confirmed.

The 32-year-old is out of contract this summer and will follow another iconic player of the Jürgen Klopp era, Mohamed Salah, in leaving Anfield on a free transfer. Napoli, Juventus, Atlético Madrid and Tottenham are all keen on signing the Scotland captain, who rejected a move to Atlético last summer. A return to Scotland is not thought to be in Robertson’s plans at this stage.

Published: April 9, 2026, 6:04 pm

Champions League review: a brilliant Georgian, Bayern’s regret and Arsenal refind their faith

This week’s quarter-finals provided some classic action as this season’s competition hurtles towards its conclusion

Bayern Munich had not won at the Santiago Bernabéu since May 2001, when they beat Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final on their way to becoming European champions. Tuesday night’s match changed all that. The 29th Champions League meeting between the teams lived up to its heavyweight billing, though Bayern, superior on the night, may rue their failure to extend their 2-1 lead. Real Madrid meanwhile could point to Manuel Neuer making nine saves – not bad for a 40-year-old. “We won’t win the competition without more of these kinds of performances,” said Bayern’s manager, Vincent Kompany, of his keeper. Big trophies are rarely won without great goalkeepers and Neuer continues to play like an all-time great. Bayern’s second goal was a trademark finish from Harry Kane, who made the difficult look easy. The goal will also have calmed England fans’ fears that their captain will arrive at the World Cup suffering from his usual summer malaise. A word too for Luis Díaz and Michael Olise, Bayern’s brilliant wingers whose performances brought back memories of the club’s modern greats Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben. Kompany’s team were commanding in Madrid, but may fear the backlash from the 15-times champions, the kings of comebacks.

Published: April 9, 2026, 1:16 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

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

Behind this door is the huge fatberg that can’t stop depositing poo balls on Sydney’s beaches

Guardian Australia tours problematic Malabar wastewater plant where some accumulated fats, oils and grease can’t be accessed – let alone cleared

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“This,” says Fiona Copeman, the hub manager of the Malabar wastewater treatment plant, “is what you would call our four-bus area.”

Copeland is gesturing to a model of the plant on a table inside the facility itself. She’s referring to a 300 cubic metre underground chamber that houses, as Guardian Australia revealed in January, a “fatberg the size of four buses that likely birthed poo balls that closed Sydney beaches”.

Published: April 9, 2026, 3:00 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

‘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

‘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

‘Non-survivable’: heatwaves are already breaching human limits, with worse to come, study finds

Analysis of six extreme heatwaves found when temperature and humidity were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people

Extreme heat is already creating “non-survivable” conditions for humans in heatwaves that have killed thousands and likely many more, according to new research that warns people are more susceptible to rising temperatures than first thought.

Scientists re-examined six extreme heatwaves between 2003 and 2024 and found that when temperature, humidity and the body’s ability to stay cool were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people.

Published: April 8, 2026, 3:00 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

FBI arrests ex-Fort Bragg employee over alleged classified leak to journalist

Courtney Williams accused of sharing material with reporter examining deaths and drugs at US military base

The FBI has arrested a former military special operations employee accused of providing classified information to the media, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, announced on Wednesday.

The US Department of Justice said in a press release that the former employee, identified as Courtney Williams, 40, was arrested on Tuesday and indicted on Wednesday for allegedly sharing classified material with a journalist.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:02 am

LA teen loses eye after being shot by US agent at No Kings march, lawyer says

USC student Tucker Collins’s attorney accuses homeland security of ‘overt act of repression’ at Los Angeles protest

A freshman at the University of Southern California has lost an eye after he was shot last month with a “less-lethal” projectile by a Department of Homeland Security agent at a No Kings march, according to his attorney.

On 28 March, Tucker Collins, 18, took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles to photograph throngs of protesters, who held signs and chanted slogans denouncing the Trump administration’s policies, his lawyer V James DeSimone said in a statement on Wednesday.

Published: April 8, 2026, 11:21 pm

Hawaii doctor accused of trying to kill his wife found guilty of attempted manslaughter

Prosecutors alleged Gerhardt Konig, 47, had planned to kill Arielle Konig during a birthday trip to Honolulu

A Hawaii anesthesiologist who was accused of trying to murder his wife on a cliffside hike last year has been convicted of attempted manslaughter, a lesser charge.

A Honolulu jury returned the verdict against Gerhardt Konig, 47, on Wednesday after a day of deliberations.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:13 am

Ukraine ceasefire back in focus as US security guarantees fade and casualties mount

Divisions between Washington and European capitals over Iran fuel concerns about US commitment to peace deal

As a ceasefire was declared in the Middle East, Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to draw attention to the war in his own country, posting on social media that Ukraine had consistently pushed for a ceasefire in the war “being waged by Russia here, in Europe”.

Efforts to end the war in Ukraine have largely stalled since the Iran war began, with trilateral talks between Kyiv, Moscow and Washington, which had already yielded little, frozen since February 2026. The war, meanwhile, has continued, with air attacks on Ukrainian cities and heavy fighting on the battlefields as Russia launches a spring offensive.

Published: April 9, 2026, 10:55 am

Argentina approves Milei’s glacier mining bill amid environmental protests

Legislative change backed by libertarian president makes it easier to extract metals in frozen parts of the Andes

Argentina’s congress has approved a bill promoted by the libertarian president, Javier Milei, that authorises mining in ecologically sensitive areas of glaciers and permafrost, outraging environmentalists.

The amendment to the “glacier law”, which was already approved by the senate in February, would make it easier to mine for metals such as copper, lithium and silver in frozen parts of the Andes mountains.

Published: April 9, 2026, 11:55 am

Head of IMF says Iran war will permanently scar global economy even if peace is reached

Kristalina Georgieva says even ‘most hopeful scenario’ will lead to growth downgrade and cause permanent hit to living standards

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The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the Iran war will permanently scar the global economy even if a durable peace deal in the Middle East can be reached.

In a speech delivered as the ceasefire in the conflict threatened to unravel, Kristalina Georgieva said the “scarring effects” caused by the war to date would mean slower global growth this year than first anticipated.

Published: April 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

London pub thief sold £2.2m Fabergé egg and watch set to buy drugs

Enzo Conticello jailed for 27 months for ‘opportunistic’ theft of Givenchy handbag containing precious jewels

A man who stole a handbag containing a Fabergé egg and watch set valued at up to £2.2m has been jailed for more than two years.

Enzo Conticello, 29, took the Givenchy bag belonging to Rosie Dawson as she stood in the smoking area of the Dog and Duck pub in Soho, London, on 7 November 2024.

Published: April 9, 2026, 12:30 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

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

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

British novelist Gwendoline Riley wins $175k Windham-Campbell prize

Awarded to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, other recipients include S Shakthidharan, Adam Ehrlich Sachs and Kei Miller

British novelist Gwendoline Riley is among eight writers set to receive $175,000 (£130,000) each in recognition of their life’s work.

Australian playwright S Shakthidharan, known as Shakthi, is also among those selected for this year’s Windham-Campbell prizes, which award $1.4m annually to writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, with the aim of enabling them to focus on their work free from financial pressures.

Published: April 8, 2026, 6:15 pm

The Writer and the Traitor by Robert Verkaik review – the strange case of Graham Greene and Kim Philby

Sex, booze and subterfuge in the story of an extraordinary friendship at the heart of MI6

At the Café Royal in Regent Street in 1944 three intelligence officers bent over their plates while Europe held its breath. Outside, London braced for D-day. Inside, Graham Greene announced that he was resigning from MI6.

Kim Philby, his chief in Section V, MI6’s counterespionage arm, blinked. Educated at Westminster, converted to communism at Cambridge and by then securely installed as Moscow’s man at the heart of the British establishment, he had helped orchestrate the deception on which Operation Overlord depended, persuading Hitler that the allies would land at Calais rather than Normandy. Greene had played his part in tending the illusion. Yet here he was, strolling off-stage before the curtain rose.

Published: April 8, 2026, 12:48 pm

How games capture the awe and terror of cosmic isolation

As real astronauts vanish behind the moon, games have long tried to evoke the fragile quiet of drifting through space

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Last week’s launch of the Artemis II space mission was a stunning spectacle, the 17-storey-high rockets erupting into cacophonous life before wrenching the craft through the Earth’s atmosphere. But the images that have come since hold just as much impact: the tiny Orion craft and its four-person crew drifting silently through space, further and further from home.

In his autobiography, the Apollo astronaut Michael Collins described this feeling perfectly. Left in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface, he wrote: “I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.”

Published: April 8, 2026, 11:40 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

Are OnlyFans models the best way to explain the climate crisis?

Actor Megan Prescott has joined with Adam McKay in the hope that showing bite-size web videos of women undressing will persuade us to save the world. Will it work?

The world, as we know, is in trouble. The last three years have been the hottest ever recorded. Global emissions are still at record highs. The planet is now consistently flirting with the 1.5C limit it promised not to cross. Increasingly, it feels as if we need a genuine miracle to stop us from sleepwalking into catastrophe. Could that miracle be an environmental warning from a woman in her pants?

This is the stated desire of Headline Newds, a new series of web videos by actor Megan Prescott, film-maker Bree Essrig and “climate narrative strategist” Jessica Riches. Released through the not-for-profit Yellow Dot Studios – belonging to Adam McKay, creator of movies The Big Short and Don’t Look Up – Headline Newds is made up of bite-size videos in which the climate emergency is broken down and raunchily explained to us by a variety of OnlyFans models.

Headline Newds is available via Youtube, Instagram and OnlyFans.

Published: April 8, 2026, 2:35 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

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

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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

These $50 sweatpant jeans ‘tricked nearly everyone’ – and were as comfy as the luxury pair

Can you can feel snug and still look put-together? I tested sweatpant jeans that are comfy, yet have a tailored look from Rag & Bone, Gap and Halara

For the days you can’t be bothered to slip into restrictive “real pants” but want to look put-together, sweatpant jeans are here to save the day. Not quite sweatpants and not quite jeans, sweatpant jeans are a happy medium, offering a printed-on denim aesthetic in that same plush sweatpant feel many of us know and love.

Their current popularity seems linked to gen Z’s insistence that leggings and straight-leg jeans are no longer cool, and to celebrity sightings and endorsements from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie. But trust me on this, too: I’ve spent the last three years living in them.

The pair to beat:
Rag & Bone Miramar Sofie Ankle-Length Pants

A cosy and cheaper alternative:
Gap Heavyweight Easy Baggy Sweatpant Jeans

Published: April 8, 2026, 10:30 pm

Sali Hughes on beauty: delicious designer scents without the exorbitant price tag

At last … creative perfumes at half the cost of most niche fragrances, with a wide range of beautifully balanced options

The business of modern perfumery can stink. While I accept that the cost of everything is now troubling, large sections of the niche fragrance sector seemingly pluck their prices from the sky. It’s not unusual for a bottle costing £300-odd to launch without any accompanying explanation as to why. An unknown name, a needlessly quirky bottle, an egregious price tag – all serve to underline the assertion that this is a “niche” fragrance for people who take their scents seriously, who should be too in the know to question its calibre.

And so when I see a brand doing things honestly, authentically and with great care, I must give due credit. Essential Parfums is new to John Lewis (and available directly from the brand online) and its aim is to democratise creative perfumery. What this means in practice is an open brief to perfumers, who include such big hitters as Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo; their total creative freedom; sustainable and mostly natural ingredient sourcing, development and manufacturing processes (using biotech, simple refillable bottles and cardboard packaging containing no glue or plastic); and a fair price – around £86 for a whopping 100ml, which, millilitre for millilitre, is less than half the cost of a pretty average designer fragrance enjoying little of the same treatment, and about a quarter of some of the nonsense I’m pitched regularly.

Published: April 8, 2026, 9:00 am

How KFC, AKA Korean fried chicken, took over the world

The dish, adapted from one brought by US soldiers after the Korean war, has sparked thousands of variations and sits at the forefront of the K-food wave

Inside a teaching kitchen south-east of Seoul, I coat a whole chicken – cut into eight parts – in batter and dip the pieces carefully into a bowl of powdered mix until covered in a light, fluffy layer.

A chef watches intently. “Don’t rub it,” he says. “Keep it delicate.”

Published: April 8, 2026, 11:32 pm

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

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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

‘This is about people’s livelihoods’: how surging tool thefts are leaving tradespeople penniless and afraid

More than 80% of the UK’s tradespeople have had tools stolen. Some have lost months of work as a result. With thefts up 16% in a year, can the police and the government do anything to protect them?

If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and has millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram. He’s in demand, highly skilled, generous in sharing tips from his many years of experience and even has his own range of products on sale in the UK and the US.

But even with his social media army and branded brushes, he’s still not immune to the biggest threat faced by British tradespeople: tool theft. “It was Boxing Day morning,” Tingley says. “I was still in bed, my wife was on her way to the gym. She came running back in and told me that all the doors of my van were open.”

Published: April 8, 2026, 4:00 am

‘We’d all be in the destruction zone!’ Can anything stop today’s nuclear free-for-all?

The Lib Dems’ Sue Miller has spent most of her life trying to reduce the risk of nuclear war. And it’s not going well. Why are so few people talking about non-proliferation, let alone disarmament?

Almost the mildest remark that Sue Miller makes about nuclear weapons is also the scariest: “The last people to take a big interest in any of this were Gordon Brown and Margaret Beckett.” Those people seem such a long way away – Brown, of course, still campaigns valiantly against poverty, and Beckett is a working baroness, but as voices against the global buildup of nuclear arms, theirs are so historical as to be almost nostalgic.

Yet the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ symbolic representation of how near the world is to destroying itself, has never been closer to midnight than it is now: 85 seconds (and this was prior to the current war in Iran). Russia has been making thinly veiled threats of “tactical” use since its invasion of Ukraine, while its drone incursions into Nato nations have “heightened European threat perceptions” (as the bulletin puts it), without those perceptions driving anyone’s thoughts towards nuclear de-escalation, let alone disarmament. Meanwhile, non-nuclear European nations are talking about developing “nuclear latency” – building the ability to develop nuclear capacity at speed.

Published: April 8, 2026, 9:00 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

‘Coming out in the 90s? You might as well say ‘I love cock!’’ Nathan Lane on gay life, Broadway and defying stereotypes

The brassy actor’s performance in Death of a Salesman is the crown jewel in a life spent on stage. He says it could be his last Broadway role

“It’s, like, 10 minutes. I pee, I have a cup of tea, I put the jacket back on and I go out and fight my way to the death.”

The way Nathan Lane describes spending the intermission of Death of a Salesman – the nearly three-hour play in which his character flails and ultimately fails through an epic depression – reflects the actor’s own spirit: practical, lightly fatalistic, artfully hyperbolic and very, very funny. Today he is in fine form, nestled into a corner table in New York’s classic Upper West Side haunt Cafe Luxembourg. When I ask him if Salesman marks his first time performing at the Winter Garden Theatre, he responds without missing a beat: “Yes, except when I took over in Mame.”

Published: April 8, 2026, 9:00 am

He was sentenced to death despite not pulling the trigger. An unlikely coalition saved his life

In an act transcending politics, tens of thousands successfully banded together to make the case against executing Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton in Alabama

With all of his appeals exhausted, Charles “Sonny” Burton had already chosen the last meal he would have before being put to death by nitrogen gas at Alabama’s Holman correctional facility: barbecue chicken, banana cake with ice cream, and sweet tea – all things he hadn’t been able to enjoy in years with his diabetes.

The writing seemed to be on the wall. His fate was in the hands of Kay Ivey, Alabama’s governor and a staunch supporter of capital punishment who has presided over more than 25 executions – more than any other Alabama governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Her office had been repeating the same line for weeks: “Governor Ivey has no plans to grant clemency.” But on the morning of 10 March, just two days before Sonny was to be put to death, Ivey commuted his sentence to life without parole.

Published: April 8, 2026, 11:00 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