The 13 best women’s shoes for the office, vetted by stylish professionals

From comfy loafers to sleek pumps, these picks keep you comfortable through long workdays and commutes

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Perhaps no work outfit is complete without a well-made office shoe. A winning pair adds polish and enough cushion that your feet aren’t aching by 5pm.

But what is versatile enough for both the office and happy hour? What is a practical pump that doesn’t look like your grandmother’s? Is there such a thing as a good office sandal?

Nafeesah Attah, a lawyer in New York City. She often spends long days standing in court.

Alyson Ciotola Giuffreda, a personal stylist and former luxury retail worker who has worked for more than 20 years in fashion.

Lily Owens, a social media manager and content creator in Greenville, South Carolina. She is frequently on her feet while filming content.

Allie Anthony, an Emmy-nominated reporter who has covered football for NFL on Prime.

Moya Leung, a marketing professional in Atlanta.

Published: April 2, 2026, 7:15 pm

Protein chips, sex chocolate: what are ‘functional foods’, and do they actually boost health?

If a food is labeled ‘functional’, what does that mean? Not much, experts say

You’re at the grocery store, looking for a sweet snack. But these days, the chocolate aisle promises so much more than that: mental clarity, a stronger immune system, PMS relief and even sexual stamina – all in a few squares.

Chocolate is hardly the only treat to be reborn as a wellness product. Supermarket shelves now boast chips with added protein, gut-friendly sodas and collagen oatmeal – all part of the fast-growing “functional foods” market, which is expected to reach $586bn globally by 2030.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 pm

Workers carved the largest modern Hindu temple in the west. Now, some have incurable lung disease

Workers allege abuse, visa fraud and medical neglect during the New Jersey temple’s construction – and say two died from lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust

In the center of the suburban town of Robbinsville, New Jersey, sits the largest modern Hindu mandir outside India.

What visitors from around the world see is a breathtaking display of craftsmanship – hand-carved stone from Rajasthan assembled across a sprawling 185-acre complex. The temple has gone viral on social media for its intricate designs, which took millions of hours to complete. Baps Swaminarayan Akshardham, the religious organization behind the site, has built similar temples across the globe. But some workers say these monumental structures came at a high cost.

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Trump’s surreal speech on Iran shed no light on his goals | Kenneth Roth

The US president couldn’t give a single coherent reason for why this aggressive war of choice must still be prosecuted

Donald Trump’s self-congratulatory speech on Iran on Wednesday night was as puzzling as it was divorced from reality. I had hoped he would declare victory and end the war. Some feared he might provide cover for a ground invasion. Instead, he told us in essence to be patient, that he is almost done, but he was utterly unclear about what more there is to accomplish.

If there was ever a purpose to the war, it was to curtail Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. Trump harped on that goal repeatedly in his speech, noting that he had long vowed that he “would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon”. But he didn’t mention that Iran has long agreed to eschew a nuclear weapon. If that is the only goal, this entire war has been pointless.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:29 pm

The anti-Maga talkshow: after 70 years, PBS’s The Open Mind still has it

For decades, the TV programme has made a quiet case for depth, civility and political conversation that doesn’t insult your intelligence

In December 1973 the public television current affairs programme, The Open Mind, held a special edition devoted to what its main guest, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr, dubbed the “imperial presidency”.

The televised roundtable discussion was well timed. Escalating oil prices from the Opec crisis were wreaking havoc with the global economy, the Watergate scandal was blazing in Washington, and Richard Nixon was looking increasingly Richard II-like in the Oval Office as he attempted to pull off what Schlesinger called an “escape from accountability”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Endo dreams of sushi: a trip around Japan with one of the world’s greatest chefs

Endo Kazutoshi spent decades climbing to the top of the culinary world, only for a devastating fire to threaten it all. I joined him in the aftermath as he travelled around his homeland, visiting the people that helped make him

Endo Kazutoshi was on the train to Paris when he heard about the fire. A few hours earlier, at 2am, he had left his restaurant – the tiny, Michelin-starred sushi counter, Endo at the Rotunda, in west London – and headed home, where he got changed and packed his bags for the 6am Eurostar, upon which he planned to sleep. As he boarded the train that morning, 6 September 2025, he was unaware that just after 3am, the fire brigade had been called to a blaze at the Helios building, where his restaurant was located on the eighth floor. The fire had started on a terrace and a few hours later had reached the restaurant’s dining room – built mostly from 200-year-old hinoki wood – the prep kitchen, everything.

Shortly after departure from St Pancras, the news began to reach Endo through early-rising friends; they reassured him and would keep him updated, though details were still unclear. The trip to Paris was intended as a moment of respite after a busy summer’s service. Instead, Endo cleared his schedule and booked the first train home. But there was one appointment he couldn’t bring himself to cancel.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 am

Pam Bondi says she will ‘continue fighting’ for Trump after president fires her as attorney general - live

Bondi reacts to her ouster by Trump – who was reportedly frustrated with her handling of the Epstein files; Todd Blanche to serve as acting attorney general

• Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general

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During its brief pro forma session today, the US House took no action on the funding bill to end the historic DHS shutdown, after Senate-passed legislation was sent to the lower chamber earlier today.

The House’s next procedural meeting will be on Monday, meaning the lapse in funding for several subagencies will continue until at least next week. However, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson may even wait until lawmakers return from a two-week recess to ensure the measure, that his party rejected last week, can pass.

Published: April 2, 2026, 8:45 pm

Trump warns Tehran ‘more to follow’ after strike destroys Iran’s largest bridge

Eight people reported killed in attack on newly completed suspension bridge after strike splits structure in half

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump claimed responsibility for destroying Iran’s largest bridge, a day after he threatened to bomb the country “back to the stone ages” if a deal to end the five-week-long war he started was not reached.

The US president shared footage of part of the newly built 136 metre-high $400m B1 suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj collapsing dramatically on to the causeway below amid a rising plume of black smoke.

Published: April 2, 2026, 7:23 pm

Costa Rica strikes deal to accept third country deportees from US

Central American country to receive up to 25 migrants a day expelled as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown

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The Costa Rican government has agreed to receive up to 25 deported migrants a week from the United States, the latest deal in the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to deport scores of people to “third countries”.

With the new agreement, Costa Rica seeks a closer alliance with Donald Trump’s government, which has been securing cooperation from other Central American countries in accepting deportees from other nations who have been detained by US immigration agents.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 pm

Trump’s White House ballroom wins approval of planning authorities

Blessing from NCPC comes just days after judge ruled work on project cannot proceed without congressional approval

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Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project received the approval of Washington’s planning authorities on Thursday, two days after a judge ruled work cannot proceed without Congress’s approval.

The National Capital Planning Commission, which ​is chaired by one of Trump’s former lawyers, gave the green light to the “East Wing Modernization Project” on Thursday, describing the ballroom as just the latest stage over two centuries of continuous changes.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:42 pm

Artemis II astronauts prepare to leave Earth’s orbit and head towards the moon

Nasa mission enters second day, with crew hoping to become first people to orbit moon in more than 50 years

Four astronauts are preparing to leave Earth’s orbit and slingshot towards the moon as Nasa’s Artemis II mission enters its second day.

The high-stakes 10-day voyage is expected to mark the first time in half a century that humans will return to the vicinity of the moon. It is a crucial test of Nasa’s ambition to land humans back on the lunar surface this decade, and stay there permanently.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:15 pm

TikTok pulls Israeli ultranationalist’s account for breach of hate speech rules

Dozens of videos have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram showing harassment of Palestinians and activists

TikTok has removed an account belonging to an ultranationalist, pro-settlement Israeli influencer for breaching hate speech and bullying rules after the Guardian flagged videos showing him harassing activists in the occupied West Bank.

The Guardian has reviewed dozens of videos posted by various social media figures that have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram documenting the harassment of Palestinians as well as physical attacks on Israeli and international activists.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:08 pm

Google to tap into gas plant for AI datacenter in sharp turn from climate goals

Texas power plant would emit 4.5m tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than that of the entire city of San Francisco

Google has struck a partnership for a natural gas power plant that could provide energy for one of its datacenters in Texas, unearthed by new research and confirmed by the company. The move is part of an ongoing about-face for the tech giant, which once pledged to be carbon neutral by 2030 and has long been seen as a pioneer in clean energy.

The gas power plant is slated to be built in Armstrong county, a sparsely populated area in the Texas panhandle. According to a report by the research organization Cleanview, the project is being led by Crusoe Energy, which partnered with Google to develop the datacenter campus known as “Goodnight”, named after a nearby town.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:55 pm

Bodycam footage shows Tiger Woods’s shock after crash: ‘I’m being arrested?’

• Golfer has pled not guilty to DUI charges

• Hydrocodone pills found in pocket after arrest

Bodycam footage of Tiger Woods’s arrest for DUI shows the golfer looking surprised when he was handcuffed by police officers at the scene of a vehicle crash last week.

“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI,” Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar told Woods after officers conducted a series of field sobriety exercises on the 50-year-old.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:03 pm

Louis CK to headline Hollywood Bowl for Netflix festival

Headlining set for Netflix Is a Joke festival marks first outing with major streamer since misconduct allegations in 2017

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Netflix is welcoming Louis CK back into its fold.

The comedian, long subject to questions regarding rehabilitation and so-called “cancel culture”, will headline a show at the Hollywood Bowl next month as part of the streamer’s Netflix Is a Joke festival – his first major outing with a streamer since allegations of sexual misconduct at the height of the #MeToo movement. Later this summer, Netflix will also premiere CK’s new special, Ridiculous, which he directed and executive-produced.

Published: April 2, 2026, 7:43 pm

Coalition of countries discuss ‘every possible measure’ to pressure Iran into reopening strait of Hormuz

Yvette Cooper hosts virtual summit of more than 40 countries to consider coordinated action in face of closure of vital shipping lane

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

More than 40 countries gathered to discuss “every possible diplomatic, economic and coordinated measure” to pressurise Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz, the UK foreign secretary has said.

After chairing a virtual summit on Thursday, Yvette Cooper said coordinated action was needed as Iran’s “reckless strikes” on international shipping and efforts to “hijack the global economy” were hitting nations from across the globe “who played no part in this conflict”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:37 pm

How have Trump’s Iran war aims changed and has he achieved any of them?

President has said US will shortly achieve its objectives – but it is not clear what exactly those objectives are

• Middle East crisis – live updates

In his address to the nation on Wednesday evening Donald Trump said the US would “very shortly” achieve its strategic objectives in Iran – partly because the White House has constantly adjusted its goals since the start of the war on 28 February.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:55 pm

Oil price jumps and markets slide after Trump warning to Iran

Brent crude rises 8% as US president vows to hit Iran ‘extremely hard’ over coming weeks

• Business live – latest updates

Oil prices have soared after Donald Trump vowed in a televised speech to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the coming weeks, knocking hopes of a near-term end to the conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude prices jumped by as much as 8% on Thursday to $109.74 a barrel, reversing Wednesday’s drop when hopes of a de-escalation in the Iran war pushed the international benchmark below the $100-a-barrel mark at one point.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:59 pm

‘Everyone is thinking about oil prices’: is Iran using the war to hide a surge in executions?

Regime has long used the death penalty to suppress dissent but now appears to be withholding information on the killing of hundreds of prisoners, say rights groups

It has been almost three months since Peyvand Naimi, 30, was arrested in connection with the mass street protests that spread across Iran in January before being brutally suppressed. Since then, he has been detained for more than a month in solitary confinement, appeared in a televised forced confession, and has undergone two mock hangings, beatings, interrogation, psychological torture and starvation.

He has been accused of involvement in the deaths of security agents during the protests and of celebrating the death of Iran’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but his family insist he has done nothing wrong and that no formal charges have been made. He has been denied access to a lawyer; his relatives fear he now faces execution.

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:00 am

War without a plan?: What Trump’s latest speech revealed – The Latest

Donald Trump’s primetime address on Wednesday evening provided little clarity on the US’s strategy in its war against Iran. Trump said that, while military action has made Iran ‘no longer a threat’, the US will continue to hit the country ‘extremely hard’ for several weeks and ‘bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.’

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s global affairs correspondent, Andrew Roth.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:15 pm

Why thousands of New Yorkers swap gas for induction stoves in clean energy push: ‘It makes sense’

US states from California to Georgia are promoting induction stoves for climate, health and cost benefits

Marcos Ramos hasn’t been able to cook a full meal at home in nearly four years, after a gas leak resulted in a lengthy supply cut off for his New York City apartment building.

Now, though, Ramos will be able to cook again thanks to a technology that is gradually advancing in the US after being embroiled in an unlikely culture war – the electric induction stove.

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:00 am

US supreme court’s ‘conversion therapy’ ruling opens ‘can of worms’. What’s next?

The court ruled 8-1 against a Colorado law banning ‘conversion therapy’ for youths. What does it mean for other states, and why did two liberals side with conservatives?

The US supreme court ruled 8-1 this week against a Colorado law banning “conversion therapy” for youth, in a case that could have major consequences for transgender and queer youth across the US, and for healthcare more broadly.

Colorado’s 2019 law prohibits licensed clinicians from seeking to change the gender identity or sexual orientation of youth patients under 18. It is one of 23 states with similar restrictions.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:35 pm

Lucky few Americans whose student debt was forgiven: ‘I hit the lottery’

Only a small fraction of about 43 million have had their debt cancelled, the relief for those who have is transformative

Of the roughly 43 million Americans carrying student loan debt – totaling nearly $1.7tn – only a small fraction have seen their balances erased. For those who have, the relief has been transformative, with several telling the Guardian how the forgiveness has reshaped financial futures and opened doors to new careers, stability and long-delayed life plans.

“My loan was forgiven at the end of 2025 through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program,” said Laura Kluss, a 41-year-old clinical social worker based in Sacramento, California. “It was in the six figures at the time of forgiveness. Interest rates were making it extremely difficult to pay it down.

Published: April 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

How a lush Miami park was designed to keep flooding at bay – in pictures

As the climate crisis intensifies the storms lashing south Florida, it is imperative to design spaces that soak up the water. The 19.4-acre Bayshore Park is an example of how to design spaces that protect from and connect residents to nature

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:00 pm

Stephen Colbert on Trump attending birthright citizenship hearing: ‘That’s mob-boss-level intimidation’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump becoming first sitting president to attend supreme court oral arguments, for a bombshell case on birthright citizenship

Late-night hosts tore into Donald Trump’s intimidation tactics at the supreme court hearing on birthright citizenship and another judge’s order to halt construction of his White House ballroom.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:46 pm

Killer rabbits, bunny boilers and the holy hand grenade of Antioch: Easter bunny movies – ranked!

From Watership Down and Fatal Attraction to Bambi and Python’s Holy Grail, rabbits are an unlikely constant in film – and often with sinister intentions. Here are the 20 best leporine movie moments

The mighty Alan Bleasdale wrote this razor-sharp farce set on New Year’s Eve in Liverpool, where rival Catholic and Protestant militants have accidentally booked the same venue. One of the acts going horribly wrong is Elvis Costello as a stage musician who says: “I’m a bit worried about me rabbit.” With reason, as it turns out.

Published: April 2, 2026, 1:26 pm

My husband doesn’t want to give up his mistress. Should I settle for half his heart? | Leading questions

It sounds like you are so concerned about losing him, you are considering losing yourself, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. This bit is the mistake

• Read more Leading questions

I just discovered by chance, and to my complete surprise, after more than 20 years of what I thought was a happy and faithful marriage, that my husband has had a year-long and passionate affair with an accomplished, charming, brilliant career woman whom I also regarded as a friend. I am accomplished too, but not nearly at her level, and I am also a bit older and I have less panache than her. I don’t think I can compete with her, and in any case I feel too proud to try.

Here is the thing: he says he doesn’t want to give her up, though he also says he does not want to marry her (she is in any case married though, it seems, in an open marriage). He also says he loves me and wants to remain married to me. I think if I demand he gives her up, he will end up unable to love me. I also think I will barely, or possibly not at all, be able to bear the pain of him continuing to see her. I am so unsure what to do or indeed what I can bear doing. I so don’t want to lose him. I have been deeply in love with him ever since we first met. Do I give him the world in return for half his heart?

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

To a world at a loss as to how to handle Trump, I say this: the only answer may be to wait him out| Simon Jenkins

A great effort will be needed to undo the damage once the US president has gone. But with the constitution unable to bring him to order now, that is what we must do

The US is extraordinary. One day it goes to the far side of the moon and revives the space age. On the same day, its president is looking to the far side of the Earth and says he will take Iran “back to the stone ages”. It may be a giant leap for mankind, but in what direction?

There can be no point other than prestige in sending humans to the moon, which is why more than 50 years have passed since they last went there. Robots can perform all we need in space. Returning the Iranians to the stone age is a different matter. The last time the US made the same boast was against Vietnam in a typical threat (much misquoted) by Gen Curtis LeMay. Vietnam crushed the US in the ensuing war.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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 2, 2026, 5:51 pm

Ending birthright citizenship would change the meaning of America | Moira Donegan

The supreme court appears poised to reject Trump’s attack on a foundation of US identity. We must hope it follows through

American opponents of birthright citizenship – the right of all those born on the soil of a country to claim full legal rights and political representation in that nation – like to point out that many countries don’t have it. On Wednesday at the supreme court, during the oral arguments in Trump v Barbara, the case challenging Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship in the United States by executive order, the Trump administration’s solicitor general, John Sauer, claimed that “almost every country” denies birthright citizenship. Trump himself made the unusual choice to attend the oral arguments in person, signaling his investment in the issue and perhaps hoping that his presence would intimidate the justices into ruling in his favor. But he left soon after Cecillia Wang, a lawyer for the ACLU who represented his opponents in court, began speaking. Not long after he left the supreme court building, Trump used Truth Social, his proprietary social media platform, to echo the rightwing argument about the supposed rarity of birthright citizenship worldwide. “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship! President DONALD J. TRUMP” he posted.

This is not true. The United States’ birthright citizenship – which was originally established in very plain, explicit terms in the 14th amendment, and has been reaffirmed twice by Congress and by more than a century of supreme court precedent – is typical of the Americas. In the western hemisphere, only a handful of countries deny automatic full citizenship to infants born within their borders. They are contrasted with the rest of North and South America, where the legacy of slavery led most states to adopt birthright citizenship.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:00 am

The US-Israel war on Iran is accelerating de-dollarization and America’s decline | Ahmed Moor

De-dollarization promises to reorder the world, reducing American power globally

The US-Israel war on Iran is expensive. It’s expensive in terms of human lives, first of all. It’s expensive too, in pure currency – about $12bn a week for the US. And it’s expensive in how it’s causing the tectonic structures that underpin our global economy to shift. De-dollarization, the name given to the process countries undertake in unwinding their reliance on the dollar, promises to reorder the world, reducing American power globally. Its impact will be felt domestically in what we pay to borrow and whether we can afford to borrow at all.

Iran’s near-total blockade of the strait of Hormuz has had a dramatic impact on the prices of oil and natural gas, which puts major inflationary pressure on the economy of every country in the world. Practically, inflation makes people and businesses poorer, a process that reinforces itself if it’s not stopped (which is partly why central banks exist).

Ahmed Moor is a writer and fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:00 am

JD Vance thinks space aliens are ‘demons’. Who can blame him? | Dave Schilling

Of course the vice-president is obsessed with extraterrestrials – look how bad things have gotten on Earth

I can’t fault anyone for looking around at the state of things on the planet Earth and pondering the existence of aliens. Who wouldn’t want to hop on the Starship Get-Me-The-Hell-Out-Of-Here right now? It costs me a vital organ to fill up my gas tank, everyone I know is unemployed and the cast of Bravo’s Summer House is crumbling before our eyes. Unfortunately for alien observer JD Vance, he’s partially responsible for two of the three. Pretty sure the vice-president isn’t hooking up with Amanda Batula, so he’s off the hook for that one.

On a recent appearance on The Benny Show, a conservative podcast you’ve never heard of, Vance outlined his “obsession” with UFOs. He might not be fully read into the current state of extraterrestrial discourse, but he does have a theory. Vance said: “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a longer discussion.”

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

I wrote a novel using AI. Writers must accept artificial intelligence – but we are as valuable as ever | Stephen Marche

Mastery of banal style is losing its usefulness – but language is more powerful than ever. It’s up to the writer to do what machines can’t

I recently heard an exchange at a playground that should worry the executives at AI companies more than any analyst’s prediction of a bubble. A boy and a girl, maybe 10 years old, were fighting. “That’s AI! That’s AI!” the girl was shouting. What she meant was that the boy was indulging a new and particular breed of nonsense: language that sounds meaningful but has no connection to reality. The children have figured the new world out quickly, as they do.

Artificial intelligence is here to stay, neither as an apocalypse nor as the solution to all life’s problems, but as a disruptive tool. The recent scandal over Shy Girl, the novel by Mia Ballard, was doubly revealing. Hachette cancelled its publication amid claims it was reliant on AI generation (Ballard has said that an acquaintance who edited the self-published version used AI, not her). But the book was originally self-published. Apparently readers and editors didn’t mind until the use of AI was pointed out to them.

Stephen Marche lives in Toronto and is the author of The Next Civil War and On Writing and Failure

Published: April 2, 2026, 12:00 pm

Washington Wizards apologize after $10k April Fools’ prank draws backlash

• Wizards apologize over half-time April Fools’ prank

• Promotion that appeared to trick fan draws backlash

• Team issues statement saying stunt was pre-planned

The Washington Wizards apologized on Thursday after an April Fools’ Day in-game promotion during their loss to the Philadelphia 76ers prompted criticism on social media.

During Wednesday night’s game at Capital One Arena, a fan was brought on to the court for a blindfolded half-court shot promoted as being worth $10,000. The shot missed, but arena staff and performers reacted as if it had gone in and briefly presented the fan with a ceremonial check as part of what later was revealed to be a scripted skit.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:31 pm

Chelsea’s precarious project further rocked by Cucurella and Fernández comments | Jacob Steinberg

Difficult spell for Liam Rosenior’s side has not been helped by interventions from two of their senior players

Trust the process. Ignore the haters. Promise that the trophies will come. Stay on brand. Disappear on international duty and issue a brazen come-and-get-me plea to Real Madrid. Suggest a move to Barcelona would be difficult to reject. Don’t silence the noise. Increase the noise. Question the club’s transfer policy. Say you miss the previous manager. Say Madrid is your favourite European city. Say it more than once. Hang on. Have we gone off-message here?

These have been a turbulent few weeks for Chelsea. Humbled in Europe by Paris Saint-Germain, and in danger of allowing their Premier League campaign to spiral out of control, they could have done without two of their biggest players creating a PR storm during the international break. Marc Cucurella and Enzo Fernández did not get the memo, though. Fernández is clearly after a summer move – “I really like Madrid, it’s similar to Buenos Aires,” the Argentina midfielder said this week. Meanwhile Cucurella did not hold back during a recent interview with the Athletic, saying Chelsea have “paid the price” for their inexperience, questioning Enzo Maresca’s mid-season departure and saying the heavy defeat by PSG in the last 16 of the Champions League has left players “discouraged”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:00 pm

This year, one word is echoing through women’s March Madness: joy

Whether in the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, coaches and players at this NCAA tournament have found the fun in basketball again

Kara Lawson’s Duke team saw their Final Four dreams dashed with a 70-58 loss to UCLA on Sunday. The Blue Devils had pulled an impressive, buzzer-beating upset of No 2 seed LSU in the Sweet 16 days before, but against the No 1 Bruins in the Elite Eight, they didn’t give a repeat performance. They missed a few key moments in transition that could have changed the game and helped them to their first Final Four in 20 years.

In the end, though, it was OK.

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:00 am

Rams star Puka Nacua in rehab amid claims of antisemitic remark and biting incident

• Player was in rehab before lawsuit was filed, says attorney

• Wide receiver’s lawyer says client innocent of wrongdoing

Los Angeles Rams star Puka Nacua is in rehab and was there before he was sued by a woman who says he made an antisemitic statement and bit her on the shoulder, according to his attorney.

“He was in [rehab] a substantial period of time before any of these allegations broke ... and he’s scheduled to be there for a while longer,” Levi McCathern told The California Post.

McCathern told the newspaper Nacua’s decision to enter rehab was not a direct response to the lawsuit his accuser filed against him by Madison Atiabi last month, but an attempt “to improve his overall behavior in every aspect of his life.”

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:58 am

Italian football in crisis as FA chief resigns and Ceferin issues Euro 2032 warning

• Exit could spell end of Gennaro Gattuso’s tenure

• Ceferin: ‘Infrastructure is among the worst in Europe’

The crisis engulfing Italian football has deepened with the country’s football federation president, Gabriele Gravina, resigning and the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, warning that it risks losing its co-hosting rights for Euro 2032.

Gravina announced his resignation at an emergency meeting of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) general council two days after Italy failed to reach a World Cup finals for the third successive time, losing on penalties to the outsiders Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had come under heavy scrutiny since their exit in Zenica, the country’s minister for sport, Andrea Abodi, intensifying the pressure by calling for “a renewal of the FIGC leadership”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:48 pm

Alpine condemn ‘hateful’ abuse of Colapinto and Ocon over F1 crashes

• Colapinto abused over Bearman’s crash in Japan

• Ex-Alpine driver Ocon clashed with Colapinto in China

Alpine have condemned on Thursday online abuse of Franco Colapinto for an incident in the Japanese Grand Prix as well as death threats directed at the Formula One team’s former racer Esteban Ocon over prior events in China.

They also dismissed suspicions from some fans of “sabotage” and claims their Argentinian driver was not being given the same quality equipment as his teammate Pierre Gasly.

Published: April 2, 2026, 1:06 pm

Pre-World Cup results have you worried? They probably shouldn’t

For examples of how little a team’s form in the World Cup run-in matters in the tournament itself, look no further than the US

The last time the United States men’s national team entered into the final stretch of their preparations for a World Cup on home soil, the results were dire. From January through April of 1994, the Americans, who were mostly sequestered in a full-time training camp, played 12 games and won just twice. They even managed to lose to Iceland, who were a total non-factor in global soccer back then.

Then, that ’94 team went on to survive the group stage and narrowly lose to eventual champions Brazil, 1-0, in the round of 16. They delivered on expectations in spite of their deflating run-in.

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:00 am

Fifa raises top ticket price for World Cup final to $10,990, up from $1,600 in 2022

• New tickets released for some group games and final

• Fans attempting to buy tickets encounter glitches

Fifa has raised the top ticket price for this year’s World Cup final to $10,990 as it released a new batch of tickets for sale on Wednesday.

The news, which came after the 48-team field for the World Cup was set, will do little to quell claims that Fifa is pricing fans out of the tournament. The most expensive ticket for the 2022 World Cup final was about $1,600.

Published: April 2, 2026, 12:30 pm

Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over order to limit mail-in voting

The coalition of organizations says Trump’s executive order restricting who can receive mail ballots is unconstitutional

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A coalition of civil rights groups sued the Trump administration on Thursday, saying that a new executive order to limit mail-in voting is unconstitutional.

The order, which Trump signed on Tuesday, instructs the federal government to come up with a list of eligible citizens who can vote in each state. It also instructs the US Postal Service to only transmit mail-in ballots to people on that list.

Published: April 2, 2026, 1:00 pm

Sex at arm’s length? Male octopuses use specialised arm to mate, scientists find

Sensory organ in male cephalopod able to detect female hormone progesterone, even if male cannot see partner

Sex might seem an intimate act, but scientists have shed fresh light on how octopuses manage it at arm’s length.

Male octopuses use a specialised arm called the hectocotylus to place a package of sperm inside the female’s reproductive system.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:17 pm

OpenAI buys tech talkshow TBPN in push to shape AI narrative

OpenAI’s chief of strategy says acquisition of show will help company engage with public about AI as it evolves

OpenAI is wading into the media business by acquiring TBPN, a technology-focused talkshow closely watched by Silicon Valley insiders, its hosts said on Wednesday.

Co-hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays broadcast TBPN live for three hours every weekday from Los Angeles, lining up guests that include founders, venture capitalists and major figures in the technology world.

Published: April 2, 2026, 8:17 pm

Alleged maple syrup scam in Quebec uncovered by Canadian broadcaster

A Radio-Canada reporter noticed his maple syrup tasted odd; testing revealed it was adulterated with cane sugar

An investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster has found that a major Quebec producer has been diluting its maple syrup with cane sugar and selling the fraudulent product to grocery chains.

In a sting operation that involved false identities and covert recordings, journalists from Radio-Canada’s Enquête programme found that a low-cost syrup sold in major grocery store chains was heavily diluted.

Published: April 2, 2026, 7:07 pm

AOC vows to block future US military aid to Israel, including for defensive systems

Ocasio-Cortez says Israel can fund its own defense and she will oppose any new US aid amid human rights concerns

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a US representative, said on Wednesday that she will oppose any future US military aid to Israel, including for defensive systems.

In a statement on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said that Israel was fully capable of funding “Iron Dome and other defensive systems”, and that “consistent with my voting record to date, I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and US law”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:14 pm

CDC temporarily halts testing for several infectious diseases amid staffing shortages

Federal agency, which normally supports state and local public health labs, has been hobbled by staff departures

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The US federal agency responsible for monitoring diseases has temporarily halted certain diagnostic testing, including those for rabies, human herpesvirus and several other infectious illnesses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a list on Monday showing that more than two dozen types of testing are now unavailable.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:52 pm

‘A wow moment’: ancient Romanian gold helmet returned in plea deal with theft suspects

Prosecutors unveil artefact linked to lost Dacian civilisation after it was stolen from Dutch museum last year

A priceless ancient gold helmet from Romania that was stolen last year from a museum in the Netherlands, has been recovered as part of a plea deal reached with the suspects.

Under the guard of balaclava-wearing police, prosecutors unveiled the 2,500-year-old Coțofenești helmet, which is considered a cultural icon of Romania, during a news conference on Thursday in the eastern Dutch city of Assen.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:46 pm

‘Ready to be exploited’: amid rust, weeds and power cuts, Venezuelans hope for a new oil boom

The infrastructure is crumbling and the government shaky, but memories exist of an industry that once thrived off Venezuela’s vast reserves of crude – and could do again, despite the climate crisis

At Campo Boscán, a vast complex in western Venezuela, the drills, pumps and pipelines that extract crude oil operate amid decay: roads are broken, weeds grow everywhere and many wells run inside metal cages to prevent theft. Albenis Merchán, a drilling technician with 35 years’ experience, recalls better times as he drives his pickup through the desolate landscape.

“We used to receive maintenance and safety training all the time. Supplies and spare parts were never lacking. Many things need to improve here to tap the full potential of this area,” he says.

Published: April 2, 2026, 1:00 pm

Drive slower, work from home and ditch the tie: the world responds to Iran war energy crisis

Oil crisis triggered by blockade of strait of Hormuz prompts emergency measures to protect supply and halt rising prices

Shrinking fuel stocks and soaring prices are leading countries around the world to burn coal, ration fuel, shorten work weeks and tell citizens to stay at home.

Fossil fuel supplies have reduced since the war against Iran led to the closure of the strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for oil and seaborne gas. The shortfall has prompted emergency measures as government’s attempt to halt rising costs that have thrown economies into chaos.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:00 am

Not if, but when: how Spain’s coastal towns are preparing for tsunamis

In the holiday hotspots of the Costa del Sol, the risks are rarely mentioned. But in neighbouring Cádiz, the country’s first tsunami-ready town is leading by example

Even on a wet, wintry day in Málaga, the Mediterranean looks benign. But only 25 miles (40km) south-west of its port, where half a million tourists disembark from cruise ships into the Costa del Sol each year, lies a system of tectonic plates and faults that fracture the seabed between Spain and north Africa.

Earthquakes are routine here. They are mostly too small to notice but sometimes strong enough to rattle glasses in cafes on the seafront. In December, a tremor with a magnitude of 4.9 off the coast of Fuengirola triggered more than 40 calls to Andalucía’s 112 emergency line.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 am

The dark side of the balloon boom – is it time they were banned?

From balloon arches at parties to mass balloon releases at funerals, these bits of floating rubber and plastic can have disastrous effects on wildlife. As some retailers are refusing to sell them, here are some alternatives

I remember, as a child, hanging on to one specific party balloon for what seemed like years. I don’t remember how or where I acquired it, but it had initially floated high, bobbing against the ceiling, and, over time, lost its buoyancy, coming to rest on the carpet. Yet, when a family friend asked if they should pop the now sad-looking balloon, I assumed they were joking – like when an adult asks, teasingly, if they should eat your last slice of birthday cake – and was distraught when they followed through. I didn’t care that it had become grubby and partly deflated – I’d had that balloon for what felt like for ever.

This, it turns out, is the problem with many balloons. Not that clingy young children might become over-attached to them, but that they are often a single-use plastic – and even biodegradable alternatives such as latex balloons do not decompose quickly, meaning they can pose a significant risk to wildlife and the environment. In 2019, scientists found that balloons eaten by seabirds are more likely to kill them than other kinds of plastic – yet they do not seem to have been earmarked in the same way as, for example, plastic straws. If anything, balloon-based decor has become more popular in recent years, with balloon arches or tunnels deployed not just at birthdays but at events ranging from baby showers to shop openings. Balloon drops are used at New Year’s Eve celebrations and graduation parties, and balloon releases have also endured – particularly at funerals, where the unleashing of helium-filled balloons signifies the letting-go of a loved one.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 am

Partial shutdown drags on as US House takes no action on compromise deal

Senate-passed funding plan for DHS languishes despite agreement between Republican congressional leaders

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The US House of Representatives on Thursday took no action on a compromise measure that would end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), raising questions about how much longer the record-long funding lapse will persist.

The department has been without funding since mid-February, after Democrats refused to vote for its appropriations unless Republicans agreed to new guardrails on federal agents involved in immigration enforcement operations.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:43 pm

Appeals court orders resentencing of ex-Colorado clerk jailed for election interference

Tina Peters, an election denier, was found guilty in 2024 of allowing unauthorized access to county’s voting equipment

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A Colorado appeals court on Thursday ordered the resentencing of a former state election official who was found guilty of allowing unauthorized access to her county’s voting equipment, the latest development in a closely watched case that has attracted considerable attention from Donald Trump and other election deniers.

Tina Peters, a former clerk in Mesa county in western Colorado, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2024 after a jury found her guilty on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the secretary of state. Peters was the county clerk in 2020 and later allowed an unauthorized person to access the county’s Dominion voting machines. Sensitive information from the machines later wound up on the internet.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:34 pm

US government sues Illinois, alleging unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets

Booming prediction market sites, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, face scrutiny from states and Congress

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The US government sued Illinois on Thursday to stop what it described as the state’s unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets.

The booming industry of online prediction markets – which allow users to bet on virtually anything from Oscar winners to the weather to ongoing military conflicts – has been facing greater scrutiny as companies continue to fight state-led efforts to regulate the fast-growing industry – which many argue is “basically gambling but with another name”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:42 pm

CBS News streaming employees reach deal on new contract after walkout

Union has reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract after holding a 24-hour walkout in March

Employees of the CBS News streaming channel CBS News 24/7, who held a 24-hour walkout last month amid an impasse in contract negotiations, have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract.

About 60 CBS News employees are part of the union. In the coming days, they will vote to ratify the new agreement. More details about the agreement will be provided after the agreement is ratified, the union said.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:43 pm

Orange skies over Crete as Storm Erminio sweeps Saharan sand across Greek island – in pictures

Storm Erminio has caused widespread destruction in parts of Greece, including the Attica region where a man died in Nea Makri. On the island of Crete, skies turned an eerie orange as winds of up to force 9 on the Beaufort scale carried dust from North Africa, forcing several flights to be rerouted

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:01 pm

Goodbye mrbrightside416: Google allows users to alter quirky Gmail addresses

Those in US given chance to have more professional usernames without losing access to account

Did your McLovin!1976!@gmail.com email address seem funny at the time but less so now you are applying for dozens of jobs?

Google has said it is giving US users a chance to appear more professional by letting them change their Google account username – whatever appears before @gmail.com in an email address – without losing access to their account.

Published: April 2, 2026, 12:41 pm

Artist files war crime case in Paris over Israeli strike that killed parents in Lebanon

Lebanese-French man Ali Cherri demands investigation into Beirut bombing as possible war crime against civilians

A Lebanese-French artist has filed a legal complaint in a Paris court about an Israeli bombing of his family home in Lebanon that killed his parents and a domestic worker, claiming the attack could constitute a war crime.

The suit, filed with the French war crimes unit on Tuesday, is a rare instance of an individual pursuing war crimes charges for an Israeli bombing. It is also the first time a French court has taken a case over Israel’s bombing of Lebanon.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:27 pm

US lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez

US moves towards reestablishing working relations between two countries after abducting President Nicolás Maduro

The US has lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, in the latest step towards normalising relations between the two countries after US forces abducted her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.

The couple were taken to New York after their abduction in January to face charges of alleged drug trafficking, to which both have pleaded not guilty.

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:53 am

‘Slavery bounded his life’: Thomas Jefferson’s views on race – in his own words

A new book by historian Annette Gordon-Reed explores the former US president’s writings on race throughout his life

Thomas Jefferson’s interactions with enslaved people bookend his life. The third US president and a founder of the United States was born into a slave-owning family in a society upon which slavery was the bedrock. A Black woman was probably his earliest nursemaid – evidence shows that his mother did not breastfeed her children, so it is probable that a Black woman was also Jefferson’s wet nurse. His earliest memory, which he relayed to his grandchildren, was of being carried on a pillow via horseback by a man his family enslaved on a 50-mile journey to Tuckahoe, Virginia.

Given his status as an enslaver – Jefferson owned more than 610 people in his lifetime – those he held in bondage may have been the last people Jefferon saw before he died. An enslaved man, John Hemmings, built his casket. The omnipresence of slavery in his life and its clear contradictions with regards to his views on liberty, create a point of which much of the existing literature on Jefferson must attempt to make sense. Scholars have long tried to analyze and parse the juxtaposition of bondage and freedom for the former president. But in a new book by Annette Gordon-Reed, a Pulitzer prize-winning historian and a pre-eminent Jefferson scholar, Jefferson speaks for himself.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 pm

I did not tell my sister that our other sister was dying. Silence was the right choice, yet murky and painful

In family estrangement, the mud and dirt gets everywhere, Kathryn Heyman writes. And it is very hard to undo what has been done

Years ago, when I lived in Scotland, my neighbour had fallen out with her mother. Although they lived mere streets from each other they hadn’t spoken for three years, and my friend had no idea why, nor any inclination to ask. Once, I asked her what she would do when her mother died, what it would be like if she found out afterwards. It seemed a terrible loss to me, the idea that she might not know about the death for weeks or months. It would have seemed impossible to me then that I would enact a similar estrangement decades later.

In 2020, every time I saw my sister’s name pop up on my phone, I’d brace myself, wondering if this was it. V had been living with cancer for 15 years, in and out of remission, each return marked with a new metastasis. This time, she said only that she needed a meeting of The Sisterhood, which was what I’d named our group chat. Four sisters in the family, but only three at the meeting; there was no question of inviting our fourth sister who, anyway, lived in another country.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘We got cancelled and we’re still here!’ Michael Patrick King on The Comeback – and why And Just Like That will age well

Could AI write an entire sitcom series? That’s the plot of the new season of comedy drama The Comeback. Its co-creator explains why it’s ‘very possible’ – and why the world needs to catch up with AJLT

TV veteran Michael Patrick King has had a long, lively career, writing, directing and producing on shows including Murphy Brown, Will & Grace and 2 Broke Girls. He’s best known, though, for his work on the Sex and the City franchise, serving as its showrunner for the bulk of its run, writing and directing its two films, and masterminding its controversial 2020s revival And Just Like That. But this month sees the return of one of his most loved, and perhaps most underwatched, shows: The Comeback.

Co-created and co-written with Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback first aired in 2005, telling the story of a gormless sitcom star named Valerie Cherish, played by Kudrow, trying to return to stardom through the then-new format of reality TV. The show had an awkward, blackly hilarious tone that was a hit with critics and the Emmys, but failed to find much of an audience. Nine years later, in 2014, it returned for a masterly second season in which Valerie – now playing herself in a gritty HBO dramatisation of the events of season one, and filming the whole thing as an audition tape for The Real Housewives – confronts her failing marriage and relationships.

Published: April 1, 2026, 3:29 pm

Why do this spring’s blockbusters feel so smug?

From action thrillers to sci-fi flicks, a deluge of recent releases are riddled with self-satisfied smarm

The new Hulu movie Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice has been marketed as a genre-mashing wild ride, with plenty of South by Southwest festival reactions and even genuine full reviews delighting in its supposed mixture of sci-fi, action, romance and buddy comedy. That’s a hell of a lot of genres. While watching it, I found myself wondering if the number of elements in play is supposed to distract from how its comedy has three deadening and similar modes. One involves characters being unexpectedly familiar with seemingly incongruous elements of pop culture: it opens with a scientist tinkering with his time-travel machine while singing along to Why Should I Worry?, a niche Billy Joel song from the old Disney cartoon Oliver & Company; later, there’s a long conversation about a bunch of criminal types’ deep familiarity with the TV show Gilmore Girls.

If that doesn’t sound funny enough, writer-director BenDavid Grabinski finds the flip side equally hilarious: people not knowing things. Gags include a guy who hasn’t heard of Winnie-the-Pooh, a guy who doesn’t know the proper name of chloroform, and a guy who doesn’t know what the word “comeuppance” means. These are all different guys. The third, even less sophisticated strain of comedy in Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, are characters who fuckin’ swear. Talk about fuckin’ comedy! Sometimes their names even swear: one guy is nicknamed, get this, Dumbass Tony! In every detail of the movie, you can feel the heavy hand of the screenwriter, straining for irreverence, desperate to show that he’s made something that’s not like the other, regular screenplays out there.

Published: April 1, 2026, 9:00 am

Fuze review – Theo James and Aaron Taylor-Johnson face off in head-spinning London heist

Diamonds might not be forever in a film centred around a massive, ticking bomb on a building site, which is equal parts violent and silly

There are some lively if borderline ridiculous shenanigans in this London heist thriller from screenwriter Ben Hopkins and director David Mackenzie, brazening out its innate silliness with chutzpah, heavily researched police and army lingo and athletic plot contortions. It’s a violent affair of double-cross and triple-cross that ups its narrative game in the final act for the massive reveal: a head-spinning story of diamonds, some fake … yet also … some real. And it also deploys the classic thriller moment, popularised by TV’s The Night Manager: the three-second bank transfer of millions of illicit dollars, which you can tensely monitor on your smartphone in real time. Oh my God, will the money go through OK? (You’ll need solid wifi or 5G.)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Major Will Tranter, a bomb disposal officer called in when what looks like a gigantic unexploded second world war device is discovered in a London building site, making a worrying ticking noise. The police are under the direction of the Met’s chief superintendent; this is a dull role with none of the juiciness of the guys’ parts, played deadpan by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She shuts off the electricity in the whole area for fear of the bomb igniting power cables, then evacuates and cordons off the entire zone – not realising a crew of bank robbers is in there, led by Theo James and Sam Worthington, who are now able to work without fear of being discovered by some pesky member of the public as they tunnel through a wall into a safe-deposit vault from a neighbouring basement.

Published: April 1, 2026, 10:00 am

Dear Killer Nannies review – a surprisingly gut-punching Pablo Escobar drama

This isn’t just a retelling of the infamous drug lord’s life. His son shares a traumatic coming-of-age story plagued by chaos and violence – and it is like being in The Sopranos

You’d be forgiven for thinking that we didn’t need another TV series about the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s life, and that it’s been milked for all its worth in popular culture. Escobar’s murderous Medellín cartel was most ruthless in the 1980s and 90s – but this century alone, the Colombian druglord and politician’s biography has inspired numerous books, Hollywood films, the Netflix series Narcos, and even the title of Kanye West’s 2016 album Life of Pablo. The new Spanish language series Dear Killer Nannies, however, manages to find a new and unexpected way into the life of an archetypal villain, which focuses very little on the bloodshed that has made his life so ripe for movies and television. In terms of genre, the show – co-created by Escobar’s son Juan Pablo Escobar – is far more coming-of-age than action.

Instead of following the usual beats that mark Escobar’s rise, fall and eventual death (during a shootout with Colombian special forces), our way into the story is seven-year-old Juan Pablo, also known as “Juampi”. Juampi is sweet, sensitive and soft around the edges in the way most boys are before being exposed to the ravages of patriarchy. We meet Juampi as his head bobs above the surface of a lake, beaming and soaking up the sun, when a speedboat zooms into frame, headed straight for him, causing him to panic. The boat swerves at the last minute, narrowly avoiding him. Enter: Juampi’s “nannies”. These are associates of his father, who double as childcare while he’s out of the country attending to cartel business. What could possibly go wrong in such an arrangement?

Published: April 1, 2026, 7:00 am

‘The US is no longer the go-to place’: How Korean culture is taking Latin America by storm

Everything Korean – from K-pop and skincare to food and clothing – is booming in popularity in Chile, Mexico and Brazil

On the polished flagstones of a Santiago cultural centre’s forecourt, four Chilean girls dance in energetic union, counting their steps aloud in Korean.

In front of them, a YouTube video with 1.3bn views plays atop a speaker throbbing to the beat of How You Like That, by the K-pop megastars Blackpink.

Published: April 2, 2026, 9:00 am

Sunn O))): Sunn O))) review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Sub Pop)
The doomy duo strip back their sound to tectonic guitars and feedback, conjuring an immersive, strangely euphoric listening experience recorded in the wilds of Washington

Nearly seven years on from Sunn O)))’s last two albums, the Steve Albini-produced companion pieces Life Metal and Pyroclasts, the drone metal pioneers’ 10th album presents itself as a return to basics. Eponymously titled and released on Sub Pop – the label that put out drone metal’s ur-text, Earth’s 1993 debut Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version – it strips away Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s penchant for collaboration (Scott Walker, Merzbow) and much of the expanded musical palette that came with it. No church organ, no dulcimer, no vocals, no radical reassembly of their material courtesy of Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton: closer Glory Black features a brief burst of piano, and there are apparently synthesisers somewhere in the mix, but for the most part, the album seems to deal almost exclusively in heavily distorted down-tuned guitars and feedback, the core of Sunn O)))’s sound since they formed in 1998.

But clearly the notion of a back-to-basics album should not be confused with that of an understated one. It’s not really an adjective that fits something that lasts the best part of 90 minutes, comes wrapped in a sleeve featuring two Mark Rothko paintings – by permission of the painter’s estate – and features somewhere between 130 and 180 tracks of guitar per song. (The latter comes thanks to a studio procedure that involved producer Brad Wood miking up not just the duo’s amplifiers but each amplifier’s individual speakers, and setting up what he called “the world’s largest stereo array of room mics” to capture ambient textures.) It also comes complete with sleeve notes from nature writer Robert Macfarlane, which variously quote the Greek stoic Epictetus, Walter Benjamin, 19th-century naturalist John Muir, author Patrick White and indigenous American environmentalist Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:22 pm

‘Ring the alarm! Wake up! Be human!’: Aurora and Tom Rowlands on their new dance-pop duo Tomora

The Norwegian singer-songwriter and the Chemical Brother have combined their talents, and names, to create a wildly inventive new band. The collaboration has gone smoothly so far – but will they soon need separate tour buses?

The two members of Tomora are contemplating their forthcoming debut live shows, a slate that includes an attention-grabbing slot at this month’s Coachella festival. “We’re still kind of working it out, and I’m getting a bit, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’” worries Tom Rowlands, best known as one half of Grammy-winning banger merchants the Chemical Brothers, and now one half of Tomora. Rowlands’ mindset, however, contrasts heavily with that of Aurora, his new musical partner.

“I don’t have any stress in my being,” the Norwegian singer-songwriter and pop experimentalist says cheerily, sitting on the floor of the duo’s north London label office with her shoes off. “I’m always like: it’s fine,” she shrugs. “Yes, the house is on fire, but we’ll work it out.”

Published: April 2, 2026, 7:00 am

Why Bach’s music is indestructible, whether on the mandolin, modern piano – or soundtracking murder

The German composer, born 341 years ago, dominates the classical charts and concert platforms, especially at this time of year. Here’s to his life-giving zombie music!

The musical world’s present for Easter is Bach, Bach and more Bach. These next two days alone, there are performances of his St Matthew Passion in every musical city you care to name, from London to Leipzig, Rome to Rotterdam. In the classical charts, from the “official” one to the, er, other official one, and Apple Music’s, one composer dominates more than any other, from Yunchan Lim’s Goldberg Variations to Raphaël Pichon’s St John Passion. Why?

Two descriptions of his music have particularly struck me this past week. Bach the zombie and Bach the meat-grinder. The phrases belong to the violinist James Ehnes and the Guardian’s Clive Paget, reviewing Pichon’s new recording. Meat-grinding is how Paget describes the St John Passion’s opening chorus; a fantastic expression of the viscera of human feeling that Bach exposes especially in Pichon’s drama-filled recording. Bach’s composition in this chorus is made of obsessive repetitions in the churning figuration of the strings; there are the wailing agonies of the dissonances in the woodwind lines before the voices of the chorus make their first shocking appearance, not so much singing as screaming their demands to Christ to witness his passion in its “glory” and its “humiliation”. The opening chorus, all eight minutes of it, makes a gigantic cross shape in musical time: the surging, relentless rhythms are the horizontal planes, the harmonies that sear through them are implacable verticalities. And that’s just the opening chorus. This is the darkness of the Passion story.

Published: April 1, 2026, 1:20 pm

Made in Fire Island: how artists were at the heart of the LGBTQ+ mecca

A new book shows that the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar – as well as a new generation of artists – would not be the same without the New York island

In the summer of 2015, Leilah Babirye, a sculptor, left her home town in Uganda and arrived for an artist residency in the bohemian, beach-y queer splendor of Fire Island’s Cherry Grove. She tells the story in a new book, Fire Island Art: 100 Years, released this month by Monacelli. After Googling “LGBTQ+ artist residences”, she earned a spot at the Fire Island Artist Residency, established four years earlier to make the famed enclave more accessible. But the lesbian daughter of a conservative minister wasn’t prepared for just how queer the place was. With its roving clusters of people buzzing around the dunes and pool parties to show off the various currencies – physical, financial, interpersonal – they had to spend, she says, “I thought Cherry Grove was America.” Was she wrong?

The story of the modern Fire Island is, in some ways, a particularly American one, in which outcasts light out for the territories to make their dreams come true. In the case of the picturesque barrier island off the coast of Long Island, those dreams were both sexual and creative from the start. Edited by John Dempsey, island resident and president of the Fire Island Pines Historical Society, Fire Island Art: 100 Years traces a legacy begun by the pre-war trio of Paul Cadmus, Jared French and Margaret French, who, as part of the artistic collaboration PaJaMa, made beguiling paintings and photographs of the unconventional intimacies they formed while summering among the island’s nooks and crannies.

Published: April 2, 2026, 9:00 am

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry audiobook review – an extraordinary chronicle of terminal illness

The author’s father-in-law died just nine days after his cancer diagnosis, inspiring this moving and sharply observed account of his last days

Novelist Sarah Perry’s memoir of her late father-in-law, David, chronicles the period from his first signs of illness, when he began to have trouble swallowing, to his diagnosis of oesophageal cancer, to his death at the age of 77 just nine days later.

We first meet David, a retired chemist from Norwich, on a day trip with Perry and her husband in the summer of 2022. The three of them have gone to Great Yarmouth where, seemingly in good health, David gleefully eats four hot doughnuts. She reveals him as an unassuming man who lives in a bungalow, drinks Yorkshire Tea, delights in telling bad jokes, and likes doing sudoku and watching Antiques Roadshow on TV. But right at the start, Perry notes that David’s death was only weeks away. Though his illness was mercifully short, the speed at which it progressed caught his family unawares, leaving precious little time to prepare.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:00 pm

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley review – the laureate of bad relationships

Riley has always skewered cruelty with shattering exactitude. What’s new in this story of two old friends in London is the delicacy she brings to moments of tenderness

In the opening pages of The Palm House, London is enveloped in a dust storm blown up from the Sahara. As old friends Laura and Putnam meet for a drink in a Southwark pub, a packet of crisps open between them, the occluded atmosphere renders the city unsettlingly strange: the sky is “dark yellow … like iodine”, while the pictures in the evening paper show a “blood red sun”, a “jaundiced” City square, a “prodigious cloud, menacing the Shard”.

Like a Saharan dust storm, Gwendoline Riley’s work recasts our relationship with the familiar, transforming ordinary, unremarkable lives of her characters into something startling and new. Her female protagonists, often writers themselves, struggle with bad relationships: in First Love, shortlisted for the 2017 Women’s prize, Neve grapples with an abusive marriage, while Bridget in 2021’s quietly brutal My Phantoms is caught up with her desperately self-involved mother. The mothers in Riley’s novels are mostly monstrous and persistent, the fathers mostly monstrous and dead. Her stories are not structured around linear plots – nothing much happens – but Riley’s disquieting acuity and her spare and unsparing prose makes them shimmer with tension. She has a phenomenal ear for dialogue, for the myriad ways in which people unknowingly lay themselves bare, both in what they say and, more agonisingly, in what they don’t – or can’t. She is the laureate of disconnection, her bone-dry humour edged with the vertiginous lurch of despair.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Under Water by Tara Menon review – love, loss and a longing for the ocean

This debut about female friendship and environmental fragility set after the 2004 tsunami in Thailand is strong on grief, but the storytelling remains uneven

The underlying themes of this debut novel could hardly be more relevant. Marissa is working as a travel writer without leaving her desk, coining gleaming descriptions of untouched beaches for tourists. But as she does so, her mind runs on darker paths. She is living in New York while it braces for Hurricane Sandy, and as the wind rises she remembers being caught up in the horrors of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. She grieves for the beauty of the ocean that she knew then, and the fate of her beloved friend Arielle.

Loss, love, environmental fragility, female friendship: I was ready to plunge into the waves of this novel, to swim with its currents of grief and longing. But while I found myself at times drawn in to the narrative, at others I was distanced by Menon’s style, which is deliberately fragmented but also disappointingly uneven.

Published: April 1, 2026, 8:00 am

Why is gaming becoming so expensive? The answer is found in AI

We are paying more for a PlayStation so that idiots can use ChatGPT to mislead people on dating apps – something is rotten in the state of gaming

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When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was listed at £449 in the UK. If you were to buy one at the recommended retail price today, it would be £569.99, or £789.99 for the updated Pro model. Sony has just raised the price of its console by another £90, the latest in a series of hikes. This is unprecedented: consoles have always decreased in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – the other day, I saw someone asking £200 for a SNES on Vinted). So, what’s going on?

Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining things for everyone. AI data centres need lots and lots and lots of computing power to be able to present you with lies whenever you Google anything, and this has pushed up demand and pricing for RAM and storage. This isn’t the only reason prices are rising – the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic disruption, and rampant inflation has eaten into many companies’ bottom line. But AI is the cause that’s easiest to get angry about, because it doesn’t need to be this way.

Published: April 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

Life Is Strange: Reunion review – a decade-long story comes to an impassioned close

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Deck Nine/Square Enix
Max and Chloe, the two teen protagonists of the 2015 game, reunite as adults – giving players the chance to finally finish their journey

In 2015, Life Is Strange stood out for two reasons: its female protagonists, a depressingly rare feature at the time, and its unique brand of millennial cringe. The thirtysomething Frenchmen who created this series may not have had the best grasp of the 2010s teen lexicon, but they did have a good gauge on what’s important about any coming-of-age story, and that’s the relationships between the characters. Max Caulfield, the shy, time-travelling wannabe photographer, and Chloe Price, the traumatised, punk-rock tearaway, had a memorably intense friendship. It was the heart and soul of that game, and now, 11 years later, they are reunited as adults in this final chapter of their story.

For a lot of players, Max and Chloe felt like more than best friends. The game’s original developers were not brave enough to make this explicit in 2015, but newer custodians Deck Nine retconned a romantic relationship between Max and Chloe into 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. You can still play Reunion as if the two really were just friends, resulting in some awkward ambiguity in some scenes. Whichever way you slice it, though, this is a game about first love, and how it always stays with you, even when its object does not. And damned if it didn’t make me feel something.

Published: April 2, 2026, 10:47 am

HBO to air standalone special on the making of new Harry Potter series

Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic features interviews with cast members and will air on 5 April

HBO has more Harry Potter magic up its sleeve – today, the company announced a standalone, behind-the-scenes special to accompany its upcoming TV adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic will offer “an in-depth look at the making of the first season”, including plenty of production footage and details on the lengthy, UK-wide casting process for Harry, Ron and Hermione, played by Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout and Arabella Stanton.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:16 pm

‘People are exhausted by Blackpink and BTS’: the DIY Chinese bands redefining corporate ‘idol’ pop

Since the regime quashed China’s version of the K-pop industry in 2021, an underground ‘alt-idol’ culture has emerged, championing freedom and experimentation

Over the past decade, “idol” culture has turned east Asia into a pop music powerhouse as global audiences have flocked to Japanese and especially South Korean groups. Formed and exactingly trained by big entertainment conglomerates, bands such as BTS and EXO have blown up internationally thanks to bombastic songs, sensational dance routines and marketing campaigns designed to build a parasocial relationship between performers – idols – and their fans. Their neighbour China, however, the population of which is roughly eight times that of Japan and South Korea combined, has produced few groups with similar fame.

Until 2021, Chinese versions of Korean idol-training shows – think The X Factor with considerably more challenging choreography – were gaining huge audiences. But the shows, and the fan culture they inspired, drew the ire of the Chinese government. It cracked down on “toxic” fandom, an initiative that included banning idol-development shows. “It was an excuse to regulate the internet,” says Emily Liu, who runs the popular idol newsletter Active Faults. The government has also unofficially prohibited Korean pop idols from performing in mainland China for the last decade due to geopolitical tensions.

Published: April 2, 2026, 3:23 pm

Björk, Rihanna and a passionate embrace: visions of love – in pictures

A new book celebrating four decades of fashion photography duo Inez and Vinoodh features celebrity portraits, surrealist visions and a meditation on love itself

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Bob’s Burgers actor Eugene Mirman rescued from fiery car crash by New Hampshire governor’s detail

Actor and comedian known for voicing Gene Belcher, as well as roles in Flight of the Conchords and Archer, has suffered serious injuries

Bob’s Burgers voice actor and comedian Eugene Mirman has suffered serious injuries after crashing his car into a toll plaza in New Hampshire, before he was pulled from the fiery wreckage by a state trooper assigned to protect the state’s governor.

The crash happened just before noon Tuesday when a northbound electric vehicle struck the Bedford toll plaza and caught fire, New Hampshire state police said. Republican governor Kelly Ayotte and her security detail came upon the crash soon after, and a trooper and two others pulled Mirman from the burning car through a window, said New Hampshire state police colonel, Mark Hall.

Published: April 2, 2026, 12:15 am

Her daughter was murdered seven years ago. Why are images of the crime still on social media?

Bianca Devins was 17 when she was killed by a man who then shared photos of her mutilated body on sites like Instagram and Snapchat – something her mother Kim describes as ‘psychological terrorism’. Here, she reveals her battle to get them offline

Early on a Sunday in July 2019, police arrived at Kim Devins’ house in upstate New York with a story that made no sense. They were there to do a “welfare check” on Devins’ 17-year-old daughter, Bianca. They said they had received reports from people who feared she may have been “hurt”. Bianca had gone with her friend Brandon Clark to a concert in New York City, a four-hour drive away. “Did they mean that they’d been in an accident?” says Devins. “The police bodycam footage from that time shows how confused I was.”

Amid it all, Devins called her dad, who lived close by, to ask him to come over. Somehow, while making that call, she realised that something dreadful had occurred. “I always pinpoint it to that exact moment, even though we didn’t understand what was happening,” she says. Her body knew before she did that she had lost her daughter. “All of me shook. I could almost see myself from the outside. It was as if my brain shut down to protect me and I left my body. I don’t think I’ve fully returned since.”

Published: April 2, 2026, 9:00 am

‘Walking is the best way to discover offbeat Corfu’: a spring hike across the Greek island

Explore wild scenery, empty beaches and beautiful villages on the 110-mile Corfu trail, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year

The riverside was heaving. Families spilled from cafes. A marching band trooped on to the bridge, their tasselled metal helmets dazzling in the sun. Priests with bushy beards delivered ageless chants from beneath their cylindrical kalimavkion hats. Men let off shotguns, terrifying the air. Easter Monday in Lefkimmi.

We hadn’t planned this. Simply right place, right time. The capital of southern Corfu, Lefkimmi is a working town, untroubled by tourism. There are Venetian-style houses – variously neat, tatty and decrepit – but no “attractions” to speak of. Just Corfiots doing Corfiot things: chewing the fat in their finest for this religious celebration – Greek Orthodox Easter, which falls on 12 April in 2026 – plus zipping about on scooters, drinking coffee, buying baklava and ice-creams.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Turning a new leaf: these Victorian-inspired 'flirtation cards' are flipping the script on dating apps

Unlucky in love? Maybe ditch the apps. This new twist on Victorian-era ‘flirtation cards’ could spark your next meet-cute

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Tired of swiping, singles are attending flirting parties and even dating-oriented run clubs in hopes of meeting their future partner in real life.

But even those lack the romanticism of a true meet-cute. The Brooklyn-based stationery brand No Particular Order is offering a more serendipitous option: its new acquaintance cards that encourage more spontaneous connections.

Published: April 1, 2026, 8:24 pm

‘Vaginal estrogen as a face filler? I think not’: Experts critique the new skincare trend

Doctors warn viral off-label use lacks evidence, with unknown long-term risks and possible systemic absorption

Vaginal estrogen cream is prescribed to ease genital dryness, irritation and discomfort that results from the loss of estrogen during menopause.

The name tells you exactly where to put it. Yet a new trend has been making the rounds on social media. People are calling vaginal estrogen cream the new “filler” for the face and other body parts, claiming it can smooth wrinkles, reduce dryness and sagginess and plump up the skin.

Published: April 1, 2026, 4:00 pm

A moment that changed me: for the first time in my life, a stranger pronounced my name correctly

I had grown up dreading introductions, with the inevitable mangling of my name. Suddenly, in India, we were both getting the respect we deserved

I had five names on the day of my Hindu naming ceremony, but my given name was Priti, a name that came to shape me.

Like most children with “unconventional” names, I dreaded the first day of each school year. I would squirm in my chair as my new teacher worked their way through the class register, and my stomach would drop as they attempted to say my full name: Priti Ubhayakar. I would be sitting there thinking: “If the first name doesn’t get you, the last name will.”

Published: April 1, 2026, 5:55 am

‘The manosphere is dead and no one cares about Andrew Tate any more’: the poet taking on toxic masculinity

Sam Browne’s blend of brutal honesty and droll observation has made him a viral sensation. He talks about growing up in Southend, mental health and the healing power of poetry

On a cold night in east London, 21-year-old performance poet Sam Browne is telling a packed room of strangers about his second bout of psychosis. “I was in Morocco at 18, completely alone, and I started to feel that things weren’t real,” he says. “It got so bad that one day I turned to a random person and told him I was thinking of killing myself. He just said back to me: ‘Don’t do that – you’ll miss the sunset.’”

The room falls quiet and Browne breaks the tension by launching into a poem inspired by his Moroccan breakdown, You’ll Miss the Sunset. “The world is so beautiful, the least you could do is stick around to watch it,” he says with the hint of a smirk. “But it’s all shit, all of it, isn’t it?”

Published: April 1, 2026, 3:53 pm

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: spring has sprung, so put away your coat and banish the black tights

Nevermind the trends, want to know how to dress for actual spring weather? Then read on

It all came to a head, as matters of getting dressed so often do, over black tights. I had wanted to wear my silver skirt, you see. It was a rare blue-sky day and the sunshine was making me crave reflective surfaces to maximise the light. Anyway, you know how it is when you just get a yen to wear something. So I pulled out said silver skirt and then realised I didn’t want to wear the black opaque tights I wear with it in winter, but it wasn’t anywhere near warm enough to wear it with bare legs as I do in summer. I was completely stumped. And it made me realise: I need a refresher course in what to wear at this time of year. Spring has sprung, but I have forgotten how to hop to it.

So here we have it: your pocket primer on how to dress for spring. I’m talking about the spring that happens every year, an actual real-world meteorological phenomenon, not about the fashion trends of this particular moment. The lengthening days, daylight commuting, the juicy greens and yellows of the landscape, the maverick unpredictability of rain. Whether zebra stripes are the new leopard does not concern us today. We don’t need fashion to provide the newness when newness is in abundance in the world. So we can flick back through the pages to remind ourselves of spring’s fashion classics.

Published: April 1, 2026, 1:00 pm

I handed over my dating life to AI. I don’t think she’ll see me again

In week five of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic decided to let AI take the lead on a date. If uncanny valley was a conversational style, it’s this

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I’m single. Is it because I am emotionally avoidant, waiting on a unicorn, or under 6ft tall? Perhaps a spicy meatball of all three?

Or could it be that I haven’t used the magic of AI yet?

Published: April 2, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Kids would rather be down the park’: readers reflect on child-free pubs

With public houses increasingly restricting or banning children, we asked for your thoughts on adult-only pubs

A growing number of pubs in the UK are restricting or banning children, citing safety concerns, changing atmospheres and lost trade. We asked people their thoughts on adult-only pubs.

Many who contacted us supported child-free pubs, believing adult-only spaces were important, but a good proportion said they would change their mind if children were “properly supervised by parents”.

Published: April 2, 2026, 6:00 am

Highland cows – how these unlikely social media stars were forced into hiding

After being pushed to ‘distress’ by people trying to film and take selfies with the cattle in Kent, the fold has had to be taken away from public view

Name: Highland cows.

Age: More than 1,000 years old.

Published: April 1, 2026, 4:05 pm

Thursday news quiz: daring dogs, delinquent capybaras and far too many bananas

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

It is time for the Thursday news quiz, where, thanks to our illustration from Anaïs Mims, you must decide whether you are gliding serenely across the waters of knowledge, your elegant neck forming a perfect question mark, or paddling furiously beneath the surface, one wrong answer away from an undignified flap. Fifteen questions on topical headlines, pop culture and general knowledge await. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 241

Published: April 2, 2026, 5:00 am

Rationale for Iran war questioned after Trump says ‘I don’t care’ about regime’s uranium stockpiles

US president’s apparent decision to leave highly enriched uranium in hands of regime creates a more risky scenario than before the war began, experts say

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Donald Trump has said he does not care about Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU), arguing it was deep underground and could be monitored by satellite, raising questions about one of the key US justifications for the war.

Experts said that if the US-Israeli offensive against Iran concluded with the Tehran government still in control of its 440kg HEU stockpile, it would be significantly closer to the capability of making nuclear warheads than if the US had pursued a potential negotiated settlement that was on the table at the time the US and Israel launched the war on 28 February.

Published: April 2, 2026, 2:47 am

‘Weak and pathetic’: why is the EU not using its leverage to stop Israel?

Deep divisions on Israel mean the union has failed to act over Lebanon, Gaza, or settler violence in the West Bank

The human costs of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon were plain to see when the Irish MEP Barry Andrews visited Beirut last month. He met people who had fled Israeli airstrikes and complied with evacuation orders in southern Lebanon.

At makeshift shelters – converted schools – conditions were even worse than during Israel’s last incursion in 2024, he was told. “There are dirty mattresses, dirty blankets, [people] are getting infections, they are getting rashes,” he said recalling a picture of misery compounded by swingeing aid budget cuts.

Published: April 2, 2026, 4:00 am

Can Trump pull the US out of Nato – and why is he considering it?

The US president hinted at leaving the military alliance as he wages war on Iran with little support from allies

After years of attacking its efficacy and assailing its members as spendthrift freeloaders, Donald Trump now appears on the very threshold of doing the once unthinkable: withdrawing the US from Nato.

Such a move would signal a political earthquake for the western security architecture established in the aftermath of the second world war and which endured cold war confrontation with the Soviet Union before expanding after the demise of eastern European communism in 1989.

Published: April 1, 2026, 6:54 pm

Pet owners: have you used an animal fitness tracker?

We want to hear from owners of dogs, cats or other pets who have tried these trackers

With a growing number of pet fitness trackers on the market, owners can monitor the stats of their companions as never before. But these devices can be costly, and their necessity is debated.

We want to hear from owners of dogs, cats or other pets who have tried these trackers to hear if such health monitors have proved useful, neutral or problematic.

Published: April 1, 2026, 3:49 pm

Tokyo cherry blossom and Holy Week processions: pictures of the day – Thursday

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

Published: April 2, 2026, 1:44 pm