‘The cover-up is brazen’: one journalist’s tenacious, traumatic fight to expose Ghislaine Maxwell

Lucia Osborne-Crowley has endured threats and sexual harassment to report on Jeffrey Epstein’s chief enabler. Maxwell’s conviction was only the start of the quest for justice, she says

On 9 September 2022, Lucia Osborne-Crowley flew from London to Miami and caught a Greyhound bus north to West Palm Beach. The writer and journalist had arranged to meet Carolyn Andriano, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell from the age of 14 until she was 17, starting in 2001. Andriano had been a crucial witness in the trial against Maxwell in 2021.

When the two women met, Andriano said she had just been visited by a private investigator – a man in his 60s, who had heard she was talking to someone about a book. In a restaurant that afternoon, Osborne-Crowley was approached by a man in his 60s. What was she writing, he wanted to know. He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.

Published: March 9, 2026, 5:00 am

‘We all want to know what he was doing in the bedroom’: Kerouac’s unseen archive goes on show in New York

As the original On the Road scroll heads to auction, a new exhibition uncovers the private life of the Beat legend

Among great literary myths, the one of Jack Kerouac is often reduced to a vibe The open road, a cigarette, a postwar rebel leaning on a beat-up car – a masculine archetype of rebellion and hedonism. Kerouac’s 1957 book On the Road was the bible of the beat generation and chronicles, in startlingly unfiltered prose, his travels across the US with fellow writers Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, and his lifelong muse, the dashing Neal Cassady. The book shifted the course of US literature and captured the imagination of a rapidly changing world. Kerouac was crowned king of the beats, a moniker he later despised.

This, at least, is what many students of US literature know. But a new exhibition Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac at New York’s Grolier Club aims to rehumanize the myth, with letters from Kerouac that have never been publicly viewed before.

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:11 pm

The war on Iran is already upending the Middle East. Look to the Gulf states to see how | Nesrine Malik

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are finding their carefully projected image of stability has been blown away

There is a tendency to think of the Gulf powers as static and unchanging. They are, after all, fortified by massive wealth and absolute monarchical rule, and secured with deep economic and military relationships with the US. The past week of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, and Iran’s retaliations, have brought into focus what these countries export (oil and gas) and what they import (tax avoiders and labour). But beyond thinking about energy-supply challenges to the global economy and engaging in the cheap and popular sport of smirking at influencers in war zones, we must remember that the current conflagration will have profound consequences for the entire region. This is not just about the US, Israel and Iran; it is about a complex, overlapping political order in the Middle East that is much more fragile than it looks.

Amid all the ways the region has been changing over the past few years, the low-key evolution of three Gulf countries in particular has been the most significant. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been rapidly making changes, the effects of which have been felt from Libya to Palestine. The 7 October attacks, which arguably set off the chain of events that led to this moment, were partly inspired by Hamas’s desire to stop the normalisation process that Saudi Arabia was undertaking with Israel; this was following the UAE and others signing the 2020 Abraham accords with Israel. The three countries have been pursuing in different ways, often at odds with each other, ambitious global and regional agendas. And they are also much more unsteady than their decades-long familial rule suggests.

Published: March 9, 2026, 6:00 am

‘He had to shoulder tragedy alone’: How Larry Bird’s rise almost ended before it began

A new book traces how the Hall of Famer overcame humble beginnings in Indiana to take his place among basketball’s greatest players

How otherworldly was Larry Bird during his memorable season for Indiana State in 1978-79? At one point he made an assist while sprawled on the floor: from his end of the court, he made a one-armed throw to a teammate, who streaked coast-to-coast for a quick bucket.

That season ended with an epic showdown in the NCAA championship game against Magic Johnson and Michigan State. Magic got the better of Bird in that game, but the contest had wider repercussions. Not only did it spark interest in the NCAA Tournament, but Bird and Magic would help revitalize the NBA, after Bird joined the Boston Celtics and Magic the Los Angeles Lakers. But none of this was preordained, especially Bird’s trajectory.

Published: March 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Meal-breakers: can any relationship survive food incompatibility?

It’s not the heart, but the stomach that will sometimes define whether a budding romance proves food for the soul, or reaches boiling point …

For Anna Jones, it’s lemons. For Ben Benton, it’s rice. For Gurdeep Loyal, it’s anchovies on pizza and, for me, it’s Yorkshire Tea in the morning. I could – did – date someone who “didn’t drink hot drinks”, but I would never have married a man I couldn’t make tea for when I woke up, or who couldn’t make me tea in turn.

These are what I’ve come to call “meal-breakers” – mouthfuls whose joys we feel our loved one must share, if we’re to share our lives with them. They are foods and drinks we cleave to as much for what they say about us and our values as we do for their smell, texture and taste. For most, it’s not so much the meal as the principle it conveys; not the anchovies on pizza so much as being with “someone who appreciates food as an act of collective joy – that embraces an ethos of all plates being communal,” says Loyal, author of the cookbook Flavour Heroes. The meticulous divvying-up of brown, salty silvers to ensure an even distribution on each pizza slice: that’s the sharing ethos he looks for in a potential soulmate.

Published: March 9, 2026, 10:00 am

A new start after 60: I’d had several careers but no degree – then I became a palaeontologist at 62

In search of a new adventure, Craig Munns went back to school. Now, at 65, he spends his days examining long-vanished life forms

Craig Munns has a large model of a T rex on his desk. He got it with a magazine subscription two decades ago. One day, a few years ago, he was sitting in his study, which was dense with books and yellow sticky notes and posters charting evolution from single cells upward, and he thought, “What am I going to do next in my life?” And his eyes lit upon the T rex.

Munns had recently taken on a job at the public library in Canberra, but it had always rankled with him that he had not studied for a degree, starting instead as an electronics trainee after he left school in Sydney, Australia. So he decided to enrol as a part-time student. He graduated at 62, with honours in palaeontology from the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.

Published: March 9, 2026, 6:45 am

Middle East crisis live: Iranian missiles intercepted over Turkey and Qatar as Israel resumes strikes across Tehran and Beirut

Turkey, Qatar and UAE intercept missiles from Iran; Israeli military announces strikes against infrastructure across Iran and a Hezbollah-linked group

• Full report: Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba chosen as Iran’s new supreme leader

• Tell us: how have you been affected by the latest events in the Middle East?

Donald Trump has said a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one he’ll make together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel has reported.

It said Trump also claimed in a brief telephone interview on Sunday that Iran would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. The US president said:

Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it … We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.

I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.

Published: March 9, 2026, 5:15 pm

Pete Hegseth says ‘there will be more casualties’ in US war with Iran

Comments from defense secretary come as number of US service members killed in conflict has climbed to seven

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Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, has said “there will be more casualties” in the US military from the Trump administration’s war in Iran after officials confirmed on Sunday that the number of US service members killed had climbed to seven.

Hegseth made the statement during an appearance Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes, during which he portrayed Donald Trump’s decision for the US to join Israeli attacks on the Middle East country as essential “to advance American interests, and protect American lives”.

Published: March 9, 2026, 1:33 pm

Five Iranian women footballers granted asylum by Australia, Donald Trump says

US president says Australian PM Anthony Albanese has given police proitection to the players amid fears they could be punished on their return home

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Five members of the Iranian women’s football team have been granted asylum in Australia after reportedly escaping their government minders following a tournament, according to US president Donald Trump who announced the news on social media on Monday.

The US president said he had spoken to Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese who had told him that five members of the team had been “taken care of” amid fears they could be punished if they returned home.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:44 pm

Trump threatens not to sign any bills until Congress approves strict voter ID act

Save Act would limit voting access in the US and centers on Trump’s unfounded claims of noncitizens stealing elections

Donald Trump threatened not to sign any bills until Congress approves the Save America Act, a curtailment of voting access.

The president, fixated on unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are stealing US elections ahead of midterm elections that are expected to be bruising for Republicans, said on Truth Social Sunday that the Save America Act “must be done immediately” and “supersedes everything else”.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:53 pm

AI firm Anthropic sues US defense department over blacklisting

Lawsuits come after Pentagon labeled Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’, a decision the company says is unlawful

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Anthropic filed two lawsuits against the Department of Defense on Monday, alleging that the government’s decision to label the artificial intelligence firm a “supply chain risk” was unlawful and violated its first amendment rights. The two sides have been locked in a monthslong heated feud over the company’s attempt to implement safeguards against the military’s potential use of its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

The lawsuits, which Anthropic filed in the northern district court of California and the US court of appeals for the Washington DC Circuit, come after the Pentagon formally issued the supply chain risk designation last Thursday, the first time the blacklisting tool has been used against a US company. The AI firm previously vowed to challenge the designation and its demand that any company that does business with the government cut all ties with Anthropic, a serious threat to its business model.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:26 pm

Throwing of explosive devices outside Mamdani residence was ‘act of Isis-inspired terrorism’, officials say

Incident took place during anti-Islam protest by rightwing agitators outside Gracie Mansion, where the New York City mayor lives

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The throwing of two improvised explosive devices – allegedly by counter-protesters during an anti-Islam demonstration – outside the residence of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday was an act of “terrorism” inspired by the Islamic State terror group, officials said on Monday.

Jessica Tisch, the New York police department (NYPD) commissioner, told reporters at a press conference in Manhattan that two men from Pennsylvania were arrested at the scene – and that a federal criminal complaint against them would be filed later on Monday.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:18 pm

Texas lawmakers criticize ICE for detaining two teen mariachi musicians

Two brothers, ages 14 and 18, were part of a high school mariachi group honored by Congress last year

Texas lawmakers from both parties have criticized immigration authorities for detaining two teenage mariachi musicians who were honored by Congress last year.

The case has drawn national attention because the brothers, Antonio Yesayahu Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, and Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar, 14, travelled to Washington DC last summer after their high school’s mariachi ensemble, Mariachi Ono, won a state mariachi competition. Their congresswoman, Monica De La Cruz, invited them to the House floor, where she celebrated their accomplishment.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:19 pm

Live Nation reaches surprise settlement with justice department in antitrust case

Live Nation will pay $200m to states in lawsuit, and Ticketmaster will open parts of platform to rival companies

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Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has reached a surprise settlement with the Department of Justice in its antitrust case just one week after the trial began.

The settlement was announced during a court hearing Monday morning. Under the agreement, Live Nation will pay roughly $200m in damages to states that participated in the lawsuit, and Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, reported Politico.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:01 pm

Travelers face long waits at some US airports amid DHS shutdown

Wait times at security checkpoints in Houston and New Orleans as long as three hours due to shortage of TSA agents

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Travelers complained of long waits Sunday – lasting hours in some cases – at security checkpoints at airports in Houston and New Orleans, which officials blamed on a government shutdown of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The estimated wait time at the standard security checkpoint at the William P Hobby airport in Houston early Sunday evening was at one point three hours, according to the Houston Airports website. The Hobby airport on social media Friday said it expected more travelers than normal due to spring break.

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:30 pm

Georgia teacher killed by student driving away from prank gone wrong

Five teenagers arrested after Jason Hughes run over outside his home after prank involving toilet paper

A beloved Georgia teacher was accidentally run over and killed outside his home recently by a student driving away from a prank involving toilet paper, according to authorities.

The death of math instructor and athletics coach Jason Hughes, 40, has led to the arrests of five teenagers – including one accused of vehicular homicide – while plunging the community of Gainesville into mourning.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:03 pm

Rosanna Arquette says Quentin Tarantino’s use of N-word in Pulp Fiction is ‘racist and creepy’

Arquette says 1994 film is ‘great on may levels’ but she ‘cannot stand that [the director] has been given a hall pass’

Pulp Fiction and Desperately Seeking Susan star Rosanna Arquette has said she found Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in Pulp Fiction to be “racist and creepy”.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Arquette said of the film, in which she plays the tattooed and pierced wife to Eric Stoltz’s syringe-wielding drug dealer: “It’s iconic, a great film on a lot of levels. But personally I am over the use of the N-word – I hate it. I cannot stand that [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass.”

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:44 pm

Et tutu, Timothée? Backlash mounts over Chalamet snipes at opera and ballet

Jamie Lee Curtis is among a number of prominent figures to take exception to the Oscar nominee for disparaging artforms ‘no one cares about any more’

The Oscar-winning actor Jamie Lee Curtis has added her disapproval to the chorus protesting against Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet’s comments about the relevance of opera and ballet.

The star of Marty Supreme has attracted considerable backlash for his remarks during a CNN/Variety video conversation with Matthew McConaughey, which was recorded on 24 February.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:58 pm

She was arrested for holding a protest sign in small-town California: ‘This is a testing ground’

Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was put under house arrest, and her husband, Benjamin, lost his job after they protested at board of supervisors meetings

Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was ready to go to jail.

She had been prepared to spend six months in the custody of the Shasta county sheriff’s office. One of the top prosecutors in this part of far northern California had presented the evidence against her in a weeklong trial, and a jury had delivered a guilty verdict. A judge offered probation, but O’Connell-Nowain did not agree to the terms.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

Will Trump make a deal with Iran's new supreme leader? - The Latest

Mojtaba Khamenei has been chosen to replace his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, while the country continues to be heavily bombarded by US and Israeli forces. There are concerns the move could lead to a further escalation of war in the Middle East, after Donald Trump warned that Khamenei was an ‘unacceptable’ choice. Lucy Hough speaks to diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:52 pm

A Mississippi mother couldn’t find accurate sex ed for her kids. So she started a class at church

As states scale back requirements for comprehensive sex ed, some parents and faith communities are stepping in to teach what schools won’t

When Wendy Pfrenger’s children started high school in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, she had the choice to enroll them in abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex ed.

Although the abstinence-plus option would include instruction on contraception, neither curriculum was required to provide medically accurate information. As a parent, she felt like the lessons her teens were receiving fell short of their reality.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:00 pm

Investigators are finally looking into Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch. They may be too late

Federal authorities apparently never searched the property, but now state authorities will reopen a 2019 investigation

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When Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking teenagers, New York federal prosecutors said the ultra-wealthy predator “exploited and abused dozens of underage girls” in Manhattan and Palm Beach “among other locations”.

One of those other locations was the late financier’s sprawling New Mexico property. Epstein’s so-called Zorro Ranch came into sharper relief after his 10 August 2019 death in jail awaiting trial, with criminal and civil proceedings revealing that numerous alleged abuses unfolded there. But Zorro Ranch did not receive the same scrutiny as Epstein’s other properties: an 8 February Guardian investigation revealed that federal authorities apparently never searched the property.

Published: March 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘The light will always outshine the dark’: trauma surgeon Shehan Hettiaratchy on his harrowing, heartening calling

After operating on victims of the Westminster attack in 2017 and visiting Ukraine and Gaza, Hettiaratchy has seen more horror than most can imagine – but he still believes in humanity, optimism and selflessness

On 22 March 2017, trauma surgeon Shehan Hettiaratchy was running end-of-term exams for his medical students when his phone buzzed. There had been a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament. Three men had driven into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, then started stabbing people on the street. Within minutes, Hettiaratchy was in a car with a colleague and heading to St Mary’s hospital near Paddington, west London, where he is the lead surgeon. Victims injured in the attack were due to arrive.

Though Hettiaratchy and his team were used to treating patients with life-threatening injuries – on paper, he says, what they were facing was no different from “a busy Saturday night” – this felt different. There was “a collective fear that we’re under attack – there are people on the streets of London trying to kill our fellow Londoners”.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:46 pm

The pet I’ll never forget: Luke, the blind dog whose unconditional love made me live again

He is an Australian shepherd dog who navigates the world with fearless joy. When I had two heart attacks, his unwavering devotion helped save me

Luke, a blind Australian shepherd, came to us seven years ago, after we rescued him from a working horse farm. Even though he can’t see, Luke moves around with a fearlessness that is inspiring.

He compensates with his other senses; Luke can smell and hear at an astonishing level, that’s how he notices things. But he also seems to understand that he’s going to run into things and be confused at times. That does not deter him in the slightest.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:00 am

John Oliver on the demise of USAID: ‘What this administration has done is beyond cruel’

Last Week Tonight host examined the devastating impact of the demise of USAID, the primary federal agency for foreign aid

On the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver examined the Trump administration’s gutting of USAID, the international aid agency once described as “the world’s single largest humanitarian donor”. Donald Trump, naturally, called it “a scam” where there was “very little being put to good use”.

“Set aside the irony of Donald Trump, of Trump University, accusing anything of being a fraud,” said Oliver. “You can’t just call something a scam because you don’t like it. I want to call low-rise jeans a scam. I feel like Peppa Pig is a fraud. I believe that radical lunatics run Jamba Juice. But even I acknowledge that my feelings don’t make any of those thoughts true.”

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:51 pm

To my Palestinian sister in ICE detention – I will carry you until you are free | Mahmoud Khalil

One year ago, ICE arrested me for protesting for Palestine. Leqaa Kordia is still caged – for also daring to speak the truth

Sunday marked one year since Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate, was arrested last year for his political advocacy. Below, he writes to Leqaa Kordia, a fellow Palestinian currently in ICE detention in Texas. Khalil was released after more than three months but the Trump administration continues to seek his deportation; Kordia has been detained for nearly a year. Read more about her case here.

Dear Leqaa,

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:52 pm

Why do we need International Women’s Day? Apart from misogyny and Christian nationalism, you mean? | Zoe Williams

I should probably be fuming about the way that companies try to cash in on IWD. But there are so many vile opinions to worry about instead

Sunday was International Women’s Day, which you’ll know because every company you’ve ever shopped with will have emailed you, taking this fine opportunity to suggest things women might like to buy. Plants, clothes, spices … all are particularly female-friendly at this time of year, or maybe I’m revealing nothing but my algorithms. Is any of it emancipating? Would you have to balance the freedom of the woman wearing the midi-dress against the servitude of the woman who had to sew it? I don’t really want to set myself up as the arbiter of the spirit of IWD, being unable to remember a time before it meant mass-marketing mail-out.

On Women’s Day Eve, though – yes, that is a thing – I was attending evensong at a university college, maybe for the first time ever, and it was definitely the first time I’d heard an IWD sermon. The Rev Marcus Green had set himself the challenge of feministly reading a book, the Bible, in which almost none of the women have a name. There are a bunch called Mary, but so few other names that “Mary” was basically Bible-speak for “Karen”. There’s one who is the mother of the sons of Zebedee, but even though she has actual lines and he has none, he still gets this cracking name, while you have to piece her identity together by triangulating other accounts, like an investigator at a crime scene.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:38 pm

In the other US target of regime change, Cuba, I saw real hardship – and resilience | Sara Kozameh

Trump is choking off oil imports to the communist nation, plunging it into a crisis not seen since the fall of USSR

On 29 January this year, after the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro but before the assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, President Trump turned his attention to another country. He issued an executive order declaring a national emergency against the government of Cuba, ruling it an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States and threatening to impose tariffs to stop ships from carrying petroleum to Cuba. It was an evident bid for regime change.

The actions to deny oil to Cuba have severely exacerbated a growing crisis on the island, with even some US congressional representatives denouncing the measures. Cuba produces about one-third of its own oil needs and imports the rest – mostly from Venezuela and Mexico. After the US attack on Venezuela and the tariff threat, both countries completely halted oil exports to Cuba. Since early February, the length of daily power outages has doubled, lasting about 18 hours a day.

Sara Kozameh is assistant professor in history at University of California San Diego

Published: March 9, 2026, 10:37 am

Congress must prevent AI surveillance. The Anthropic feud proves it | Ashley Gorski and Patrick Toomey

The company’s clash with the Pentagon is a fight over the future of American privacy

The US military wants to use its state-of-the-art AI tools to supercharge surveillance against Americans, making it easier than ever to monitor our movements, our search history, and our private associations. That’s one of the major takeaways from a dramatic dispute between the Department of Defense and some of the leading AI companies in America. What this clash highlights most of all, however, is just how easily AI surveillance systems can be turned against the people in this country, and the urgent need for Congress to intervene.

Last week, the Pentagon and Donald Trump announced that the government would cease using Anthropic’s AI products, asserting that the safety guardrails proposed by the company – no mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons – were unacceptable. The Trump administration went even further, claiming that these positions render Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, and prohibited anyone doing business with the US military from conducting commercial activity with Anthropic in their military work.

Published: March 9, 2026, 10:00 am

I spent a day trying the 90-second rule – and it didn’t make me less angry | Emma Beddington

Our physiological response to emotions apparently lasts just a minute and a half. But there’s an embarrassing episode from 2009 that still makes me sweat

I’ve just discovered the “90-second rule”, a concept neuroanatomist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor explored in her book, Whole Brain Living, back in 2021. That’s how long our physiological response to emotions such as anger lasts, from the time we formulate a thought to the point at which our blood is “completely clean” of the noradrenaline released in response to it, Bolte Taylor explained to a US news channel.

I read about it in US magazine Bustle, which suggested a 90-second timeout could “reset your vibe”, reframing it, bleakly, as an alternative to a lunch break: “It often feels like a big ask to take an hour lunch … everyone can use just 90 seconds for a quick reset.” Presumably it’s back in the ether because Bolte Taylor appeared on Steven Bartlett’s podcast last November, explaining that if you’re still experiencing emotional reactions after 90 seconds, “you’re rethinking the thoughts.”

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Russia flag raised and national anthem played after first gold at Winter Paralympics

• Varvara Voronchikhina wins women’s super-G standing

• Russian anthem has not been heard at Games since 2014

The Russian national anthem has been played at the Paralympics for the first time since 2014 as the skier Varvara Voronchikhina claimed gold in the women’s super-G standing.

A tearful Voronchikhina received her medal on Monday afternoon, and the Russian flag was raised, after a dominant performance on the slopes of the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre. A watching crowd of international fans responded only with polite applause, but Voronchikhina’s success has already been celebrated by Russia’s sports minister.

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:38 pm

Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics 2026: day three – in pictures

We take a look at the best images from day three of the Games, including skiing, ice hockey and curling

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:58 pm

Tears and drama amid snowboard cross chaos at Winter Paralympics

Emanuel Perathoner and Cécile Hernandez keep their calm to win gold on an incident-packed day at San Zan

From their vantage point to the south of the San Zan course, the first sight spectators see of the snowboard cross are figures punching through the horizon. Coming off the back of a left‑hand turn, racers come into view as they make the first of a series of jumps in what is also, perversely, a part of the course where you can pick up speed. The moment is over in a split second, as athletes disappear once again behind safety fences. The impact on the gathered crowds is undeniable though: they can’t help but let out a roar.

Snowboard cross is a sport with high technical demands, as athletes negotiate a series of challenges from – to adopt the lexicon – jumps and berms to rollers and drops, all along a winding course. But all this skill is subordinated to the generation of speed. Every movement is calculated to limit resistance and drag. Add the challenges to balance and navigation that come from racing with a physical disability and it is perhaps not surprising to find that the snowboard cross finals at the Winter Paralympics on Sunday were carnage.

Published: March 8, 2026, 5:34 pm

Dolphins to take $99m hit on Tagovailoa as Chiefs close in on Super Bowl MVP Walker

• QB agreed $212.4m extension with team in 2024

• Falcons reportedly interested in taking on QB

• Kansas City set to beef up running game

• Travis Kelce set to return for 14th season with Chiefs

The Miami Dolphins are moving on from Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback they drafted with the fifth overall pick in 2020 in hopes of turning the franchise’s fortunes around.

The move will cost the Dolphins an NFL record $99m in dead money against the salary cap. ESPN reported that the move will be designated after 1 June, meaning the Dolphins will spread the hit to their salary cap across two years ($67.4m in 2026, $31.8m in 2027). ESPN also reported that the Atlanta Falcons are interested in signing Tagovailoa. Atlanta are set to release Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr is recovering from injury.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:46 pm

Verdict on the start of F1’s new era: five talking points from the Australian GP

Mercedes’ flying start lives up to promise, but new regulations receive scathing reviews

The pre-season favourites had done their level best to play down their expected advantage in the buildup to the Australian Grand Prix, but it was impossible to hide. A dominant one-two by the best part of a second for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in qualifying was followed by a similarly assured one-two finish in the race.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:25 pm

Why do so many people want Arsenal to fail in the Premier League title race? | Jonathan Wilson

The leaders haven’t won the title in more than 20 years. Yet very few neutrals are excited about seeing them as new champions

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

What was striking after Arsenal’s grim 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday was less Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler’s attack on the Gunners’ style than the way his criticism seemed to resonate. In England, it feels as though almost nobody, other than Arsenal supporters or anyone-but-City fans, wants them to win the title.

“If I would ask everyone in the room: ‘Did you really enjoy this football game?’ I’m sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan but, besides that, no chance,” Hürzeler said.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:50 pm

MLS weekend wrap: Orlando City lost a game, a goalie, and A Griezmann?

Cristian Espinoza is fitting right in at Nashville, RSL’s kids are alright, and more from the MLS weekend

• Pablo Iglesias Maurer: 72,000 fans watched DC United, but only Messi’s Inter Miami dazzled

Before we begin our tour through the weekend that was in MLS, a trivia question to ponder: which team was the last Supporters’ Shield winner to start the subsequent season with three straight losses? Read to the end for the answer.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:00 am

Mass brawl leads to 23 red cards for Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro players in Brazil

• Atlético keeper’s reaction to collision sparks melee

• Brawl starts by goal and continues well into other half

A mass brawl led to red cards for 23 players from Cruzeiro and their fierce local rivals Atlético Mineiro after clashes at the Campeonato Mineiro final in Brazil.

The confrontation on Sunday in Belo Horizonte was sparked deep in stoppage time of Cruzeiro’s 1-0 win when Atlético’s goalkeeper Everson rugby-tackled Christian to the ground after the midfielder collided with him when contesting a ball the keeper had spilled.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:23 am

Liverpool and Manchester United complain to X over ‘sickening’ Grok AI posts

AI feature generated offensive posts about Diogo Jota and the Hillsborough and Munich disasters

Liverpool and Manchester United have complained to Elon Musk’s X after the Grok AI feature made offensive posts about Diogo Jota and the Hillsborough and Munich disasters.

The posts were generated when users asked the AI tool to make hateful posts about the two football teams.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:08 am

Raducanu loses in 52 minutes to No 6 seed Anisimova in Indian Wells third round

• American wins 6-1, 6-1; Briton may have been injured

• Aryna Sabalenka sets up Naomi Osaka meeting

Emma Raducanu suffered a heavy defeat in just 52 minutes to Amanda Anisimova in the third round at Indian Wells. The British No 1 was well below par in a 6-1, 6-1 loss to the American world No 6.

Raducanu, seeded 25, may have been struggling with a fitness problem as she repeatedly refused to chase down drop shots. The 23-year-old’s first serve misfired badly and she hit just two winners to her opponent’s 21.

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:55 am

Top US banks weigh suing federal regulator over crypto banking rules

Exclusive: Bank Policy Institute, representing lenders such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, argues that new licenses could harm US consumers and financial system

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Some of the largest US banks are considering suing their financial regulator, arguing that a new raft of licenses for crypto, payment and fintech could put American consumers and the wider financial system at risk.

The Bank Policy Institute (BPI), which represents 40 of the biggest US lenders including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, is understood to be weighing its legal options after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) failed to heed repeated warnings from influential banking groups and state regulators over its reinterpretation of federal licensing rules.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:00 am

California motel closes after two women found dead in same room days apart

Eureka police took two calls for unconscious individuals, and officials reported ‘elevated’ carbon monoxide in room

A California motel has been closed after authorities found two women dead in the same room just days apart.

The Eureka police department in northern California said in a news release last Thursday that on 21 February, officers and Humboldt Bay fire personnel were dispatched to a motel on the 4000 block of Broadway Street in Eureka – identified by the Eureka Times-Standard as the Lamplighter Inn – after receiving a report of “two unconscious patients due to a possible drug overdose”.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:50 pm

At least eight people dead after spate of tornadoes across central US

Eighteen tornadoes between Thursday and Saturday resulted in deaths in towns from Michigan to Oklahoma

Communities throughout the central United States were cleaning up and trying to recover after an onslaught deadly tornadoes struck the region over the weekend.

At least eight people had been confirmed dead as of Monday, with dozens more injured.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:53 pm

Syrian who fled to UK charged with crimes against humanity over violent crackdown

Former intelligence officer charged with murder and torture in first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales

A former Syrian intelligence officer who fled to the UK has been charged with murder and torture as crimes against humanity, in the first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales.

The 58-year-old man, who has not been named for legal reasons, is alleged to have played a leading role in the violent crackdown on protesters in Syria at the start of uprising against the regime of former leader Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:21 pm

Taking multivitamin daily could help to slow biological ageing, study suggests

Researchers working to unpick whether daily multivitamin results in people staying healthier as they age

Taking a multivitamin every day for two years appears to slow some markers of biological ageing – albeit to a small degree, research suggests.

While chronological age is based on how long a person has lived, biological age reflects the state of the body. Estimates of the latter are often based on changes in patterns of DNA methylation – modifications to DNA that accumulate with age and affect how genes function.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:00 pm

How Nasa contractors are pressing on to bring humans to the moon with Artemis

As the US space agency misses its launch window for the second month, smaller firms continue work on their parts

It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost last Friday when chief executive Justin Cyrus learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa.

Cyrus’s company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a myriad of projects crucial to the Artemis program that seeks to return humans to the moon, so anything Isaacman had to say about it was naturally of interest to him.

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:00 pm

Pixar chief says LGBTQ+ plot elements cut from Elio as company is ‘not making therapy’

Pete Docter says Pixar will concentrate on more commercially appealing films after staff dissent over deleted scenes that implied lead character was gay

Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter said that the reason why LGBTQ+ plot elements were removed from the company’s 2025 film Elio was that Pixar is “not [making] therapy”.

Docter was speaking to the Wall Street Journal in the wake of the successful release of Pixar’s latest film Hoppers, which opened at No 1 at the North American box office this weekend.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:41 am

Countries can rewild borders to deter invasions, says EU environment chief

Jessika Roswall cites Poland and Finland, which have made border areas near Russia or its allies ‘more hostile’ to cross

Countries should look to rewild their land borders as a deterrence to invasion and build up other geographical defences to attack, Europe’s environment chief has said.

Jessika Roswall, the EU’s commissioner for the environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, said nature should be used to improve national security. “Investing in nature and using nature as a natural border control is necessary, and actually increases biodiversity. It’s a win-win,” she said.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:17 am

How the ‘Galápagos of west Africa’ is plundered by floating fish factories

A Guardian investigation with DeSmog reveals thousands of tonnes of fish are illegally turned into fishmeal and oil off the coast of Guinea-Bissau

The only ice factory on Bubaque, an island in west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, is out of service. Local fishers, such as Pedro Luis Pereira, are forced to source ice from factories on the mainland, about 70km away – a six-hour round trip by boat.

“The machines have been broken for months,” Pereira says, as he pulls in his nets on the shore of the island inside the protected Bijagós archipelago. “We’ve alerted the ministry of fisheries, but so far, no one has come to fix them.”

Foreign industrial vessels anchored near the port of Bissau. Photograph: Davide Mancini

Published: March 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Sex and the sea snail: how a plucky marine lab brought a mollusk back from the brink

Once abundant in California, the white abalone had all but vanished. Now, thanks to an innovative breeding program, it’s staged a remarkable comeback

On a sunny January afternoon in Bodega Bay, some 70 miles north of San Francisco, the White Abalone Culture Lab is humming with activity.

It’s spawning day. Alyssa Frederick, the lab’s program director, invites me into an industrial room full of troughs and tubs of bubbling seawater. The abalone program is tucked away in the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, a research facility devoted to studying ocean and coastal health. The goal is to bring the endangered sea snails, known for their iridescent shells and delicate meat, back from the brink.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

How Trump’s EPA rollbacks give US states new tools in climate suits

Vermont and New York face high stakes to protect climate superfund laws as it faces attacks from Trump’s DoJ

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By rolling back a bedrock climate legal determination, the Trump administration has undercut its attacks on a groundbreaking state climate accountability law, green groups have argued in court.

Trump’s justice department has asked a judge to kill a first-of-its-kind 2024 Vermont “climate superfund” policy requiring major polluters to pay for damages caused by their past planet-heating pollution, partly on the grounds that that federal law, not state law, governs greenhouse gas emissions. But last month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the endangerment finding, the scientific determination giving federal officials the authority to control those very pollutants.

Published: March 8, 2026, 1:00 pm

Woman arrested for attempted murder after shots fired at Rihanna’s house

Los Angeles police have charged Ivana Ortiz, 35, as alleged shooter that fired a semi-automatic rifle at singer’s home

A 35-year-old woman fired numerous shots into the Beverly ​Hills home of Rihanna on Sunday afternoon, with one round going through a wall ​of the house.

On Monday, the Los Angeles police department identified the alleged shooter as Florida-born Ivana Lisette Ortiz, who has been booked for attempted murder with bail set at $10,225,000.

Published: March 9, 2026, 9:18 am

US military kills six in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific

Sunday’s attack brought death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting alleged ‘narco-terrorists’

The US military said it killed six men on Sunday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged traffickers.

Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the administration began targeting “narco-terrorists” in small vessels in September.

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:09 am

Lev Parnas, ex-member of Trump’s ‘cult’, runs for Congress as Florida Democrat

Parnas, who worked with Rudy Giuliani to find or manufacture dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, says he ‘woke up’

Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American businessman who served a 20-month sentence for campaign contributions to Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, that secretly came from a Russian oligarch, has announced a bid to unseat María Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American Republican who is in her third term as representative for Florida’s 27th congressional district.

Parnas rose to national attention during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2019, when it emerged that he had been the first to ask Trump to remove the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and then worked with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani to press Ukrainian officials to make false claims about corruption by Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Published: March 8, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘What would make a young man do something like that?’: a community in Utah reels after three killings

On Thursday, a 22-year-old from Iowa was arrested in the murders of three women he had no connection to

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At a trailhead not far from the sprawling red cliffs and canyons of Utah’s Capitol Reef national park, two men went looking for their wives who were overdue to return from a hike on Wednesday afternoon.

They came upon a grisly scene. Natalie Graves, 34, and her aunt, 65-year-old Linda Dewey, had been killed and left in a parched creek bed, according to court documents. A Bureau of Land Management ranger responding to the area noted spent shell casings near their bodies. The white Subaru they had come in was missing.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Von der Leyen calls for EU foreign policy to be ‘more realistic and interest-driven’

European Commission head says rules-based system can no longer be relied upon to protect the continent’s interests

Europe can “no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and needs “a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”, the head of the European Commission has said.

Speaking to an audience of EU ambassadors on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen said the union “will always defend and uphold the rules-based system” but could no longer rely on it to defend European interests and shelter the continent from threats.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:59 pm

Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’

Exclusive: Rented datacentres and ‘supercomputer’ site that’s still a scaffolding yard raise questions for Starmer’s push to ‘mainline AI into veins of economy’

• From press release … to scrap metal site: the Essex supercomputer that’s still a scaffolding yard

A multibillion-pound drive to “mainline AI into the veins” of the British economy is riddled with “phantom investments” and shaky accounting, a Guardian investigation has found.

Since 2024, successive Conservative and Labour governments have proclaimed massive deals to build new datacentres, create thousands of jobs and construct a supercomputer.

Published: March 9, 2026, 2:40 pm

OpenAI delays ‘adult mode’ for ChatGPT to focus on work of higher priority

Startup still believes in ‘principle of treating adults like adults, but getting experience right will take more time’

OpenAI is delaying the launch of “adult mode” for ChatGPT after admitting it had more pressing priorities than introducing erotica on its signature artificial intelligence product.

The startup’s chief executive, Sam Altman, had announced last year that OpenAI would allow adult content as it rolled out age checking.

Published: March 9, 2026, 1:29 pm

Istanbul’s mayor in court for mass trial decried as politically motivated

Critics say sprawling corruption case against Ekrem İmamoğlu aims to stop him challenging Erdoğan

A mass trial of 400 people including the jailed mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, has opened in Turkey in a sprawling corruption case critics say is a politically motivated attempt to thwart his chances of challenging Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the presidency.

İmamoğlu entered the courtroom in Istanbul to cheers and whistles from members of his opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), and there were reports that a group of lawyers chanted: “We want a fair trial.”

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:17 pm

‘Cathartic violence’: why Kill Bill: Volume 1 is my feelgood movie

The next in our ongoing series of writers picking their favourite comfort films is an argument that Tarantino’s bloody revenge saga is a feelgood winner

Having older siblings had its upsides. The main one being I had early access to the very best age-inappropriate titles – my brother and sister loved films and our towering DVD collection was a sight to behold. While I can’t remember my exact age when I first watched Kill Bill: Volume 1, I was young, probably too young, and it was awesome.

Unlike most other films I’m fond of that tend to be endlessly quotable, there’s only one line from Kill Bill, emanating from a particularly repugnant character, that I’ve always recalled with clarity (“my name is Buck and I’m here to …” hazard a guess). What is unforgettable is its banging soundtrack and striking imagery – that bright yellow tracksuit splashed in ketchup-red blood – and the dizzying, stylised action that whisks me away from whatever mundane obstacle I’m facing and into a fantastical tale of revenge.

Published: March 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Why Train Dreams should win the best picture Oscar

With its meditative pace and sincere interest in moral questions, Clint Bentley’s film of a rudderless man cutting down trees in Idaho’s verdant vistas has the air of a Hollywood classic from another era

Train Dreams is arguably the lowest-profile of all the Oscar best film nominees, and could have easily passed me by, destined instead to be lost in the sprawling Netflix library, if it weren’t for a phone call with a friend last year. She had just watched one of last year’s big films – which carried famous names, plenty of hype, and promised to generate lots of debate – and emerged feeling despondent about it as well as the state of cinema. It was a film that, like so many she had recently encountered, contained only empty provocations that amounted to nothing. “I don’t want to sound like a cliche,” she said, “but I believe this was all better in the 1970s!” Train Dreams was one of the few films of the year she had enjoyed.

So I came into Train Dreams, Clint Bentley’s adaptation of the Denis Johnson novella, with that idea in mind: that it was a thing out of step with our time and possibly better for it, too. Immediately, its use of a kindly voiced omniscient narrator recalled Hollywood classics of the late 20th century. Our voice of God drops us into Bonners Ferry, Idaho, in the early 1900s, to the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a man who drifts through his first two decades without much purpose before he falls in love with the free-spirited Gladys (Felicity Jones).

Published: March 9, 2026, 8:00 am

Effi o Blaenau review – Greek myth retelling Iphigenia in Splott becomes blistering Welsh-language film

Leisa Gwenllian is a force of nature as working-class heroine Effi in this big screen version of Gary Owen’s one-woman play

The visceral one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott by Welsh dramatist Gary Owen has overwhelmed audiences and critics since it premiered in 2015, reimagining the sacrificial heroine Iphigenia from Greek tragedy as a young working-class woman in Cardiff who likes a drink and a laugh, defiant in the face of pity, condescension and curtain-twitching. Now it has been recreated as a blistering Welsh-language movie by director Marc Evans, who has co-written the screenplay with Owen, with a live-wire performance from Leisa Gwenllian as Effi, a child of austerity and the Covid lockdown, reclaiming her rights to immediate pleasure and happiness in the face of long-term deprivation.

At times it plays a little broad with the occasional touch of Holby City; and on a factual point, if Effi’s solicitor wanted to dissuade her from abandoning her lucrative negligence case against a hospital, he would emphasise that her payout would come from the hospital’s insurance (though, yes, the resulting increased premiums would punish future patients). Still, Effi o Blaenau is part of a British social realist tradition that extends from Ken Loach’s Poor Cow to Clio Barnard’s The Arbor, and it turns on that kitchen-sink staple no longer often found in modern drama and movies: the unplanned pregnancy. It also has what social realism often doesn’t have: an absorbing, propulsive story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. And it’s a film that doesn’t flinch from the burden of tragedy.

Published: March 9, 2026, 4:02 pm

Bad Voodoo review – escaped-convict horror worthy of a theme park ghost train

A fairly original and twisting plot is skewered by cliched dialogue and unforunate cinematography

We meet horror heroine Abigail (Cristina Moody) some years after the loss of both her daughters in a car crash. One fateful night, a police officer visits Abigail to tell her that she might want to lock her doors extra carefully: he has a report of some escaped convicts in the area, and indeed there are no prizes for guessing that the crims will shortly show up at Abigail’s place. What happens thereafter has at least the virtue of being a fairly original plot, with twists and turns as surprising as they are implausible.

It would be too much of a spoiler to say exactly how the “voodoo” of the title is employed, but suffice to say it blends elements drawn from actual Haitian Vodou alongside the voodoo-doll convention popularised by western pop culture. The performances, though, are the film’s real weakness: much of the acting is the kind you might encounter in an escape room or ghost train experience at a theme park. The dialogue is no great shakes either, a mixture of soap opera melodrama (“You don’t always have to take his side!”) and crime procedural cliche (“You gave up on this job a long time ago, didn’t you?”). The shot choices don’t help: one sequence of a woman fleeing for her life as she runs downstairs is filmed in a way that recalls Mrs Doubtfire sprinting to turn the oven off.

Published: March 9, 2026, 1:00 pm

The making of Fargo at 30: ‘Man, you don’t give me this role, I’m gonna shoot your dog’

As the Oscar-winning Coen brothers classic reaches its three decade anniversary, stars of the film discuss the stories behind its production

William H Macy was originally slated for the modest role of a detective in Fargo. Then the film’s directors, Joel and Ethan Coen, asked if he would like to read for the lead part of Jerry Lundegaard. “I said: ‘Boy, do I!’,” recalls Macy. He memorised the script that night and impressed the Coens but needed to seal the deal.

Macy heard the pair were in New York, got his “jolly ass” on a plane and deployed some Coen-esque dark humour. “I said, I’m worried you’re gonna screw up your movie by casting someone else. I knew Ethan had just gotten a little puppy and I said: ‘Man, you don’t give me this role, I’m gonna shoot your dog.’”

Published: March 8, 2026, 9:03 am

A loving homage to pop culture’s also-rans: best podcasts of the week

Maisie Adam and Scott Bryan talk comically and sensitively to people who found sudden tabloid and early internet fame in the 00s. Plus, Norse myths and history with Iain Glen from Game of Thrones

It’s all too easy to sneer at pop culture’s also-rans. This series from comic Maisie Adam and journalist Scott Bryan does the opposite, embracing people who found sudden fame – mostly in the 90s and 00s – and telling their stories with humour and care. Guests include Liberty X’s Kelli Young, who thinks she and her bandmates were seen as “too R&B” to win ITV’s Popstars – and is surprisingly grateful to the funk band who sued them. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

Published: March 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Love Magic Power Danger Bliss by Paul Morley review – Yoko Ono before the Beatles

A vivid celebration of the artist covers her childhood and breakthrough in New York – while sidelining ‘that other business’

John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as “the world’s most famous unknown artist. Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.” Others were more vicious, portraying her as a family wrecker (the family being the Beatles), a cultural vandal, an Asian virus, a shrieking harridan. As ventriloquised by Paul Morley in his appallingly titled Love Magic Power Danger Bliss, they saw her as someone whose “sole reason to be on the planet was to drive them up the wall with her lack of talent and decency”. Or, only slightly more generously, a “disorganised diva channelling the assumed genius of male creators”.

Morley’s book focuses on Ono’s life and art before she ran into Lennon at London’s Indica Gallery in 1966. The Beatles he refers to as “that other business”. His Ono is headstrong, questing. Born in 1933, into a wealthy banking family (her schoolmates included the sons of Emperor Hirohito), she survived the firebombing of Tokyo and took refuge in the country where she and her mother, now virtual beggars, were mocked by locals. Later, she would become the first woman to be accepted into the prestigious Gakushuin University philosophy department. She left early, just as she would also leave Sarah Lawrence College in upstate New York after two terms.

Published: March 9, 2026, 9:00 am

Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester review – a battle between millennials and boomers

There are sharply observed pleasures to be found in this black comedy of infidelity, revenge and intergenerational tension – but the plot is both implausible and predictable

John Lanchester has distinguished between his nonfiction and his novels as the line between “things happening in the world” and “the things that won’t leave you alone”. Over the last decade and a half that gap appears to have narrowed. His 2012 bestseller, Capital, used the global economic crisis (explained with characteristic verve and lucidity in the nonfiction Whoops!) to lend a sharply moral edge to a sprawling Dickensian story about the London property bubble, told through the class cross-section of a newly affluent south London street. His 2019 follow-up, The Wall, was a dystopian near-future tale in which rising sea levels have exacted a catastrophic toll: a heavily guarded sea wall encircles a Britain determined to fortify its vanishing coastline and keep out the refugees desperately seeking asylum. In 2019, global sea levels reached a record high.

Lanchester’s satirical chops are on full display in his latest, Look What You Made Me Do, but this time his focus is more personal than political. Set in a recognisably professional – for which read excruciatingly smug – north London peopled by architects and agents, Lanchester’s sixth novel is billed by its publishers as a black comedy.

Published: March 9, 2026, 7:00 am

‘A stage for whitewashing war crimes’: Venice Biennale urged to exclude Russia

Ukraine criticises organisers’ decision to allow Russia to take part in prestigious art exhibition as ‘incomprehensible’

Ukraine has urged organisers of the Venice Biennale to reconsider Russia’s participation in the prestigious art exhibition, arguing that it must not become “a stage for whitewashing… war crimes.”

Biennale organisers said last week that Russia would be allowed to take part in the event, held from 9 May until 22 November, triggering widespread criticism, including from Italy’s culture ministry, which said it opposed the decision.

Published: March 9, 2026, 1:31 pm

‘The smell wasn’t healthy’: the artist who wore 24 nappies to highlight sewage pollution – and fell ill

zack mennell made a costume out of nappies and waded into filthy waterways saying: ‘I’m going to be the parasite.’ The performance artist’s project became more literal than originally intended

On the Deptford foreshore, a ghoulish figure is sinking into the Thames. Performance artist zack mennell (who writes their name in lower case) wades to their belly button as a crowd watches on. As they dip down further, their mutant costume – sewn together from 24 adult nappies – swells with water … and waste.

mennell’s work smears the personal and political across their body. The Thames performance is the finale of a project called (para)site, made in response to revelations of sewage discharge in our waterways and a reaction to the way benefit claimants are labelled as a drain on society. “OK,” mennell thought, “I’m going to be the parasite.” Their taking on of pollution was more literal than they intended; they contracted Weil’s disease from rat urine in the water.

Published: March 9, 2026, 5:00 am

Country Joe McDonald, Woodstock star and anti-war singer, dies aged 84

Musician behind Vietnam war protest hit I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag dead from Parkinson’s complications, his wife confirms

“Country Joe” McDonald, a hippy rock star of the 1960s whose protest track I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag rebuked the Vietnam war and became a highlight of the Woodstock music festival, died on Sunday. He was 84.

McDonald died in Berkeley, California. His death from complications of Parkinson’s disease was reported by Kathy McDonald, his wife of 43 years, in a statement issued by his publicist.

Published: March 8, 2026, 11:49 pm

Hair apparent: inside the transplant capital of the world – photo essay

It is estimated that every year more than one million bald people fly to Istanbul. They go for two reasons – hair transplant quality and competitive costs

“I used to look at my father and understand that I was destined to go bald,” says James McElroy. He smiles when he thinks back to his trip to Istanbul a year ago. “I had a few doubts at the beginning, but today I’m happy and satisfied. Yes, I had a hair transplant, I don’t hide it and I’m not ashamed of it. It was a somewhat intense experience, but I’d do it again – especially now that I’m single. I’m happy to talk about it and I’m happy to receive compliments. That wasn’t the goal, but I appreciate them.”

A patient is reading the terms and conditions of his contract before the transplant begins at Sule Hair Clinic.

Published: March 9, 2026, 7:00 am

‘Peas are criminally overlooked!’ Seven fabulous forgotten superfoods

Yes, we all know blueberries and kale are good for us. But what about some of the other less well-marketed food heroes that have fallen out of favour?

Think of a superfood. What comes to mind? Avocado? Turmeric? Quinoa? Many of us will have a grasp of the most mainstream so-called superfoods. The ones that have become dietary superheroes thanks to savvy marketing. Larger-than-life in the public imagination, they walk among us with a sheen: blueberries with their polyphenols; kale and its vitamin K; goji berries and all their antioxidants.

But what is and isn’t a superfood is actually down to trends – take the current resurgence of a previously shunned, tragically uncool food: cottage cheese. Beloved by Richard Nixon with pineapple (the Watergate tapes weren’t just illuminating in the ways Woodward and Bernstein hoped for) and a diet-culture favourite in the 60s and 70s, the creamy, tangy cheese curd concoction is back. And there are other supposed superfoods that are just as nutrient-rich, but that marketing hasn’t (yet) brought to our attention. Once a regular part of the UK diet, they have fallen, perhaps unfairly, out of favour. So which foods with serious nutritional chops have we forgotten? Which should we reintegrate?

Published: March 9, 2026, 10:00 am

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s style, decoded: a stylist shares the secrets of the 90s minimalist wardrobe

Build with 80% staples, splurge on timeless pieces and more tips on fashioning a minimalist wardrobe à la Bessette

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“Everyone is trying to copy her outfits after seeing Love Story,” Liz Teich, a stylist, said. She’s referring to the internet’s ongoing frenzy around Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s minimalist 90s style, made popular by the new TV series about her romance with John F Kennedy Jr.

Since its release, Instagram and TikTok have been flooded with recreations of Bessette’s outfits – think white button-up shirts, tan pencil skirts and small-framed black sunglasses. (Many set to the tune of Frank Ocean’s American Wedding, the unofficial soundtrack for Bessette Kennedy content.)

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:15 pm

I cooked with 10 induction cookware sets for a month – these are the standouts

From Caraway to Our Place and Staub, here are our top-rated picks for the best induction-ready cookware

• Seven best non-toxic cooking pans, tested in a food lab

• Five reasons you need a fish spatula, even if you hate fish

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Induction cooking might feel like a shiny new kitchen flex, but the technology itself has been around since the early 20th century. What is new is how widely it’s catching on. For more and more home cooks, induction cooktops sit at the top of their kitchen upgrade wish lists.

“To be able to control temperature precisely, to be able to boil water rapidly, it’s awesome,” says Joseph DeCasperis of southern California–based home design firm the High End. He estimates that induction stovetops take up a little over a third of his firm’s installations.

Best overall:
Caraway 12-Piece Ceramic Cookware Set With Complimentary Storage

Best budget:
Calphalon Classic Stainless Steel Cookware Set

Published: March 9, 2026, 3:31 pm

The kindness of strangers: On the plane I was overwhelmed with grief, then a passenger let me rest my head on his shoulder

I was leaving behind my friends and family and contending with the loss of my beloved dad. When I boarded, I really fell apart

• Read more in the Kindness of strangers series

A long-haul flight in economy is never an appealing prospect but this one felt especially tough. I was leaving California after the death of my father to return to Australia, where I live. I was exhausted, emotional and prone to bursting into tears. It was always hard leaving my birthplace, friends and family behind, and this time I was also contending with the loss of my beloved dad.

I was desperately hoping I might have a spare seat next to me on the plane so I could get some sleep, or at least a little privacy. There would be no such luck. When I checked in, the desk staff told me the flight was completely full; worse still, I was in the very last row. Mine was the aisle seat, right beside the toilet and the galley – the busiest, most public place on the plane, when what I really needed was peace.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

This is how we do it: ‘His cancer diagnosis hit the reset button – we’ve built up quite the collection of toys’

Will’s recovery from prostate surgery led to a new level of intimacy with Lucy and brought them closer together

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I worried that intimacy would no longer be possible in the same way and questioned what that would mean for my sense of identity and our marriage

Published: March 8, 2026, 11:00 am

I expect friends to let me down and then I play the victim. How can I stop? | Annalisa Barbieri

Pessimism can be a form of self-protection, so it might be helpful to reflect on where this pattern started

I am a 38-year-old woman with three kids and a husband. I often find myself expecting people to disappoint me, and make appointments anticipating that they will back out at the last minute. I then start to play the role of the victim, the friend who has been let down, and this whole narrative begins in my head.

I may invite a friend to something, but then come up with all the reasons why the thing is stupid and they wouldn’t want to come. I downplay it, saying: “Oh, it’s nothing fun”, and “Don’t worry if you can’t come”, even though I know I would have a great time.

Published: March 8, 2026, 6:00 am

How Trump turmoil is driving more people to the therapist’s office: ‘This is all upside down’

As ‘political depression’ enters public discourse, therapists are encouraging people to engage with their communities

When Rebecca McFaul woke up in her small farmhouse in Logan, Utah, on a cold January day, she felt the same way she’d been feeling for months: “A certain kind of terror and horror at it all.” Most of her family lives in Minnesota, and for weeks, she’d watched from afar as families were taken by agents, activists were shot and tear gas hung in the air.

A music professor at Utah State University, she’d spent the day with her students, but struggled to focus. Then she came home and read more bad news, this time, a piece in the newspaper about two Maga influencers railing against the dangers of compassion in response to the detainment of 5-year-old Liam Ramos in Minneapolis. “It was such a betrayal on every level,” McFaul said. “Of sisterhood, of motherhood, of decency.”

Published: March 8, 2026, 10:00 am

Is it true that … if you pluck a grey hair, two will grow in its place?

If plucking made more hairs grow, it would be the solution to thinning, but sadly it can have the opposite effect

‘I wish that by plucking a single hair you would get more to grow back,” says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. “It would be a great solution for people who are thinning and unhappy about it.”

Unfortunately, it’s a myth. Our scalp is covered in follicles – essentially tiny hair factories – and each one produces just a single hair shaft. Plucking a hair won’t cause multiple hairs to grow from the same follicle.

Published: March 9, 2026, 8:00 am

McQueen meets difficult moment with fatalistic glamour at Paris show

Seán McGirr inspired by modern identity and ‘London girls’ in one of strongest collections to date, as brand cuts jobs and struggles for momentum

Beneath the Paris fashion week hoopla – Chappell Roan resplendent in the front row, champagne flowing backstage – there were dark undercurrents at Alexander McQueen’s Paris fashion week show. The brand has seen a 60% decline in turnover over the past three years. Workforce cuts were made in the London headquarters last year, and a third of the brand’s 180 employees in Italy are thought to be at risk of losing their jobs. Fifteen years after the death of Lee McQueen, the brand is struggling to maintain momentum.

The founder is a hallowed name in the fashion industry, and one of the few modern designers to whose character and story the wider public feel a connection. But the generation who wore McQueen’s original bumsters have aged out of shock-value fashion, and the name has less power over younger consumers.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:16 am

‘The antithesis of what Gen Z grew up with’: Love Story inspires fervor for Carolyn Bessette’s style

Influencers are doing their best to recreate Bessette’s deeply individualized style, which ironically was a refusal to follow along with what was popular

While US pop culture has a long-held fascination with the Kennedys, much of the recent fervor around FX’s newest hit show, Love Story, has been aimed at the style of Carolyn Bessette, who worked as a publicist at Calvin Klein before marrying into America’s most storied political family.

Open up TikTok and you’ll see influencers doing their best to recreate her looks and makeup routines. Brands are invoking Bessette to promote their products; hair care brand Schwarzkopf posted about a highlighting technique the brand called “foiled cashmere, inspired by Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy”.

Published: March 8, 2026, 1:00 pm

Balenciaga channels ‘light through darkness’ of Euphoria in Paris show

Collaboration with HBO hit is gen Z mashup of glossy blacks and harsh neons, while Celine gives preppy added ‘bite’

The anxiety-spiked, drug-fuelled, hyperstylised technicolour online messiness of generation Z was not on anyone’s bingo card for Balenciaga’s Paris fashion week show. Cristóbal Balenciaga dressed Ingrid Bergman and Jackie Kennedy; its current designer, Pierpaolo Piccioli, is revered as one fashion’s great romantics, the master of colour and poetry on the modern red carpet.

The Balenciaga show was a collaboration with Euphoria, HBO’s divisive teen drama. In a dark, cavernous venue on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the lights were low, the music (Rosalía, Labrinth) was loud. On flickering video screens, harlequinade images of nocturnal cityscapes segued into preview images from the long-awaited third series of Euphoria, which returns in April. A sweater was printed with a screen still of new cast member Danielle Deadwyler, smoking a cigarette in a low-cut blood-red top.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:42 pm

10 of the best affordable family adventures in Europe

From packrafting in Luxembourg to cycling in Slovenia and eclipse-spotting in Spain, here are some great ways to get the kids into the wild

Several companies offer affordable multi-activity trips for families in Greece, but if you’re looking for something less frenetic, and a bit more challenging for teenagers, how about Greek island-hopping by sea kayak? Running on regular dates through the summer months, Trekking Hellas’s three-day, two‑night odysseys in the Ionian Sea start in Nidri, on Lefkada, and paddle on past Skorpios to Meganisi, camping out at Lakka before continuing the next day to Mikros Gialos for a second night under the stars before turning for home. There are stops for swimming, resting and barbecues along the way, and some thrilling cave detours, but with about six hours of paddling a day, the minimum age is 14.
From €352pp including kayaking and camping equipment, guiding and meals (trekking.gr)

Published: March 9, 2026, 7:00 am

Did baby boomers eat all the pies? John Lanchester on the truth about the generation gap

It’s a grim time to be in your 20s, no doubt, but don’t blame it all on older people: being chopped up into ever smaller rivalries only serves the market

Intergenerational relations, or lack of them, is a subject I’ve been thinking about, on and off, since the financial crisis. I’ve read up on it, too – things such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ report on intergenerational earnings mobility, which is wonky but full of fascinating information which needs some parsing. (Example: “While the educational attainment of ethnic minorities growing up in families eligible for free school meals is often higher than that of their white majority peers, their earnings outcomes show no such advantage.” Why not?) Another good source of data is the Office for Budgetary Responsibility’s (OBR) report on intergenerational fairness – which, interestingly, is about the bluntest statement of fiscal unfairness that you can find. The OBR makes the point that “a current new-born baby would make an average net discounted contribution to the exchequer of £68,400 over its life-time, whilst future generations would have to contribute £159,700”. In plain English, people’s lifetime contribution to the state is going to double. That number is from 2011, and will definitely have got worse. In 2019, the House of Lords published a report on “Tackling intergenerational unfairness”, which doesn’t even bother pretending that the problem doesn’t exist. Mind you, not everyone agrees. A 2023 report from Imperial College Business School argues “there is more solidarity between generations than the ‘Millennials versus Boomers’ narrative would suggest”.

So this is definitely a question you can address through data – though there is a risk that you can use numbers to cherrypick your way to a conclusion you already held in advance. The other way of thinking about it is through lived experience. Not necessarily just your own. I often find myself thinking about the range of experiences and expectations in my own family, going no further than one generation back and one generation forward. I’m on the cusp between boomers and generation X. My children, both in their 20s, are firmly in generation Z. My parents were born in the 20s, in the west of Ireland and in South Africa. Between us, it’s a wildly different set of life stories, and chucking it into the capacious carpet bag labelled “generational differences” seems to me to be a violent oversimplification.

Published: March 8, 2026, 6:00 am

Readers reply: What if Shakespeare was dropped in modern-day London?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions ponders the hypothetical reactions of eminent historical personages to today’s Trafalgar Square

This week’s question: which are more like life, novels or films?

If William Shakespeare – or Florence Nightingale, or Attila the Hun, or Julius Caesar, or Jane Austen, or Pocahontas – was dropped in Trafalgar Square, London, what would they find most unusual? And how would we explain it to them? Giles, Suffolk

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Which are more like life, novels or films?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Readers reply: what if Shakespeare was dropped in modern-day London?

Most films are limited in how they display thought – often just through the facial expressions and actions of actors. Most novels, though, describe in great detail characters’ inner thoughts. So films, in a way, are more mysterious, because you don’t exactly know what people are thinking. So doesn’t that make them in fact more realistic? Ash Ahmed, by email

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com by Thursday after publication. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Published: March 8, 2026, 2:00 pm

Somali Americans hounded by ICE and rightwing ‘influencers’ on edge in Ohio: ‘I’m scared to go outside’

ICE launched ‘Operation Buckeye’ and ‘influencers’ claimed Somalis are running fraudulent businesses after Trump repeatedly used racist language against group in December

The men started showing up at around 6am in late December.

In their cars, they circled the 161 Child Care facility in Columbus, before parking at the front of the building. Then they sat in their cars, opening their windows enough to tell the Somali Americans who own the daycare: “We’re exposing all of you. Every single one of you, you’re all going back.”

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘We want to give them their names back’: the team identifying Europe’s forgotten female murder victims

Interpol’s DNA unit is helping bring closure to families of murder victims, whose names may be unknown for decades

In the shadow of Antwerp’s main arena, close to the city’s docklands, runs the Groot Schijn River. It was here that the body of Rita Roberts was discovered in June 1992, floating against the grate of a water treatment plant.

She appeared to have been murdered, but Belgian police were unable to identify her. A tattoo of a black rose with green leaves and initials on her left arm was their only clue.

Published: March 9, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Dark, like our future’: Iranians describe scenes of catastrophe after Tehran’s oil depots bombed

Residents report terror of smoke-filled city, from potentially toxic rain, air and water to food scarcity and difficulty of escape

• Middle East crisis – live updates

• Iran threatens to attack oil facilities across Gulf after Israeli strikes

Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots on Sunday.

In messages and voice notes sent to the Guardian, people described the situation in their homes and on the streets, some calling it “apocalyptic”. With the sun blotted out, disoriented people in Iran’s capital had to turn on their lights to see through the gloom.

Published: March 8, 2026, 6:40 pm

A giant cat and a Back to the Future reunion: photos of the day - Monday

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

• Warning: Gallery contains sensitive images

Published: March 9, 2026, 12:54 pm