‘My life has become a rollercoaster’: Francesca Albanese on death threats, danger and dread after accusing Israel of genocide

When the UN special rapporteur published her report Anatomy of a Genocide in March 2024, she was lionised by some and demonised by the Trump government. She describes what happened next

In retrospect, arranging to interview Francesca Albanese in a cafe was not the best plan. Before we could start, the waitress wanted a photo with the Italian human rights lawyer. So did the cashier. Then the cook came out of the kitchen in his whites for a group photo. Some of the customers wanted their turn. Albanese was gracious with all comers and chatty in three languages, so the process took some time.

Albanese, 49, has been getting similar rock star welcomes everywhere she goes lately, which is not the norm for unpaid UN legal experts. In other times, her job title – UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 – would sound like a recipe for obscurity. She is one of more than 40 special rapporteurs, human rights experts appointed to do pro bono investigations and reports on areas of concern.

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Why are Democratic leaders still ignoring voters on Israel? | Norman Solomon

Decisions at the latest Democratic National Committee meeting emphasized the disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base

When the Democratic party’s governing body adjourned its meeting on Saturday in New Orleans, supporters of Palestine and an end of the genocide in Gaza had few reasons to celebrate. The Democratic National Committee had refused to give any ground to the large majority of the party’s voters with distinctly negative views of Israel.

Last summer, a Quinnipiac Poll found that 77% of Democrats agreed that “Israel is committing genocide.” Last month, an NBC poll found that registered Democrats – by a margin of 67-17% – were more sympathetic toward Palestinians than Israelis.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Such a water-cooler show!’ Jane Krakowski on Ally McBeal – and life as the world’s biggest scene-stealer

The 1990s series set her career alight; then came 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and countless theatre triumphs. She discusses Tina Fey, Stephen Sondheim and why it would take a broken leg to keep her off stage

‘I’ve been on three television shows that moved the needle a little bit,” says Jane Krakowski. “It sounds obnoxious for me to say it, so hopefully you’ll phrase that as if you said it.” In fact, I did also say it: the first was Ally McBeal, from 1997 until 2002, in which she played Elaine Vassal, an idiosyncratic character in a groundbreaking show. The kind of people who liked to sit around arguing about telly and post-modernism talked constantly about what kind of feminism McBeal was iterating, in the late 90s, with its scatty, neurotic heroine, such an unfamiliar screen trope of Career Woman, but somehow so much closer to life. Krakowski was almost the photo-negative of Calista Flockhart’s title character: brassy, eccentric, unconcerned by others’ opinions. Similarly, her character in 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney, acted as the bookend to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon – Krakowski untouched by self-awareness, Fey beset by it. That ran from 2006 until 2013, and two years later, Fey’s follow-up, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, featured Krakowski as Jacqueline White, a magnetically unlikable wealthy socialite, in a fictional world so surreally improbable that it feels like a high-wire act only this particular cast could have pulled off.

You could split hairs about whether Ally McBeal invented the “dramedy” or just honed it, and the question of Fey’s comic sensibility could suck you in like quicksand. But in each show, Krakowski creates a character that you cannot imagine having landed, fully formed, on the page. She is expressive in a way that’s so high-voltage but so controlled, funny in a way that feels so instinctive but so deliberated, that the dialogue and the performance seem to explode together like two chemical elements.

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:00 am

Boss of the Bronx: the turbulent reign of George Steinbrenner, baseball’s ultimate showman

A new book looks at how an eccentric shipping magnate ushered in a long run of success for the New York Yankees

George Steinbrenner could be quite the pitchman – whether selling New York to free agents or starring in Pepto-Bismol TV ads alongside Billy Martin. And now a new book remembers the late Yankees owner and the dynasty he founded.

The Bosses of the Bronx: The Endless Drama of the Yankees Under the House of Steinbrenner flows from the pen of sports journalist and author Mike Vaccaro. As the New York Post’s lead sports columnist for more than two decades, Vaccaro has witnessed the Steinbrenner dynasty from a rarefied perspective – the journalistic equivalent of a seat along the third-base line.

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:00 am

‘They accomplished so much, even as they were dying’: the groundbreaking gay art of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek

A new book uncovers the yearning romance that fueled the Aids-era artists’ life and work

Andrew Durbin, author and editor-in-chief of Frieze Magazine, spent almost five years writing The Wonderful World That Almost Was. This dual biography of photographer Peter Hujar and sculptor Paul Thek, two gay artists who made extraordinary work in the years before and during Aids, focuses on their friendship, creativity and collaboration spanning more than 30 years. They died within a year of each other, in 1987 and 1988, both from complications from Aids.

The work and lives of Thek and Hujar have come storming back into the cultural conversation in recent years. Hujar was played by Ben Whishaw in Ira Sachs’s poetic 2025 film, Peter Hujar’s Day, and his images have been used as cover art for an Anohni and the Johnsons album and Hanya Yanagihara’s bestseller A Little Life. Thek’s equivalent moment has been slower; his most important works were large-scale installations in Europe, all lost, and which, as Durbin tells me, “everyone loved, but few could experience. And when they were finished, there wasn’t much left to sell. But I think his moment is about to come.”

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:00 am

Art, sex, nature: why is everything sold to us as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself?

How a reductive worldview is stripping meaning from our most valued activities

• This article was originally published as The six-second hug on Aeon.co

For decades, films out of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have opened with Leo the roaring lion, garlanded with the motto ars gratia artis: art for art’s sake. Given that MGM is a money-making behemoth, we might doubt the sincerity of this high-minded sentiment. Still, it certainly expresses one of the few legitimate reasons why people should make movies. Art for the sake of anything else – profit, self-promotion, propaganda – isn’t really art at all, or at least not in its purest sense.

It therefore came as a bit of a shock to see a recent advert for the National Art Pass, which gives holders free or discounted entry to galleries and museums around the UK. The tagline “See more. Live more” sounded right: art does indeed enrich our lives. But it turned out that the “more” here was purely quantitative, not qualitative. “Grow some years on to your life with art,” proclaimed the main slogan, followed by: “Spending time in galleries and museums could help you live longer.” Art not for art’s sake, but for your heart’s sake, the fleshy not the spiritual one at that. This messaging around the arts has become ubiquitous, with Arts Council England promoting the idea that “engaging in creative and cultural activities has proven health benefits for individuals and communities”.

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Middle East crisis live: US-sanctioned ships pass through strait of Hormuz with France and UK to chair talks on Friday

Macron and Starmer will co-host Paris summit as sanctioned vessels pass despite Trump’s blockade on ports

• US starts naval blockade of Iranian ports after deadline passes

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has said rising tensions around the strait of Hormuz make it hard to be optimistic about the fallout from the Iran war, warning that high oil prices and supply-chain strains are likely to persist for some time.

Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday the government should treat prolonged disruption in global energy and raw materials markets as a given and reinforce its emergency response system.

For the time being, difficulties in global energy and raw materials supply chains and high oil prices will continue … I ask that we pursue the development of alternative supply chains, medium- to long-term industrial restructuring, and the transition to a post-plastic economy as top-priority national strategic projects.”

Lebanon and Israel have been at war in some form since the early 1980s. You’re not allowed to enter Lebanon if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. The two don’t have diplomatic relations. So the fact that these talks are happening directly between the two governments is something that’s really astonishing.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:14 pm

House returns as two lawmakers vow to resign amid scandals – US politics live

Representatives Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, announced Monday they would resign amid scrutiny over their conduct

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

Donald Trump is in Washington today. All of his scheduled events are currently closed to the press, but there’s always a chance things open up.

He’s set to meet with House speaker Mike Johnson and Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee at 1:30pm ET. He’ll then speak with labor union leader Sean O’Brien, who serves as general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Trump will also sit for an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo at 4pm ET, before welcoming David Perdue, US ambassador to China, to the White House at 5:30pm ET.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:06 pm

US states drop Medicaid coverage of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs as demand rises

Experts say any short-term financial benefit will be outweighed by long-term health costs related to obesity

Faced with high demand for GLP-1 drugs, some American cities and states that previously covered the cost of the weight-loss medication for low-income residents and public employees have now started to restrict or eliminate coverage.

The pullback stems from the dramatic increase in public spending on drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy in recent years.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:00 am

Magyar set to make rare appearance on Hungary’s state media after accusing them of spreading Orbán propaganda – Europe live

Hungarian election winner had not appeared on state media for 18 months before the election and is preparing to overhaul the broadcasters

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hailed the opposition win in Hungary as “the victory of light over darkness,” as he called for “pragmatic, friendly” relations with the new administration.

Speaking alongside the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Zelenskyy said that he hoped for “pragmatic” and “friendly” relations with the new Magyar government – in sharp contrast with hostile Orbán administration.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:47 am

United Airlines CEO reportedly pitched merger with American, sparking competition fears

Critics warned of ‘higher ticket prices, more fees, and fewer options’ for passengers if two travel giants try to combine

The CEO of United Airlines is said to have pitched a blockbuster merger with American Airlines during a meeting with Donald Trump, floating the combination of the world’s two largest carriers.

Scott Kirby, who leads United, raised the prospect during an encounter with the US president in late February, Reuters reported, citing two unnamed sources. Such a deal would overhaul the global air travel industry – and likely face intense competition scrutiny.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:01 pm

US military says it killed two people in another boat strike in eastern Pacific

Dispatch of vessel strike, like most of military’s statements on strikes conducted in area, did not provide evidence

The US military said it killed two people in a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, claiming the targets were involved in “narco-trafficking operations”.

The announcement, like most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes it has conducted in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, did not provide evidence to support its claims that the targets were engaged in narco-trafficking.

Published: April 14, 2026, 1:44 am

Mark Carney secures majority government in Canada after special election win

Carney’s Liberals will now be able to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties – and govern until 2029

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has secured a parliamentary majority for his Liberal government, CBC News reported. The victory will help him push through a legislative agenda he says is needed for an increasingly divided geopolitical world.

Three special elections were held on Monday in Ontario and Quebec, with two in districts – known as ridings – that have long voted Liberal.

Published: April 14, 2026, 5:09 am

Horse swept away in a fast-moving flood in Illinois rescued after eight hours

Crews from Morengo fire and rescue built a makeshift raft to get Troy, who was stuck in 15ft deep creek, safely to shore

A horse in Illinois swept from a barn in a fast-moving flood has been reunited with his owner after firefighters joined a local veterinarian in a unique, daring deep-water rescue.

Crews from the Marengo fire and rescue districts constructed a makeshift raft to move Troy, who was stranded about 600ft from the nearest shore and surrounded by a strong current of water in Coon Creek, about 60 miles north-west of Chicago.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:00 am

Dolly Parton tops list of global figures in US favorability poll

The 11-time Grammy winner had a net favorability of 65%, Obama came second with 14%, while Zelenskyy had 12%

For the US public, the feeling that Dolly Parton expressed in her country music chart-topping 1974 classic I Will Always Love You is clearly mutual.

A poll of Americans’ opinions about more than 20 international luminaries established as much, with the 11-time Grammy winner and philanthropist leaving her two closest competitors – Barack Obama and Volodymyr Zelenskyy – in the dust by more than 50 percentage points.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:00 am

‘Nothing but tree skeletons’: record-breaking wildfires devastate US cattle country

Rising temperatures and extreme drought are driving more destructive spring fires across the American Great Plains. This year, forces aligned to create the perfect storm in Nebraska

In a normal year, the vast grasslands that roll across the American Great Plains would be starting to green. But at the center of the US, where most of the nation’s beef producers graze their herds, this spring brought fire instead of moisture, leaving more than a million acres black and barren.

Multiple blazes raged across Nebraska, where the records for the annual acreage burned were obliterated in a single month. The state logged the largest blaze ever recorded when the Morrill fire cascaded across more than 642,000 acres before it was contained in March.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:00 am

Secretive Bilderberg group just met – but who knows what global elite said?

This year’s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, but it’s a mystery why the press fails to talk about it

The 72nd meeting of the Bilderberg group, the elite and secretive policy conference that is the longtime subject of endless conspiracy theories, was held at the weekend in Washington DC. A security cordon went up around the opulent Salamander hotel for the notoriously media-shy summit, which was packed as ever with prime ministers, military leaders, tech billionaires and the heads of giant investment companies.

Bilderberg, which since the 1950s has been the intellectual engine room of Nato, took place this year at a time of immense crisis and uncertainty for the alliance. In recent weeks, with Trump threatening at every turn to withdraw from the “paper tiger” of Nato, the “Trans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationship” (as it’s called on the agenda) has reached a strained breaking point.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:00 am

Iran tries to cosy up to Europe to increase pressure on US

Regime hopes to capitalise on deepening transatlantic split by briefing previously sidelined European countries

In a move designed to increase pressure on the US to make compromises in its conflict with his country, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi has been briefing European capitals on the nature of the offer Iran had been willing to make about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and future stewardship of the strait of Hormuz during the weekend talks in Islamabad.

After the inconclusive talks, Araghchi held phone briefings with the French and German foreign ministers, Jean-Noël Barrot and Johann Wadephul, as well as the Saudi, Omani and Qatari foreign ministers.

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

AI companies make powerful tech – but they’re also savvy marketers

Anthropic’s Claude Mythos AI is said to be frighteningly capable, but we shouldn’t get carried away by the hype

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, the Guardian’s US tech editor, writing to you from my happy village in Pokopia.

Tech companies are cutting jobs and betting on AI. The payoff is far from guaranteed

‘There’s a lot of desperation’: skilled older workers turn to AI training to stay afloat

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

‘It feels as if I’ve made a new best friend’: my experiment with AI journalling

‘Irresponsible failure’: Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft slam EU over child sexual abuse law lapse

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

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:04 pm

America’s hiking culture is built on ego

From peak-bagging to thru-hiking, Americans have turned traversing land into personal milestones. This wilderness ranger and Indigenous writer has witnessed it firsthand

Këmituxwe Éhènta Wehikiyànkw

You are walking in our old homeland

After spending 12 years backpacking some of America’s wildest trails as a wilderness ranger for the US Forest Service – and then losing that job to politics – last spring I set out for the Appalachian Trail (AT), the longest hiking-only footpath in the world.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:00 pm

Is the new Super Mario Galaxy movie really that bad?

A shallow plot and advert-adjacent cameos justify the critics’ condemnation of Nintendo’s latest film. But there’s sincere affection for the universe here, too

I was bracing myself for the worst when I headed into the cinema with my children to watch the new Super Mario Galaxy movie over the Easter break. The reviews have been memorably dire. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it worse than AI; Empire deemed it a “humourless, hysterical trudge”. It’s been vilified even more than the first Mario movie, which film critics also hated.

I am a lifelong Nintendo fan, though – I literally wrote the book on the company – so even if it was terrible, there was a possibility that the Mario-loving child within me might temporarily take over my critical faculties and get me through it. That’s what happened with the first Mario movie, which I found to be perfectly OK. I was not actively offended by it, as the film critics seemed to be; audiences seemed to land mostly in my camp, if the huge discrepancy between its audience ratings and review ratings were any indication. Could the sequel really be that much worse?

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:59 am

Shrooms, alligators and the swamp: how the ‘satanic e-girls of TikTok’ revived psychedelic sludge metallers Acid Bath

The Louisiana band came to a tragically early end in the 90s, but after going viral they’ll soon play stadiums with System of a Down. They look back on the claggy riffs and circle pits

‘It’s a mind-blower,” says singer Dax Riggs on the surprising TikTok-driven renaissance of the renowned 1990s psychedelic sludge metallers Acid Bath. “In the front row you’ll see an old fan and next to them is a 13-year-old kid singing all the words,” adds guitarist Sammy Duet. “What the hell is going on here?”

Formed in the Louisiana bayou in 1991 with oppressive, swampy sounds soundtracking tales of drugs, death and decay, Acid Bath deftly hopped from treacly, melodic grooves to bluesy licks and fast-chugging thrashers, sometimes in the same song. “Society here was totally decrepit and unfair in a lot of ways, but the beauty of the landscape is supreme,” says Riggs of the backwater wetlands that loomed large in their psyches. Their claggy, peculiar southern gothic style burned bright, before the death of bassist Audie Pitre in 1997 brought their journey to a close.

Published: April 14, 2026, 8:10 am

‘These flowers have witnessed horrific things’: Steve McQueen’s bountiful Grenada – in pictures

The artist and film-maker spent a summer on the island making poetic images of the local flora – and exploring their connections to Grenada’s historical trauma

Published: April 14, 2026, 6:01 am

Trump has turned Title X upside down: from a contraception program into a pro-natalist machine | Moira Donegan

First the administration sought to defund Title X. Now it’s reimagining what it stands for

The Trump administration, dominated by religious anti-abortion conservatives and reeling in money from a new wave of pronatalist tech reactionaries, has long been considering ways to persuade, pressure and cajole women into having more babies. The Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade in 2022, in which Donald Trump’s three first-term supreme court appointees cast decisive votes, was a first step; later, after he returned to office, Trump reportedly fielded proposals for $5,000 “baby bonuses” – not quite enough to raise a child, one notices – and “motherhood medals” for fertile women that are similar to awards dispensed by the Nazi regime.

Now, it’s seeking out a new tactic: removing birth control access. This month, the Trump administration renewed its attacks on Title X, the federal reproductive health program that provides birth control to an estimated 2 million low-income Americans. In the White House’s proposed budget, funding for the program was eliminated altogether. Then, the Title X administrators at the Department of Health and Human Services announced new guidance to the program’s partner providers, the clinics and medical practices that actually dispense the medication and care. The program was changing, the providers were told. For decades, Title X had been a contraception program. Now, it was going to be reimagined as a pro-conception one.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:00 am

AI learns language from skewed sources. That could change how we humans speak – and think | Bruce Schneier

Large language models aren’t trained on real-life conversations. As we encounter their language, it could affect our own

Because of the way they are trained, large language models capture only a slice of human language. They’re trained on the written word, from textbooks to social media posts, and our speech as captured in movies and on television. These models have minimal access to the unscripted conversations we have face-to-face or voice-to-voice. This is the vast majority of speech, and a vital component of human culture.

There’s a risk to this. The increased use of large language models means we humans will encounter much more AI-generated text. We humans, in turn, will begin to adopt the linguistic patterns and behaviors of these models. This will affect not just how we communicate with one another, but also how we think about ourselves and what goes on around us. Our sense of the world may become distorted in ways we have barely begun to comprehend.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:00 pm

On the streets of Dublin I met fuel protesters and the people who support them – yet our leaders still don’t get it | Caelainn Hogan

The Iran war has exposed the country’s reliance on fossil fuels – and its wilful neglect of people’s basic needs

Up in the driver’s seat of a lime green CLAAS tractor, a young man called Dylan told me he was the second tractor to arrive on O’Connell Street, Dublin’s main street, for fuel protests that would bring Ireland to a standstill for nearly a week. The tractor in front of him, belonging to his boss, had a sign warning “No Farms, No Food”. The 19-year-old agricultural contract worker sat with two friends, young women of 16 and 17, out to support him. He had slept nights in the tractor in the biting April cold, along with many other farmers, fishers and truckers whose vehicles lined both sides of the street.

“It’s profit before people,” Dylan said of campaigners’ complaints about the government’s levying of 60% in duties and taxes on fuel continuing during a crisis. “It’s affecting everyone – it’s affecting our businesses, it’s affecting yourselves if you’re running a car or heating your house. Eventually if we don’t get what we want, it’s going to start affecting the price of food on the shelves and no one is going to be able to afford anything.”

Caelainn Hogan is a journalist and the author of Republic of Shame

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Viktor Orbán inspired rightwingers across the EU and in Britain. His defeat could represent a turning of the tide | Polly Toynbee

We must hope this vote will be the start of a wider backlash – and send hard-right populism back to the fringes where it belongs

The forces of darkness rolled back on Sunday. The mighty combined power of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump’s America were defeated in Hungary, as European liberal democratic values triumphed.

The populist-nativist right put their all into keeping Viktor Orbán in power. The US vice-president, JD Vance, mid-war in Iran, took time out to parade his patronage in Budapest, one month after the hard-right US Conservative Political Action Conference took place there. In January, Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in a video endorsing Orbán, with salvoes of support from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen. Herbert Kickl of Austria’s Freedom party declared that “a patriotic wind is blowing across Europe”. Maybe, but not in their direction. Patriotism does not belong to them.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here

Published: April 14, 2026, 5:00 am

I went to a 25th wedding anniversary – and had a revelation about relationships | Zoe Williams

When I looked around that room, at all the marriages, love affairs and divorces, everything and everyone was as you would have expected back in 2001 ...

An army dude once told me, “A speech should be like a lady’s skirt: short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the main points”, and I said, “Wait, can we just clarify what the main points of a lady are – is it her butt or some other, nearby part?”. He pretended not to hear me. Or to be fair, maybe he was a bit deaf and that’s how feminism came to pass him by. Few would disagree with the principle, though – whatever you want to say, keep it brief.

But yesterday I went to a 25th wedding anniversary, where I would have loved for the speeches to be 10 times as long. I could have listened to them all day. The couple looked pretty much exactly the same as they did 25 years ago, which was mysterious and diverting, but that’s not what gave heft to what they said. Rather, whatever endearing thing they said about each another, the quarter century that just flew by was proof that it was real. Comparing it to a wedding speech, it was like the difference between a huckster at a Ted Talk telling you that one day you wouldn’t need to sleep because you’d have a sleep-robot inside your brain, and a real scientist explaining how she’d discovered the cure for cancer.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:00 am

Azzi Fudd taken first in WNBA draft by Dallas Wings in UConn reunion with Paige Bueckers

• Fudd goes No 1, reunites with Bueckers

• UCLA set record with five first-round picks

• Analysis: Ella Brockway goes pick by pick

• Sign up for our WNBA 30 newsletter

Azzi Fudd was selected by the Dallas Wings with the first pick of the WNBA draft on Monday night, capping a 12-month ascent from NCAA champion to the top overall choice and setting up a reunion with former University of Connecticut teammate Paige Bueckers.

The 5ft 11in guard, who led UConn to last year’s national title and was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player, is the seventh player from the program to go No 1. Bueckers, the top selection by Dallas in the 2025 draft and the reigning WNBA rookie of the year, watched Fudd’s name called from a sold-out crowd at the Shed, the $500m cultural center at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s west side.

Published: April 14, 2026, 2:11 am

Arne Slot backs Liverpool to produce ‘great performance’ to beat PSG

• Slot: ‘There is a belief we can do special things’

• Luis Enrique tells his players to beware ‘pitfalls’

Arne Slot has said Liverpool do not face an impossible task against Paris Saint-Germain but must produce the perfect performance to overcome the European champions in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Liverpool require another stirring Anfield comeback in Tuesday’s second leg to salvage their hopes of silverware having lost 2-0 at Parc des Princes last week. PSG were vastly superior in the first leg and should have won more comfortably, although their head coach, Luis Enrique, described such talk as “a trap” and claimed there will be “pitfalls” for his team at Anfield.

Published: April 13, 2026, 6:36 pm

Former NFL cornerback Chris Payton-Jones dies at 30: ‘Everyone loved him’

• Former Arizona Cardinal dies in head-on collision

• Payton-Jones had built career in content creation

Former NFL cornerback Chris Payton-Jones died in a car accident Saturday night in Florida. He was 30.

Payton-Jones was driving a sedan eastbound in the westbound lanes of State Road 24 in Gainesville when his vehicle collided head-on with a pickup truck, according to News 4 Jacksonville. The three people in the truck sustained only minor injuries.

Published: April 13, 2026, 6:13 pm

Iran releases assets of women’s football team captain in Australia asylum drama

• Zahra Ghanbari had been on list of ‘traitors’ whose assets were frozen

• Latest move taken ‘following her change in behaviour’

Iran’s judiciary said on Monday authorities had released the assets of the captain of Iranian women’s football team which had been seized after she made and then withdrew an asylum claim in Australia last month.

Zahra Ghanbari was among a group of six players and one backroom staff member who sought asylum in Australia in March after playing in the Women’s Asian Cup at the start of the Israeli-US war against the Islamic republic.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:20 am

Terence Crawford fined $75 over incident that led to gunpoint traffic stop

• Crawford fined after Omaha traffic stop at gunpoint

• Boxer ordered to pay $75 plus $49 in court costs

• Police review found officers acted lawfully

Terence Crawford was found guilty of careless driving Monday and ordered to pay a $75 fine stemming from a traffic stop last year during which police ordered the world champion boxer and passengers out of his vehicle at gunpoint.

Crawford was stopped on 28 September, hours after his hometown of Omaha held a parade through downtown to celebrate his unanimous-decision victory over Canelo Álvarez in a super middleweight championship fight. The win made Crawford the first male boxer to capture three unified division titles. He announced his retirement in December with a 42-0 record and 31 knockouts.

Published: April 13, 2026, 8:00 pm

Rory McIlroy says preparation at ‘home course’ Augusta aided Masters defence

• Northern Irishman praises ‘good blueprint’ from Nicklaus

• Scottie Scheffler ‘surprised’ by conditions on Friday

Rory McIlroy has explained how weeks of preparation at “home course” Augusta National after advice from Jack Nicklaus played a substantial role in his successful ­Masters defence.

Rather than play in PGA Tour events in the lead up to the Masters and despite a back injury causing him competitive disruption, McIlroy spent considerable time at Augusta in the lead-up to the Masters. On one occasion, it is understood he played the front nine in 29 when playing with a single ball.

Published: April 13, 2026, 8:35 pm

Sponsorship revenue for Uefa’s club competitions set to break €1bn barrier

• Sponsorship income due to rise by more than 40%

• Champions League clubs to benefit from the growth

Uefa is poised to bring in more than €1bn (£870m) a year in commercial revenues from club competitions from next year, with two more global sponsorship deals close to being agreed.

UC3, the commercial joint venture owned by Uefa and the clubs, is finalising agreements with an official payments provider and technology partner, which would complete their roster of premium global partners and see sponsorship income rise by more than 40%. Six-year deals with AB InBev as Uefa’s official beer partner and Pepsi as soft drinks provider from 2027 to 2033 have already been agreed, while Nike last week entered exclusive negotiations to replace Adidas as Uefa’s match ball provider.

Published: April 14, 2026, 7:01 am

Sticker shock: LA residents alarmed by price of 2028 Olympics presale tickets

LA28 set aside tickets for LA and Oklahoma City residents, but some say they faced exorbitant prices and high fees

Since tickets for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles went on sale for local residents on 2 April, excitement for the Games has given way to sticker shock among some Angelenos over what they describe as exorbitant prices and an unexpected service fee.

LA28 had made a wave of slots in the presale ticket lottery available for residents throughout southern California, where the majority of contests will take place, and in Oklahoma City, which will host the canoe slalom and softball events. Tickets ranged in price from $28 into the thousands.

Published: April 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Texas man accused of throwing molotov cocktail at Sam Altman home charged

FBI alleges Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20, was captured on video throwing explosive device outside home of OpenAI chief

A Texas man was charged with hurling a molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and attempting to set fire to the AI firm’s headquarters.

Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20, was captured on surveillance video throwing an incendiary device outside Altman’s San Francisco residence, according to a FBI affidavit filed in federal court on Monday.

Published: April 13, 2026, 11:25 pm

Spanish prime minister’s wife charged with corruption

Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, and two others charged after investigation triggered by group with far-right links

Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been charged with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds at the end of a two-year investigation by a judge in Madrid.

Gómez, 55, has been accused of using her influence as the wife of the socialist prime minister to secure and manage a post at Madrid’s Complutense University, and of using public resources and personal connections to further her private interests.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:58 am

Survivors ask why Nigeria bombed busy market in effort to target jihadist group

Devastating attack killed up to 200 people, many of them civilians, with military saying it was a ‘precision airstrike’

Survivors and observers have questioned the Nigerian military’s rationale for a devastating airstrike on a busy market that killed as many as 200 people, many of them civilians.

The hit on Jilli market on the border of the north-eastern Borno and Yobe states on Saturday is the latest in a string of attacks by the country’s air force over the past decade with a high civilian death toll.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:10 am

Harry and Meghan greeted by hushed ‘hiii’ in Melbourne hospital on first stop of Australian tour

Crowd turns out to welcome duke and duchess, who are combining public visits to worthy causes with private money-making appearances

When Prince Harry and Meghan walked through the doors of Melbourne’s Royal children’s hospital just after midday on Tuesday, a hush came over the crowd of staff and patients gathered to greet them. It was followed by a soft, collective “hiii” – as though the crowd felt that speaking too loudly might scare the duke and duchess away.

The couple walked in almost without ceremony on this first stop on their four-day Australian tour, greeting hospital management in the foyer before making their way around the arc of people gathered to see them, paying particular attention to children.

Published: April 14, 2026, 5:21 am

Anger at ‘bloody unacceptable’ efforts to end Sudan’s war as conflict enters fourth year

A top UN official has criticised lack of global urgency as reports confirm the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is worsening

Efforts to end Sudan’s catastrophic war have been criticised as “unacceptable” by the country’s top UN official as a series of new reports confirm that the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is worsening.

Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, Denise Brown expressed her concern over the apparent lack of political urgency to end a conflict that has forced 14 million Sudanese to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people are missing.

Published: April 14, 2026, 11:02 am

Florida teenager charged with sexually assaulting and killing stepsister Anna Kepner on cruise ship

Kepner’s body was found concealed under bed in a room she shared with two teens, including 16-year-old stepbrother

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A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the 6 November death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival cruise ship, the US justice department said Monday.

Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on 10 March. But the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted Friday, weeks after US district judge Beth Bloom in Miami said he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government.

Guardian staff contributed

Published: April 14, 2026, 1:09 am

Trump deletes post with AI image of himself as Jesus-like figure after outcry

The US president’s conservative, Christian supporters decried the Truth Social post, calling it ‘disgusting’

Less than a year after signing legislation that will pull nearly 12 million Americans off health insurance by gutting Medicaid, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social on Sunday depicting him as a Jesus-like figure, with divine light emanating from his hands as he heals a stricken man in a hospital bed with a demon from hell floating in the background.

The president has since deleted the post, which also followed a lengthy tirade about Pope Leo XIV on the site the same day in which he called him “weak on crime” and blamed the head of the Catholic church for being influenced by Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod. Trump refused to apologize to the pope, saying: “He went public. I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:26 am

‘Suddenly, boom, it’s completely warm’: summers are getting longer – especially in Sydney, study finds

Researchers examined trends in 10 global cities, with Sydney’s summer growing at two-and-a-half times the average

Scientist Ted Scott could feel that summers in his home state of Minnesota were not what they used to be.

With the climate crisis accelerating, Scott could feel and see the seasons changing from their usual patterns – especially summer – and he wanted to know what the data said.

Published: April 14, 2026, 7:11 am

‘Without them there is no life’: the race to understand the mysterious world of fungi

Amid growing evidence of fungi’s key role in ecosystems and storing carbon, African scientists are championing the need to preserve ‘funga’ as much as flora and fauna

Madagascar has long been celebrated for its remarkable wildlife, with the vast majority of its species – from ring-tailed lemurs to certain species of baobab trees – found nowhere else on the planet. But when discussing the island nation’s endemic treasures, fungi are often left out of the conversation.

Yet “fungi are some of the most important things in the world”, says Anna Ralaiveloarisoa, a Malagasy scientist. “They feed 90% of terrestrial plants. Without them, there is no life on the Earth.”

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Don’t mention the climate: Trump creates ‘beyond absurd’ situation at global finance talks

Developing countries face possible shelving of crucial green action plan at IMF and World Bank spring meetings

Governments desperate for cash to protect their citizens from the growing impacts of the climate crisis are being put in a “beyond absurd” situation this week at global finance talks: they are being urged not to mention the climate, even as they address the current oil crisis.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) spring meetings take place this week amid a fragile ceasefire in Iran and upended geopolitics. One of the priorities was to forge a new “climate change action plan” (CCAP) for the world’s biggest provider of funds to developing countries, to replace the current strategy, which expires in June.

Published: April 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Are we heading for ‘super El Niño’ – and what could we expect?

Experts say climate pattern could supercharge extreme weather events and push temperatures to record highs

There is a high likelihood that the phenomenon known as “El Niño” will emerge this summer – and it could be exceptionally strong. A so-called “super El Niño” could supercharge extreme weather events and push global temperatures to record heights next year if it develops, according to experts.

Meteorologists are keeping a close eye on the climate patterns developing in the Pacific Ocean that will enable stronger predictions about what’s to come in the year ahead.

Published: April 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Judges fired after blocking deportation of pro-Palestinian students

Immigration judges Roopal Patel and Nina Froes among six judges terminated by Department of Justice

Two immigration judges who ruled against the Trump administration in the deportation cases of pro-Palestinian university students have been fired by the Department of Justice.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the justice department had terminated six judges, including Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, who oversaw deportation proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, two students who were arrested last year as part of Trump’s campaign against the Gaza protest movement.

Published: April 13, 2026, 8:32 pm

Bahamas police again question US man over disappearance of wife at sea

Brian Hooker says wife Lynette fell overboard from dinghy but family members have cast doubt on that account

Police in the Bahamas on Monday were set to again interview a US man who said his wife fell overboard from their boat.

In a statement on Sunday to the Guardian, Brian Hooker’s attorney, Terrel Butler, said: “The police have requested another interview with [Brian Hooker] tomorrow.”

Published: April 13, 2026, 7:36 pm

Taking Tylenol during pregnancy has no link to autism, new study finds

Trump has pushed unfounded claims of Tylenol use in pregnancy being tied to ‘a very increased risk of autism’

Taking acetaminophen – known in the US by the brand name Tylenol – during pregnancy has no effect on later autism diagnoses, according to a sweeping new study from Denmark published on Monday.

The Trump administration has targeted Tylenol use in pregnancy as a major cause of autism in children, which appears to have led to a drop in pregnant people taking the pain reliever.

Published: April 13, 2026, 8:42 pm

Trump administration agrees to keep flying Pride flag at Stonewall monument

US government reverses course on removing LGBTQ+ Pride flag from New York monument after efforts from advocates

The Trump administration agreed on Monday to keep flying a rainbow Pride flag at the Stonewall national monument, reversing course after removing the banner in February.

The government revealed the decision as it seeks to settle a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the removal. A judge must still approve the agreement.

Published: April 13, 2026, 5:49 pm

Detention of journalist in Kuwait raises questions about crackdown on freedom of speech

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested after reporting on friendly fire incident during US conflict with Iran

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

The detention of a prize-winning international journalist over his reporting of a friendly fire incident in Kuwait is raising questions about the crackdown on freedom of speech across the Middle East as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran, the Committee to Protect Journalists has warned.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, born in the US and a Kuwaiti national, was arrested on 3 March during a brief visit to Kuwait. He published footage of a US air force F- 15 E Strike Eagle crashing in al Jahra west of Kuwait city. On his Substack he said the pilot and weapons officer had successfully ejected and survived. He added that video circulating online showed local residents assisting one of the crew in a civilian truck.

Published: April 14, 2026, 10:45 am

HSBC says Iran war is hitting confidence as businesses warn over economic risks

Oil-driven inflation is big challenge to world economy, lifting inflation and depressing growth, says bank’s chair

• Business live – latest updates

HSBC bosses have said the Iran war is already hitting global economic confidence, as a string of business leaders warned over the impact of the conflict.

Georges Elhedery, the Lebanon-born chief executive of the bank, told Bloomberg Television at a HSBC conference in Hong Kong: “We’re saddened and concerned with what’s happening in the Middle East, and we’re concerned not just with what’s happening but also with how long this will take.

Published: April 14, 2026, 8:31 am

Starmer’s ‘corrosive complacency’ on defence has put UK in peril, says ex-Nato chief

George Robertson says Iran war should be wake-up call to address military underfunding in scathing remarks

• UK politics live – latest updates

The government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK in peril, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticism of Keir Starmer’s military policy.

George Robertson, the former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, believes Starmer is “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times reported.

Published: April 14, 2026, 8:08 am

Colombia to cull up to 80 hippos descended from Pablo Escobar zoo

Dozens of feral pachyderms linked to drug kingpin to be killed because of threat to native species and villagers

Colombian officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, after the feral beasts displaced native species and threatened local villagers.

The environment minister, Irene Vélez, said the decision was reached because other methods to control their population had been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. Vélez said that up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when the hunting would begin.

Published: April 13, 2026, 6:01 pm

‘It was life-changing’: the celebrated art historian who spent 46 years sitting for Frank Auerbach

Catherine Lampert is a historian, curator and model who spent much of her time sitting for her famous friends. She tells us what the likes of Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Euan Uglow meant to her

Last November, a work titled Potiphar’s Wife by British painter Euan Uglow appeared in a private sale by Christie’s in London. “We were all so excited,” says art historian and curator Catherine Lampert. “I had tried many times to find out where that picture was.” It depicts a woman lying on the ground against a blue wall, legs crossed and arms stretched out behind her to, it seems, stop a man in a T-shirt from leaving. Both cling to a beautifully draped length of orange cloth.

This is the last painting Uglow talked to Lampert about as he lay dying of cancer in August 2000. She had known him since her early 20s, had organised his first big show in 1974 and in those final months of his life, she was working on the catalogue raisonné of his paintings – an annotated list of Uglow’s complete works.

“Euan was quite cryptic,” she says. “But in the last months, he let me record him in anticipation of this book and then he would be quite” – she taps the table decisively with her hand – “‘This is what this picture is about.’ The last time I went to see him in hospital, he said, ‘Let’s get to work.’” Lampert only recorded a few minutes that day. But the details she gleaned – about the vertical yellow band that anchors the whole composition being “satiny and still” and the way the drapery “moves” – she treasured like gold dust.

Lampert is sitting at an aged square table that has been in her London home for 50 years, as has she. The many people who have sat around it (Uglow and Frank Auerbach among them), not to mention the art (Alison Turnbull) and photography (David Hockney in Lucian Freud’s studio; Auerbach and Leon Kossoff at a dinner) on the walls, speak to her status as a quiet giant of contemporary art.

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:18 am

My Year in Paris With Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy review – wonderfully entertaining

Biography mingles with fiction as Levy explores the avant-garde writer through the story of three female friends in Paris

The narrator of Deborah Levy’s witty scherzo of a “fiction” – “novel” isn’t the word for this uncategorisable book – thinks that Gertrude Stein would have liked Sigmund Freud. She imagines them enjoying a cigar together while their wives make small talk. Would Frau Freud “have exchanged her recipe for boiled beef with Alice B [Toklas]’s recipe for hashish fudge”? The two never met (though with her interest in the “bottom character” and his in the “unconscious”, Stein and Freud would have had plenty to talk about), but that barely matters. This book is full of things that don’t actually happen, of relationships that are not what the people involved suppose them to be, of digressions and fantasies and encounters that are imagined but never take place.

It all starts with a lost cat. The cat is called “it”: lower-case “i” followed by lower-case “t”. This causes all sorts of linguistic confusion, highlighting the way we use the word “it” to mean something indeterminate (as in the first sentence of this paragraph), or something trivial, or something tremendous. The phrase “lost it” recurs, the “it” meaning – variously – one’s mind, sympathy with Ernest Hemingway, daring to be as unconventional as Gertrude Stein, the stream of consciousness “flowing under the mowed and manicured golf courses on which men swung their clubs in the 21st century”, the temptation to smile while being undermined by a patronising man, the drudgery of housekeeping, the thing – which might be obedience or shame – that holds an artist back from becoming a modernist … or love, or one’s mother, or a black-and-white cat with one deformed ear.

Published: April 14, 2026, 6:01 am

Euphoria season three review – grubby, desperate and absolutely not worth the wait

What a relief that this is the end for Sam Levison’s grim drama. A show which was once blackly funny is now humourless torture porn

To say that season three of Euphoria is long-awaited would be something of an understatement. HBO’s high school drama debuted in 2019, when it garnered a fanfare of attention with its heady mix of grinding trauma, heavenly eyeshadows and cheap/daring (delete as appropriate) feats, including a locker room scene starring 30 penises. In the years since, it cemented itself as a show with much to say about gen Z’s relationship to sex, drugs and mental health, and pushed Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and former Disney teenybopper Zendaya to the A-list. It has also released a mere 18 episodes in that time, a victim of everything from the Covid pandemic to the Los Angeles fires. Like a new Rihanna album, Euphoria season three has – in time – become shorthand for a pop culture mirage that would maybe, possibly arrive sometime before 2030. At least, we hoped, before most of the cast were in their 30s.

Excitement, too, has waned over time. Rumours of rifts between the cast and creator Sam Levinson have only grown since its return was confirmed last autumn, and the press tour that followed has had a distinct flavour of “contractual obligation” about it (social media posts from the cast were few and far between, while Zendaya, in an interview with Variety, ambiguously described filming as a “whirlwind”). It brings me no pleasure, then, to report that, based on the three episodes released for review, Euphoria’s third (and probably final) run was absolutely not worth the wait. It’s a grubby, humourless work of torture porn that’s obsessed with and repulsed by sex work.

Published: April 13, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Endearing and enduring’: why Hot Fuzz is my feelgood movie

The latest in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort watches is a journey back to 2004 and the unusually violent village of Sandford

With the endless library of films we all have at our fingertips, in our DVD collections and on whatever the cloud is, finding your top feelgood movie can be a deceptively hard task. Though it seems obvious now, mine was so familiar to me that somehow it managed to hide in plain sight. Eventually, I had to ask my partner what she thought my comfort movie was. She answered decisively: Hot Fuzz. And she’s absolutely right. How could it not be?

Hot Fuzz is Edgar Wright’s second entry in his Cornetto trilogy, preceded by the cult classic Shaun of the Dead and followed by pub crawl alien invasion adventure The World’s End. I’m not convinced Hot Fuzz is Wright’s best film – it’s not even my favourite. But as far as feelgood movies go, it’s unbeatable.

Published: April 13, 2026, 9:00 am

Titaníque review – delightfully campy Céline Dion musical shows bigger isn’t always better

St James Theatre, New York
The hilariously deranged riff on Titanic loses some scrappy charm in its Broadway transfer

According to its creators, the idea for Titaníque, the extremely campy Céline Dion jukebox musical now open on Broadway, originated as a drunken riff between friends – what if the Québécois Queen of Feelings not only sang the theme song of the movie Titanic, but sincerely believed she survived the disaster? A Céline-ified Titanic is an appropriately silly concept – possibly no one has provided the world as much camp sincerity as the 90s power ballad pioneer, and the beloved movie could use some unserious updates. Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue, the co-authors, made the show extra zany, extra gay, extra “kooky crazy” (to quote the truly inimitable Dion) and set sail in the theatrical equivalent of a rowboat; the first staging of Titaníque took place in the basement of a shuttered Manhattan grocery store. Adaptable and very meta, the show upgraded to a series of ever-larger craft: a buzzy, post-pandemic Off-Broadway run, a world tour, then an acclaimed West End stint.

Though, to my deep regret, I missed out on the original Off-Broadway run, I found myself nostalgic for those humble beginnings while attending the new-and-improved Titaníque at the too-cavernous St James Theater, where the jazzed-up show now has the budget and scale befitting an ocean liner. Or, more accurately, a corporate reality TV show; the tiered risers, on-stage band (who, it should be noted, sound great) and, most evocatively, neon-red stage lights look less like Titanic, even a very loosely interpreted one, and more like The X Factor, as Mindelle joked in one of her many asides as the singer. Why? Who’s to say. Self-awareness counts for a lot in the very funny Titaníque, though not an explanation.

Published: April 13, 2026, 2:00 am

Helium: the invisible gas that powers AI, and why it’s in short supply – podcast

Alongside the oil and gas stranded in the strait of Hormuz is another commodity vital to today’s economy: helium. It is a critical element in all kinds of areas from MRI machines to the Large Hadron Collider, and even deep-sea diving. It is also integral to the AI boom. And this isn’t the first time its fragile global supply chain has been threatened. So why is helium so useful, and what will happen if the shortage continues? Ian Sample hears from co-host Madeleine Finlay, and from Sophia Hayes, professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis

Clips: CBC

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Published: April 14, 2026, 4:00 am

Karol G at Coachella review – electrifying set destined for festival’s hall of fame

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
With dazzling choreography and head-spinning set pieces, the Colombian star delivered a victorious statement of Latin pride

Late on the final night of Coachella’s first weekend, after more than a dozen songs, several glorious costume changes and some of the most luscious choreography ever seen in a headliner set, the Colombian superstar Karol G finally introduced herself in English: “I am Carolina Giraldo from Medellín, Colombia, and today, I am the first Latina woman to headline Coachella,” she said to deafening cheers from a crowd dotted with the flags of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin nations. “I’m very happy and very proud,” she added, but “at the same time, it feels late. There has been 27 years of this festival.” Both sincere and pointed, her remarks recalled Beyoncé in 2018, thanking the festival for allowing her to be the first Black woman to headline: “Ain’t that ’bout a bitch?”

Beyoncé is quite the name to invoke – we may never again see a set as virtuosic and culturally significant as Beychella – but on Sunday night, Karol G sure made the case for her inclusion in the festival’s hall of fame. Seeming at once years in the making and effortless, her 90-minute set was, like Bad Bunny’s landmark headliner slot three years earlier, an exuberant statement of Latin pride and pan-American unity as well as the joys of absolutely lethal, ass-shaking music so relentlessly danceable I broke a sweat on the coldest night of the festival. From the minute she first appeared, luminous in a glittering gold bikini and flanked by an army of sinuous background dancers, her hip undulations visible to the naked eye from the back rows – “not even Nascar has these curves,” she boasts in saucy opener Latina Foreva – the fireworks literal and physical barely ceased. If it’s going to take 27 years, well, best throw an undeniable fiesta.

Published: April 13, 2026, 2:31 pm

Bollywood classics, rave bangers and Michael Stipe duets: 10 of Asha Bhosle’s greatest recordings

After her death aged 92, we look back on the vast and varied catalogue of one of India’s greatest vocalists, who brought actorly skill to her Bollywood playback performances

• Indian music legend Asha Bhosle dies aged 92

With more than 12,000 songs to her name, Indian playback singer Asha Bhosle is one of the most recorded and well-known voices in Bollywood cinema. Born into a musical family, with her father Deenanath Mangeshkar working as a singer for regional Marathi theatre and film throughout the 1920s and 30s and her older sister Lata Mangeshkar becoming a Bollywood playback singer in her own right, Bhosle entered the industry at just 10 years old with this debut performance in the Marathi film Maze Baal. Duetting with Lata, Bhosle’s melismatic falsetto in the song gives voice to the playful innocence of the film’s central love-child. Keening and crystal-clear, her vocal immediately cuts through the rollicking instrumental and already displays the yearning emotion that would become her signature as her voice matured.

Published: April 13, 2026, 1:12 pm

‘A cauldron of people with their tops off!’ Goldie, Estelle, Courtney Pine, Flo and more pick great moments in Black British music

For its inaugural show, the V&A’s east London outpost is celebrating 125 years of Black music-making in Britain. We asked top performers to pick their favourite exhibit

Goldie: Kemistry and Storm (The Diptych) by Eddie Otchere (1995)

Published: April 13, 2026, 4:00 am

All Them Dogs by Djamel White review – murderous desires in the badlands of Dublin

Sparks fly in this homoerotic dance of desire and betrayal, from a powerful new voice in Irish literature

Toxic masculinity, that repressed and repressive male energy that does so much to fuel brutality and abuse, sometimes finds itself on the brink of a vulnerable homoeroticism. In Djamel White’s debut novel All Them Dogs, a vividly propulsive neo-noir, two violent men discover that murderous desires can lead to love as well as death. This is a fast-paced crime thriller with a psychosexual twist, set in a dangerously Freudian arena of Eros and Thanatos.

On the run for five years after killing a man in a gang fight, Tony Ward has returned to the badlands of west Dublin under the protection of a local crime boss. Teamed up with tall and sullen enforcer Darren “Flute” Walsh, Tony is back on his home turf grafting a grim routine of collecting debts and drug dealer’s dues. Propelled through a world of old scores and hard knocks, our protagonist is a shark who has to keep moving simply to survive. But when he and Flute are called upon to kill a failing dealer, their brutal conspiracy becomes a visceral dance of desire and betrayal.

Published: April 14, 2026, 8:00 am

Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh review – a climate-crisis novel let down by its prose

A reincarnation mystery drives this exploration of spiritual interconnectedness in a globalised world

What happens when a novelist cares more about their plot, or their message, than their prose? Plot and message have this much in common: they travel smoothest on the lubricating oil of cliche. Thus you might find yourself enjoying, at the level of story or argument, a novel that trundles along via lumps of workhorse novelese like the following: “manicured gardens”, “apple of their father’s eye”, “venerable patriarch”, “Little did I know then”, “keeping a weather eye”, “money was tight”, “Barely had the words left her mouth”, “engulfed by civil strife”, “I was taken aback”, “a piercing cry”, “an ear-splitting cacophony”, “a lick of paint”, “It was a marvel to behold”, “It was as though she were a woman possessed”, “The ceremonies went off without a hitch”, “She and I were polar opposites” …

This is, for much of its length, the experience of reading Amitav Ghosh’s 11th novel, Ghost-Eye. The plot has been quite intricately worked out. It seeds the reader’s curiosity, especially in the first half, with all sorts of intriguing mysteries. The subject – the various collisions of global and local in the post-second world war age – is important. But much of the prose is dead on arrival. I say this with regret. Like many readers, I think of Ghosh with gratitude: not just for the narrative riches of his Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire), but for the work of intellectual framing he performed in his 2016 polemic The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Ghosh is at least partly responsible for the arrival of the climate emergency as an urgent subject in literary fiction over the last decade. He woke us from our slumbers.

Published: April 13, 2026, 11:00 am

On Memoir by Blake Morrison review – lessons in life writing from a master

Don’t be fooled by the A-Z treatment – this thoroughgoing guide asks deep questions about the art of autobiography

“I’ve had a life and I’ve also had a life as a life writer”: Blake Morrison opens his tour d’horizon of arguably literature’s most expanding and expansive genre with a flash of his credentials and an implicit call to further inquiry. What constitutes a life, and what can it mean to write about it? Can you write about your own from inside it?

Before his bestselling and highly praised account of his father’s life and death, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, was published in 1993, Morrison had a life as a poet, a critic and a literary editor. And perhaps his interest in penetrating the mysteries of another’s interior world was already in evidence: a few years earlier, he had written The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper, in which he had attempted to capture what newspaper reports had missed of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (“So cops they lobbed im questions / Through breakfast, dinner, tea, / Till e said: ‘All right, you’ve cracked it. / Ripper, aye, it’s me.’”).

Published: April 14, 2026, 8:00 am

Hacker group threatens to release Grand Theft Auto VI data in Rockstar Games attack

The group named ShinyHunters have accessed a third party server and have given the company a deadline of 14 April to enter ransom negotiations

Rockstar Games, the studio behind Grand Theft Auto, has been the target of a cyberattack for the second time in three years. A hacker group called ShinyHunters said it would release data stolen from the company if ransom demands were not met.

ShinyHunters initially gave Rockstar a 14 April deadline to enter negotiations, having gained access to company servers operated by a third party.

Published: April 13, 2026, 4:51 pm

Clannad singer and harpist Moya Brennan dies aged 73

The Grammy and Emmy-winning ‘first lady of Celtic music’ was credited with popularising Irish music and lyrics

Moya Brennan, the lead singer of Irish folk group Clannad, has died aged 73.

In her later years, Brennan had been living with pulmonary fibrosis and faced the possibility of a double lung transplant. A statement from her family said she died peacefully in the company of loved ones in her native County Donegal.

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:28 am

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Phil Collins, Oasis, Sade and Wu-Tang Clan among 2026 inductees

Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Queen Latifah and Joy Division/New Order will also be inducted, along with the late Luther Vandross

Phil Collins, Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Queen Latifah, Oasis, Sade and Joy Division/New Order will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with first-time nominees Wu-Tang Clan and the late Luther Vandross.

The list was revealed on Monday night in the US, during an airing of American Idol. To be eligible, artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,200 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

Published: April 14, 2026, 3:17 am

‘We want people on the edge of their seats’: Royal Opera boss Oliver Mears on the new season – and the controversies of the last

Wagnerites rejoice! Parsifal and the climax of Barrie Kosky’s acclaimed Ring cycle are in the pipeline. The director of opera talks about scoring a bullseye, the storms that rocked last season – and how to avoid sending audiences to sleep

The morning I meet Oliver Mears, the director of opera at Covent Garden, I’m still walking on air. The day before I’d seen Wagner’s epic Siegfried, the third part of the Ring cycle. Nearly six hours long, it is an immersion into a world of gods and giants, heroes and warrior women – but also profound and poignant human relationships. With the remarkable Andreas Schager in the title role among a superb ensemble cast, it is the Royal Opera at its best. On the way to his office, Mears walks through the backstage labyrinth. Singers are warming up; wardrobe people are discussing a costume’s last-minute fix; and a couple of mice scurrying across the canteen lend a bohemian atmosphere. Heaven (give or take the rodents).

Mears tells me about next season: course after course of operatic banquet. There will be a new Parsifal, conducted by music director Jakub Hrůša and directed, in his house debut, by the “brilliantly charismatic and interesting” Kazakhstan-born Evgeny Titov. There’s a new Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi, with another director fresh to the house, the “stylish and rigorous” German Philipp Stölzl. There’s a return for Richard Jones’s brilliant production of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová with Hrůša conducting – whose interpretation of Janáček’s Jenůfa last season was one of the musical experiences of my life.

Published: April 14, 2026, 5:00 am

Woman arrested for allegedly stalking Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham

Michelle Dick accused of dousing musician with unknown substance in March and damaging his car before fleeing

A woman who is accused of stalking the former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has been arrested in Indiana, according to local police.

Authorities in Fort Wayne, Indiana, said in a statement over the weekend that they took 55-year-old Michelle Dick into custody on Saturday as she was wanted on a warrant out of California “for stalking” Buckingham.

Published: April 13, 2026, 3:35 pm

Start small, grow what you like and be realistic: how to start a vegetable garden

You don’t need a yard or balcony to get going. We asked experts for their advice on how to grow your food

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in cities my whole life, but I can’t think of anything more luxurious than popping out to your garden and eating a fresh tomato straight from the vine. How decadent to enjoy its crisp, bright flavor and the smug satisfaction that you coaxed this food into being with your own hands.

But what does becoming a modern-day Demeter actually entail? What if you don’t have a yard, or even a balcony? And is it worth growing your own food when supermarkets exist?

Published: April 13, 2026, 4:00 pm

The US small town coffee shop that created a viral drink: ‘I still don’t understand how it went so far’

The raspberry danish latte is making its way around the world after its inventors decided to share the recipe

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A viral coffee drink created by a little college town coffee shop on the outskirts of Minneapolis is now making its way around the world after its inventors decided to give the recipe away for free.

After Little Joy Coffee’s raspberry danish latte, a spring seasonal drink, went viral in March, the shop’s owners decided to encourage coffee shops to rip off the recipe directly and add it to their menus.

Published: April 13, 2026, 11:00 am

The 10 best US gifts for new moms, according to a new mom

Keepsakes are quaint, but these are the gifts she’ll use every day, from stroller organizers to perfect pajamas

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When I had my baby, all the usual gifts flowed in: flowers, cards, trinkets with my daughter’s name engraved. I appreciated them all, but as I settled into life as a new mom, what I really craved was the practical equipment that didn’t seem glamorous enough to gift: stroller organizers, backpacks, baby carriers.

So take it from someone who has been there recently: more than anything else, the new mom in your life will adore something that helps her and her baby get through the day unscathed. Or that gives her the confidence to survive another day of scrubbing spit-up on no sleep. Or just instills a sigh of relief at the end of a long day. Here are some of the top picks that helped me through, including some I’ve already gifted to fellow new moms.

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Published: April 13, 2026, 7:15 pm

Is it true that … having a diverse microbiome stops you from getting sick?

Having diverse microbes in the gut has been promoted as a way to boost immunity, but studies suggest it’s more complicated than that

The trillions of microorganisms that live in and on our bodies – known as the microbiome – have been hailed as the key to better immunity. “Lots of studies correlate the types of bacteria in your microbiome with health and disease across almost every mental and physical condition,” says Prof Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London and the author of Self Defence: A Myth-busting Guide to Immune Health. “But most of that evidence is correlative, and we still need to understand exactly how the microbiome affects health.”

Scientists often look at one measure: diversity. In other words, how many different species of microbes live in the gut. “The more diverse your microbiome is, the more it seems to correlate with not being ill.”

Published: April 13, 2026, 7:00 am

What can I do with leftover rice? | Kitchen aide

Don’t be scared of cooked rice: our experts share safe ways to turn yesterday’s leftovers into something delicious

How do I store cooked rice safely, and what can I make with it the next day?
Michael, by email
“It’s a bit of a running joke with rice, because I think of all the people in China who aren’t spreading their leftover rice immediately on to a tray to cool and are still alive,” says Amy Poon, of Poon’s at Somerset House in London. “But I have to be responsible and say: cool the rice as quickly as possible, within the hour, and put it in an airtight container and pop it in the fridge [or freezer] straight away.” The reason being, as food science guru Harold McGee notes in his bible On Food & Cooking, “Raw rice almost always carries dormant spores of the bacterium Bacillus cereus, which produces powerful gastrointestinal toxins. The spores can tolerate high temperatures, and some survive cooking.” In short: good storage practices will prevent bacterial growth, not to mention open a whole world of dinner opportunities.

“Rice is the most versatile grain to have around as extras,” confirms Ping Coombes, author of Rice, but there’s another benefit, too. “When rice cools, the molecules rearrange into tighter bonds in a process called retrogradation.” This, Coombes continues, creates resistant starch, and the more resistant the starch, the slower the release of energy. “Eating chilled, pre-cooked rice makes it release sugar molecules into the blood stream more slowly, promoting the feelings of fullness for longer and preventing big variations of blood sugar.” But back to Michael’s prospective meals.

Published: April 14, 2026, 12:00 pm

Houseplant hacks: can a fan help plants repel pests?

They won’t save an unhealthy plant, but they do create better growing conditions in rooms with no airflow

The problem
Most plant advice focuses on light, water and soil. Air barely gets a mention, yet stagnant indoor air is one of the less discussed reasons houseplants struggle. Fungal spots, mould on the compost surface and pest infestations like mealybugs can all be traced back to a room with no airflow. We open windows in summer but rarely think about what happens in winter.

The hack
Running a small fan near your houseplants is said to improve stem strength, discourage mould and reduce pest pressure. In the wild, plants experience constant gentle movement; a fan replicates this indoors.

Published: April 14, 2026, 9:00 am

The one change that worked: in a hectic world, taking up jigsaw puzzles calmed my mind

Every time I successfully place a piece, I get a little rush and a sense of achievement. How could I have thought puzzles were only for children?

Until last year, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done a jigsaw puzzle. It must have been at least 20 years ago. As far as I was concerned, puzzles were for children. There were always other more exciting, interesting and productive things to do – or so I thought.

While rummaging around at home on a rainy autumn afternoon, however, I stumbled upon a jigsaw puzzle that had been lying untouched since my husband and I were given it a few years ago. I’m not sure what came over me – perhaps it was because my husband was watching a film that didn’t particularly interest me – but I decided to give it a go. I was immediately hooked.

Published: April 13, 2026, 9:00 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Chilly, the kitten I saved from freezing to death

I found Chilly literally frozen to the spot beneath a Detroit dock, warmed her up and took her home. She’s now part of the family

Earlier this year, I was walking along the marina in the Jefferson Chalmers neighbourhood in Detroit, Michigan. It was a terribly cold winter; the water had frozen over and everything was coated in a thick layer of frost. Suddenly, a sound caught my ear – the loud cries of a tiny animal.

I didn’t know what it was at first, or where exactly it was coming from, but I kept hearing it – so I decided to turn around and walk towards the wailing. Suddenly I spotted a little kitten, trapped between the wooden dock and the plank of metal underneath it. I realised its paws were stuck, frozen to the metal, and it had been crying out to be rescued.

Published: April 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Vance’s bad week: vice-president risks becoming face of two Trump foreign policy failures

Orbán is out in Hungary and talks have failed to end the war in Iran – ill-fated road trip has been setback for Maga aims

Shortly before JD Vance’s ill-fated week crisscrossing the world, Donald Trump asked him during a private Easter brunch about how the Iran negotiations were shaping up. “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said to laughs in the room. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

The joke at Vance’s expense contained an unfortunate nugget of truth: this is not an administration that rewards failure.

Published: April 13, 2026, 6:10 pm

‘That crazy old man should leave Cuba alone’: farmers bear the brunt of Trump’s pressure campaign

In Artemisa, the country’s agricultural heartland, sanctions and fuel shortages have made a tough life almost impossible

Abraham Rodríguez stares at the corn furrows he must plough before the end of the day. It is not even noon in Artemisa, Cuba, but the sun beats down hard and he’s already tired: working the land is a tough job. He has done it for almost half his life, since he was 13 and his mother got a divorce. He is turning 26 this year.

Farming has always been hard, he says, but now it is almost impossible to sustain. “I make 1,200 pesos (£1.80) a day, so I have to work two days to buy a bottle of oil.”

Published: April 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

Spring clean in Seoul and tribute to an Indian music legend: photos of the day – Monday

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

Published: April 13, 2026, 1:11 pm