The kill line v Chinamaxxing: a window into how China and the US see each other

In China, one social media trend hangs on the idea that a life in the US is always one step from disaster, while another in the US has gen Z revelling in Chinese lifestyle hacks

Across two online worlds that are normally splintered, over the last few months there has been a mirroring of sorts. On TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”. On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being replaced by a darker trend: the kill line.

The kill line is a dangerous place to be. In gaming, the term refers to the point at which a player’s strength is so depleted that one more blow could lead to total wipeout. In China, the term refers to the risks that come with daily life in the US.

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:42 am

Trump is the weakest he’s ever been. That makes him so dangerous on Iran | Moira Donegan

Why would Trump launch a foreign war when he is so domestically weak? Precisely because he is weak

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the George W Bush administration presented the case for war exhaustively, repeatedly, and in public. The then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who played a major role in green-lighting waterboarding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, wrote an editorial in the New York Times claiming that Iraq was lying about its so-called “weapons of mass destruction”.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, went to a meeting of the United Nations security council in New York. There, before America and the world, he held up a tiny vial of substance meant to represent anthrax, a chemical weapon that had terrorized the US in a series of mail attacks just over a year before; Powell claimed that Iraq had the weapon and was willing to use it. Bush himself routinely addressed the American people, making the case for war. They were all lying, it turned out, but the lie served a purpose: it was a concession to the idea that the American people would have a say in whether or not their country went to war.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

How Detroit’s New Bad Boys climbed from the NBA’s cellar to rule the East

From a 28-game losing streak to the top of the East, the Pistons have rebuilt themselves the old Detroit way – defense, defiance and a refusal to stay down

In Detroit, the black-eyed Susan grows along lonely highways and in vacant lots. It pushes through gravel and broken glass. It survives heat that cracks the earth and winters that freeze it solid. When the wind bends its stem, it cracks back in place.

Its petals are a grungy yellow, the shade of anxiety, orbiting a bruised center. Black-eyed, signaling it can take a punch. It’s the kind of flower Pistons legend Dennis Rodman would wear in his hair. Hard to kill. Just like the Detroit Pistons.

Published: March 13, 2026, 9:00 am

Ex-CIA analyst David McCloskey on the Mossad’s intelligence inside Iran: ‘I was surprised’

The podcast host and author of The Persian reflects on why Israel’s precision in Iran caught him off guard

As the author of a novel depicting the Mossad’s snatch-and-assassination squads inside Iran, David McCloskey was less shocked than most by the stunning killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the theocratic regime’s most powerful figure, in a strike carried out by Israel.

What caught him more off guard were reports that the up-to-the-minute, pinpoint accurate intelligence essential for its success was provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Inside The Pitt: the stunning, smash-hit medical drama from the team behind ER

It has swept awards, been lauded for its accuracy and become a word-of-mouth triumph. Now, after a big delay, The Pitt launches in the UK. We visit the set to meet the team behind this tense, unflinching US medical drama

Like many US hospitals, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center (PTMC) is a place where time melts away. Rain or shine, 1am or 1pm, everything is bathed in the same retina-frying fluorescent light. Wait times often exceed several hours; in the lobby is a barrage of all-caps warnings (“aggressive behavior will NOT be tolerated”), while several TVs play clips of a Deadliest Catch-style show in two-minute loops. Purgatory, it seems, looks a lot like an American hospital … as recreated on a soundstage in Burbank, California.

On the day I visit PTMC, the 52-bed ER on the Warner Bros lot, the hold-up is some babies. The infant actors are here to film a second season scene for The Pitt, the HBO Max medical drama that singlehandedly resuscitated the genre back from its Grey’s Anatomy flatline, swept almost every television award in the US and is now, finally, heading for the UK. (No bad blood, though: on set, I glimpse a flyer for a Pitt softball game against the crew of Seattle Grace.) Developed by the team behind 90s hospital hit ER, The Pitt follows a melange of hospital workers – the doctors, nurses, social workers, security and administrative staff of a cash-strapped emergency room in Pittsburgh – as they deal with everything from gunshot wounds to burnout, fentanyl overdoses to dreaded note-taking, with all the emotional trauma in between.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Experience: I suffered terrible burns as a child – then became a firefighter

I was sick and tired of the world treating me like a victim, so I decided to flip the narrative. At 25, I tried out for my local volunteer fire academy

When I was six years old, my entire body went up in flames. It was 1992, in my home town of Hawthorne, Nevada. My older brothers were out playing and I went to call them for dinner. I followed their voices, just a few houses down from ours, to find them playing with a bowl of kerosene they’d found and a lighter. When they flicked the lighter, the bowl caught fire. My brother freaked out and kicked it over in a bid to contain the flames. They weren’t aware I was just inches away.

Soon I was submerged in flames. The pain was excruciating. I was tackled to the ground by a neighbour I’d never met, who covered me in a sleeping bag, extinguishing the flames. It haunts me to this day to think of what he would have seen: a six-year-old boy on fire outside his house.

Published: March 13, 2026, 5:00 am

All six crew members confirmed dead after US plane crash in Iraq – Middle East crisis live

Service personnel were aboard refuelling plane as US command says crash was not due to ‘hostile or friendly fire’

• Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in history of oil markets’

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry is saying that two drones have been intercepted and destroyed in the eastern region.

More now after reports of explosions in Dubai on Friday morning: thick black smoke rose over the financial hub’s skyline after what authorities described as a fire in an industrial area of the city-state.

Published: March 13, 2026, 3:21 pm

Pete Hegseth downplays strait of Hormuz disruption, claiming ‘don’t need to worry about it’ – US politics live

Defense secretary’s comments come as Iran war chokes global oil supplies; military chief says US is targeting Iran’s mine-laying capabilities

• What is the strait of Hormuz and can the US stop Iran from blocking it?

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Both Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine were asked today about energy secretary Chris Wright’s comments to CNBC on Thursday, where he said that the US Navy cannot escort ships through the strait of Hormuz now but it was “quite likely” that could happen by the end of the month.

Gen Caine appeared to agree with Wright’s assessment, calling the waterway a “tactically complex environment”.

Published: March 13, 2026, 3:07 pm

Tehran diary: dark and bitter, the terror of life under US-Israeli bombardment

Elahi, a former political prisoner writing under a pseudonym, details a sleepless night in the Iranian capital

It’s 5am on Thursday 12 March. I was finally falling asleep after a day full of fear when the phone rang. Terror rushes through me. It’s not the right time for a call. Someone must need help – or maybe they are alone and frightened.

I answer the phone, exhausted. It’s my younger sister. She is crying and cannot speak. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces. I haven’t seen her for many days. When I was released from prison, she had gone to another city to take care of our mother.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:19 pm

Anthropic-Pentagon battle shows how big tech has reversed course on AI and war

Less than a decade ago, Google employees scuttled any military use of its AI. Now Anthropic is fighting Trump officials not over if, but how

The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon has forced the tech industry to once again grapple with the question of how its products are used for war – and what lines it will not cross. Amid Silicon Valley’s rightward shift under Donald Trump and the signing of lucrative defense contracts, big tech’s answer is looking very different than it did even less than a decade ago.

Anthropic’s feud with the Trump administration escalated three days ago as the AI firm sued the Department of Defense, claiming that the government’s decision to blacklist it from government work violated its first amendment rights. The company and the Pentagon have been locked in a months-long standoff, with Anthropic attempting to prohibit its AI model from being used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

‘I don’t give a shit about Iran. I don’t want to pay higher gas’: Motor City motorists feel pinch as gas prices surge

Drivers in Detroit are unhappy with the spike in gas prices, even if reactions are mixed to the US-Israel war on Iran

On a rainy Detroit afternoon at a gas station off Interstate 75, Victor Rodriguez watched the pump tally tick up as he filled up his F-250 diesel pickup truck for $4.19 per gallon. It totaled $110. “Ridiculous,” he said.

The US-Israel war on Iran has crippled major portions of the oil supply chain, sending gas prices soaring as the conflict enters its third week. Rodriguez said he supports “getting rid of this thug”, referring to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US, but the cost is too high.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony

Under oath, officers said they were told to make eight arrests a day and given special tech to help choose ‘targets’

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US immigration agents in Oregon used a custom-made app to identify neighborhoods and people to target, and had daily arrest quotas they sought to meet during operations, courtroom testimony has revealed.

Details about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers’ surveillance tools and arrest goals in the state have come to light in a federal lawsuit that compelled officers to answer questions under oath, offering a rare window into opaque, internal strategies that are generally kept secret and have been driving mass detentions and chaotic raids.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Seven in 10 Americans say Trump’s tariffs caused higher prices

Exclusive survey finds negative economic impacts felt across party lines as White House doubles down on tariffs

Seven in 10 Americans say Donald Trump’s tariffs have led to them paying higher prices, according to an exclusive new poll for the Guardian.

The Harris Poll survey presents Republicans with a major problem in the battle for the upcoming midterm elections. The majority of all voters (72%) believe Trump’s tariffs have had a negative rather than a positive impact and 67% said tariffs aren’t the right solution for improving the economy.

64% of Republicans agreed that Trump’s tariffs had led to higher prices compared with 77% of Democrats and 67% of independents who believed the same.

60% of Republicans also said that tariffs had had more of a negative impact on consumers than a positive one, compared with 81% of Democrats and 75% of independents.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Suspect in Michigan synagogue attack had lost family in Israeli strike on Lebanon

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, who was born in Lebanon and became a naturalized US citizen, lost two brothers, a niece and a nephew in the airstrike

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The armed suspect who drove a vehicle into the hallway of a large Michigan synagogue complex that includes a school had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon just last week, an official said on Friday.

A potential mass-casualty event was averted when security guards already in place at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township on the outskirts of Detroit killed the driver before any harm could come to the synagogue’s staff, teachers and 140 children at the early childhood center there on Thursday afternoon.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:12 pm

Israeli-backed Palestinian militias step up operations against Hamas in Gaza

Armed groups appear to have increased their firepower as they carry out raids deep in Hamas-controlled territory

Pro-Israel Palestinian militia have launched repeated raids, clandestine assassination and abduction operations deep inside parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas in recent months, with new operations launched recently despite the outbreak of conflict with Iran.

The militia, which are all based in eastern parts of Gaza that are under Israeli control after a ceasefire came into effect in October, have received significant logistic support from Israel since last year but appear to have increased their firepower, allowing new and more aggressive attacks in recent weeks.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:51 pm

Trump’s ‘racist hate speech’ sparking human rights violations, UN watchdog warns

UN experts disturbed by the president and US political leaders’ growing use of dehumanising language to target migrants

The “racist hate speech” being used by Donald Trump and other US political leaders, along with the country’s intensified crackdowns on migration, has led to “grave human rights violations,” a UN watchdog has warned.

In a non-binding decision issued this week, the UN‘s committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (CERD) called on the US to uphold its obligations as a signatory to the international convention on combating racism and discrimination.

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:55 pm

Trump policies set to increase rates of lung disease and death, study finds

Experts warn of ‘attack on Americans’ lungs’ from cuts to health programs, environmental rollbacks and other plans

Donald Trump’s policies are likely to drive soaring rates of lung disease and premature death, according to a wide-ranging new study by pulmonary specialists and public health experts.

The analysis, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, examines policies adopted during Trump’s second term across 10 areas, including healthcare access, environmental regulation, workplace protections and vaccine uptake.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Former second world war soldier, 100, becomes oldest-known US organ donor

Dale Steele, who died in February, ‘is a powerful reminder that generosity has no age limit’, says CEO of non-profit

After spending some of his prime years aiding German concentration camp survivors and guarding Nazi leaders tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, a US second world war veteran is now believed to have become his country’s oldest known organ donor.

The story of 100-year-old Dale Steele, who died in February after a head injury led to his being placed on life support, demonstrates how donors’ health is a more important consideration than how old they are, according to Live On Nebraska, an organ-procurement organization in his home state.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

France returns sacred talking drum looted from Côte d’Ivoire over 100 years ago

Djidji Ayôkwé was handed to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month

A sacred artefact looted by French colonial authorities more than a century ago has been returned to Côte d’Ivoire in one of the most significant cultural restitutions to a former French colony in years.

The Djidji Ayôkwé, a talking drum confiscated in 1916 by French administrators, landed at 8.45am on Friday at the airport in Port Bouët on the outskirts of the economic capital, Abidjan. It was handed over to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month after being removed from the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:06 pm

‘It’s one of those lifetime things’: viral videos turn Rio favela rooftop into tourist hotspot

People from across the world queue for hours to get a video taken on the famous ‘Gateway to Heaven’ rooftop in the heart of Brazil’s most iconic city

It was day three of the British family’s holiday in Brazil and, as the sun rose over Rio’s undulating mountains, they set off for the city’s most talked about tourist haunt.

“It’s our first time in Brazil. We’re really looking forward to it,” said Paul Boswell, a 58-year-old builder from Basildon, Essex, before clambering on to the motorbike that would carry him there.

Published: March 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Cuban president confirms talks with Trump officials amid US blockade

Negotiations aimed to ‘find solutions to the bilateral differences’ between the countries, Miguel Díaz-Canel said

Cuban officials have held talks with the US government to seek solutions to the blockade imposed on the Caribbean nation, Miguel Díaz-Canel has said in a video broadcast on national television.

“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel, the Cuban president, said in the video, which aired on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to address Cuban media in a rare appearance that comes amid a severe economic crisis and as the Communist government has come under increasing pressure from Donald Trump.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:47 am

Trump news at a glance: president shrugs off highest gas prices in years

Trump claims US makes ‘a lot of money’ when oil prices go up, but rising costs could become political liability – key US politics stories from 12 March

Donald Trump on Thursday shrugged off the economic toll the war in Iran is taking on gas prices across the US, writing on social media that “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money”.

The president’s comment came as the American Automobile Association reports that the average price for a gallon of gas hit $3.60, a week after the beginning of the US-Israel military operation against Iran prompted the largest price spike since the opening days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Published: March 13, 2026, 4:30 am

Could the US military turn on Trump? – podcast

Since coming back into office, Donald Trump has sent troops to Venezuela, Iran and US cities. He has threatened to deploy them to Greenland in order to get what he wants. But what do the people who serve think of their commander-in-chief? If they wanted to, could they disobey his orders?

This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Janessa Goldbeck, a former Marine and the chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation

Archive: PBS Newshour, Fox 11 Los Angeles, DRM News, DW, AP, ABC News, ABC 7, Good Morning America, CBS News, Bloomberg, New York Post

Published: March 13, 2026, 5:00 am

‘A minefield’: taoiseach prepares for St Patrick’s Day visit to Washington

Traditionally jovial affair poses potential debacle for Irish leader at odds with US over foreign policy, tax and immigration

For Ireland’s leaders, it has long been the highlight of the political calendar: a love-fest in Washington with hosts who sport shamrocks and toast Saint Patrick.

Irish delegations are traditionally received on Capitol Hill and at the White House in a blaze of goodwill and backslapping that has them wishing every day was 17 March.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:56 am

One family’s harrowing escape to the US – and the Trump government’s relentless efforts to deport them back

Oscar, Ana and their children fled violence for safety in the US. Now Oscar, afraid and alone, is back in Honduras – ‘at the mercy of God and his will’

As soon as Oscar’s deportation flight landed at the La Lima airport in Honduras, he put on his baseball cap. On the airport shuttle toward the terminal, he pulled his cap even lower – trying to obscure his face at various police checkpoints.

His parents picked him up in a car, and drove him to a lodging they had arranged for him – miles away from his family home. He has hardly stepped outside since. “Because I can’t trust anyone – not the authorities, not the government, not a police officer,” he said. He has visited his mother a handful of times since the US deported him three weeks ago, and only under the cover of night. “They will kill anyone here. There is death everywhere.”

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Has the pro-Maga media turned on the Pentagon over Iran?

New pro-Trump press corps has surprised some skeptics with tough questions, though sycophancy fears remain

The question, asked during a 4 March press briefing with Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and Gen Dan Caine, was a good one: if the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities during an operation last June, “what was the intelligence that suggested that somehow they became a threat once again that required us to get involved with Operation Epic Fury?”

It was asked by Heather Mullins, who works for LindellTV, the television network founded by Mike Lindell, the pillow entrepreneur, Trump cheerleader and 2020 election denier.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

My mother’s best advice: you’re allowed to enjoy nice things

Whether it was a solo trip to a cafe, a nice lipstick or merely wandering around a shop that was out of her price range, my mum showed me that a little luxury goes a long way

My mum’s best advice was “You’re allowed to enjoy nice things.” Both elements – the nice things and being allowed them – were equally important. She was a fervent believer in the restorative power of a treat, taking herself out for solo breakfasts most weeks (a bacon muffin and a cup of coffee in the cosseted calm of Bettys Tea Rooms), ordering chips at the slightest provocation, staying in chic hotels she had a pre-internet gift for ferreting out and being coaxed by department store salesladies into buying expensive unguents.

She was even keener on treating others, including me. During my teens and early 20s, when I was ill and unhappy in my body, she took me for lavish lunches, booked me massages and accompanied me on spa trips. I recently found a note she had sent me when I was slogging, lonely and sad, through my finals, which had obviously come with some cash. “Buy yourself something frivolous darling,” it read. “A nice nail polish?”

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Sinners or One Battle: what can we learn from this year’s anonymous Oscar ballots?

While Academy voters are supposed to keep their picks secret, another batch of anonymous ballots have leaked – giving us some insight on a hard-to-call race

• Oscars 2026: how to watch, nominations, what to read and predictions

It took a great deal of blood, sweat and tweets, but in 2016 the Academy finally took notice and started to embrace both diversity and modernity. The #OscarsSoWhite furore over two straight years of all-white nominees (Michael B Jordan’s Creed snub was in my opinion the cruelest) led to a dramatic shake-up and one that has continued ever since with more women, people of colour and international voters added to what had been an overwhelmingly homogenous base.

It has all led to an Oscars race that is increasingly harder to predict using old-fashioned thinking in ways that have become rather thrilling over time, the idea of an “Oscar movie” now far more slippery. Films such as Parasite, Anora, Moonlight, Anatomy of a Fall, Nomadland, Get Out and The Zone of Interest have now found their way into the major categories in past years, and this year’s crop showcases further progression – from foreign language picks to outsider narratives to pricklier characters than ever before.

Published: March 13, 2026, 3:02 pm

‘Wouldn’t life be easier if I were white?’: inside a provocative race-swap body horror

In director Amy Wang’s debut movie Slanted, a mysterious procedure allows people of colour to become white, speaking to her own difficult feelings as a teen

In March 2021, six Asian women were killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta. Amy Wang, an Asian Australian writer and director, who emigrated to America in 2015, remembers that tragedy well. “It was the first time I felt genuinely unsafe here,” she says. Alongside a growing fear, childhood memories resurfaced – the internal and external racism and the exhaustion of never quite fitting in. “I moved to Australia when I was seven and didn’t speak English – it was a tough time for me,” she admits. And then there was one particular recurring thought. “There were many times when I’d wake up as a teenager and think to myself: ‘Wouldn’t life be easier if I were white?’” So, she turned that past feeling into art.

The art is Slanted, Wang’s audacious feature debut – a film whose premise is, by design, completely unhinged. An insecure Asian American high schooler undergoes a procedure at a mysterious cosmetics clinic called Ethnos (tagline: if you can’t beat them … be them) that renders people of colour visibly white, permanently. It’s taking ‘I don’t see colour’ to the ultra-extreme: equality achieved only when we all look the same, and that means whiteness. The surgery works. And then things get complicated.

Published: March 13, 2026, 9:04 am

‘One of the last places of safety’: US tenants are striking against their landlords over steep rent hikes

Rent strikes have become more common in recent years with all-time high increases and more corporate investing

Nadia Langley had been organizing tenants in and around her south Minneapolis neighborhood since 2024, when, two months ago, the fledgling union saw a sudden explosion in interest.

The jump was prompted not by a downturn in housing conditions or a rise in rents, but by the arrival of thousands of federal agents in the city as part of the Trump administration’s recent mass immigration crackdown. Many immigrants and residents of color were afraid of agent run-ins and wouldn’t leave their homes, even to go to work. To protect their neighbors, residents organized group chats to alert their communities about immigration agent sightings and to provide food, aid and more.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

In my 20s ‘treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen’ felt like power. In my 50s I see that dating strategy for what it is: fear

I am capable, a woman of substance. Yet I get a ‘maybe’ from a man I meet on a dating app and I regress three decades

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I was raised on the scripture of the 1990s: Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. It was the Golden Rule. The dating equivalent of Slip, Slop, Slap. Whispered at sleepovers. Bolded in the margins of Dolly magazine. Never pick up on the first ring. Never say you’re free on a Saturday. Be the prize, not the contestant.

In my 20s, this felt like power. (It was mostly fear in better lighting but I didn’t know that yet.) I mastered breezy indifference. I timed my texts to the minute: double the time he took, plus 10 for mystery. I thought I was teaching men my value. I thought I was training them to love me.

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

Out of the blue? How the colour of light could be used to treat mental illness

A psychiatric unit in Norway has been testing its built-in lighting on conditions such as psychosis and depression

At first glance, the psychiatric ward in Trondheim looks much like any other unit caring for patients in acute mental distress. But as evening falls, filters descend over the windows, and the lights shift to a soft amber glow. By removing blue wavelengths that interfere with the body’s internal clock, doctors here are testing an unusual idea: that the design of the ward itself could become a form of treatment.

Light is the main signal regulating the body’s circadian rhythm – the roughly 24-hour biological clock that governs sleep and many other bodily processes. Mounting evidence links circadian disruption to conditions including depression, cardiovascular disease and dementia, and disturbed sleep-wake cycles are a long-recognised feature of mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:14 am

King Conan is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chance for a late-period masterpiece, like Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven

If the long-mooted third instalment of the 80s sword and sorcery series finally gets off the ground, it could be Arnie’s chance to go from ageing action hero to cinematic totem

If you’re a fan of 1980s and 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger, his late-era career has probably come as a bit of a disappointment. The Austrian oak was once Hollywood’s most reliable tool for punching killer robots, but he’s never really had his Unforgiven moment. Despite an absurdly influential run of sci-fi and fantasy movies, Schwarzenegger has missed out on the sort of grizzled, late-career reckoning that might have deconstructed his own youthful myth, just as Clint Eastwood’s epic 1992 western confronted the very legend the actor-director spent decades building.

It’s not as if Hollywood hasn’t tried. In fact, studios have spent the last decade or so trying to produce Schwarzenegger’s “old warrior” phase, as if prodding the action hero myth with a stick to see if it still roars. The problem is, nothing has quite landed. Terminator: Dark Fate turned the T-800 into a retired drapery salesman reflecting on his own violent past. Maggie had him as a grieving father in a quiet zombie family drama. Aftermath is essentially a sombre meditation on grief that briefly veers into revenge thriller territory. None quite managed to become the monument to the Schwarzenegger enigma that the actor’s era-defining body of work seemed to demand. If Arnold fans wanted the sort of late-career statement that turns an ageing action star into a cinematic totem, they instead got an increasingly mortal-looking man who turns up in mid-budget streaming thrillers looking faintly concerned.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:57 pm

Week in wildlife: a wet macaque, four little pigs and a stowaway fox

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Published: March 13, 2026, 7:00 am

Trump’s war in Iran marks the culmination of his imperial presidency | Mohamad Bazzi

The path to this reckless war was paved by the collapse of accountability in Washington

Since he reclaimed the White House, Donald Trump loves being compared with a monarch with unprecedented powers. “LONG LIVE THE KING!” Trump said on social media last year, after his administration tried to kill congestion pricing in New York. In October, the US president posted an AI-generated video of himself dumping brown sludge on protesters who participated in a daylong mass protest, known as “No Kings”, against his administration. In the video, Trump wore a crown and was flying a fighter jet labeled “KING TRUMP”.

He has also launched a relentless campaign of self-aggrandizement, plastering his name and face on government buildings, including the Kennedy Center and the US Institute of Peace. Trump demolished the White House’s East Wing and is overseeing plans to replace it with an enormous ballroom; the National Park Service designated the president’s birthday as a free-admission day at national parks; and the US treasury is poised to issue $1 coins featuring Trump’s image to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence later this year.

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:00 pm

Six years after Breonna Taylor’s death, America is weakening the rules that could have saved her | Jamil Smith

Following Taylor’s death, the US limited no-knock warrants. But the Trump administration has quietly rescinded those limits

The night Breonna Taylor died began quietly.

She had spent the evening at home in Louisville. The 26-year-old was an emergency room technician, someone who worked to prevent other people’s tragedies.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

AI-generated Iran images are widespread. How do we know what to believe? | Margaret Sullivan

Fake pictures look authentic – and authentic ones get mistaken for fake. Here are three rules for navigating the war coverage

The videos look authentic – and they are spreading like wildfire on social media. One, for example, shows Iranian missiles exploding upon the airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. Another shows US soldiers being held at gunpoint by Iranian military.

They aren’t real but – often made with the help of cutting-edge AI – they are wildly misleading. They may get debunked, but somehow that doesn’t make a dent.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

The king’s visit to the US must go ahead despite Trump's terrible military aggression | Simon Jenkins

A state visit is a connecting of people, not governments; of cultures, not commentators – our national bonds should be honoured

Should King Charles’s state visit to the United States next month be cancelled? The case for doing so is powerful. America is waging an unprovoked war on Iran in which more than 1,000 innocent people have already been killed. The collateral damage to the global economy, including Britain’s, is becoming astronomical. All Donald Trump can do is insult Britain’s prime minister as a “loser” and “no Winston Churchill” for failing to join him. Should the monarch honour such a man by attending a Washington banquet?

The call is close. The occasion is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States with the declaration of independence. Of course this merits celebration. But now? British public opinion is emphatically opposed to the US war on Iran. Many more Britons think the royal visit should be abandoned (46%) than think it should go ahead (36%), with 18% undecided. Just as the war is staged by Trump for personal political gain, so he can be expected to exploit a royal visit.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: from Tea Party to Trump

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Emma Brockes' digested week: Geopolitics and package holidays collide, and Chalamet goes too far

Actor’s remarks about two of the dramatic arts draws a delicious backlash. Plus, Crufts brings back happy memories

I was going to start with the Middle East, but let’s give ourselves a break and, instead, do the final of Crufts from last night. Crufts! As soothing as the Olympics but with lower stakes and cuter contestants. When I was in my first year of high school, my best friend and I used to “play Crufts” – look, it was a different time; at least we weren’t pretending to be on horseback – which entailed someone being the presenter and someone the dog lady, and when the presenter shrilled, “and it’s the Westie! The Westie has won Crufts 1990!” the dog lady had to take off around the living room, leash held high while the crowd went wild.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:38 am

How does Trump keep henchmen like Rubio in check? He literally makes them wear shoes that are far too big | Marina Hyde

The art of the heel: if you want a shot at the US presidency, you better be ready to sartorially debase yourself on the world stage

The secretary of state of the United States of America is openly slopping around in a pair of too-big shoes that he has to wear because the president gave them to him. Why? Possibly as a piece of exquisite and complex satire about the size of his penis; possibly because Marco Rubio exaggerated his shoe size because he rightly assumed it would be linked to presidential speculation about the size of his penis.

According to the vice-president, JD Vance, Donald Trump gives all his best boys a particular brand of shoe, either after guessing their size or making them disclose it. “The president, he kind of leans back in his chair,” explained Vance a couple of months ago, “and he says: ‘You know, you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.’” Strong words, particularly from a president with such famously tiny hands. Incidentally, Vance casually dropped it into the anecdote that he wore a 13.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:58 pm

Ireland's basic income for artists changed my life. Other people deserve the same luck | Caelainn Hogan

A pilot scheme offering some artists €300-plus a week for three years is being made permanent. But should something so fundamental be run like a lottery?

I won the lottery. Out of around 8,000 artists, my name was randomly chosen to be one of the 2,000 who the Irish government would pay a basic income. This pilot scheme was a test of whether a policy of supporting artists would pay off in terms of creative work, wellbeing and, calculated down to the cent, the money that society would make back.

For three years, we were paid €325 a week with no strings attached, other than filling out a survey. We could continue earning and applying for artist grants. I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live, constantly worrying I will never be able to afford a home myself or to start a family. As such, the basic income was life-changing.

Caelainn Hogan is the author of Republic of Shame

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Published: March 13, 2026, 5:00 am

USA’s Noah Elliott and Kate Delson win Paralympic banked slalom gold

• Elliott wins men’s SB-LL1 banked slalom title

• Delson captures women’s SB-LL2 gold for US

• Schultz earns bronze in final Paralympic race

Noah Elliott of the United States won gold in the men’s SB-LL1 banked slalom on Friday at the Milan Cortina Paralympics, while fellow American Kate Delson captured the women’s SB-LL2 title in para snowboarding.

Elliott posted the two fastest times of the competition, finishing the course in 58.96sec on his first run and improving slightly to 58.94sec on his second. In banked slalom, riders take two runs down the course and their fastest time determines the final standings.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:17 pm

Snow joke: Winter Paralympics athletes angry at scheduling as big thaw hits

• Ice melt causes dangerous conditions for para athletes

• IPC says changing winter calendar ‘easier said than done’

In Cortina d’Ampezzo, the thaw is on. With daytime temperatures reaching double figures in celsius, snow is disappearing from the hillsides and the “torrenti” of ice melt have started to flow once again.

Traditionally a time of year when snowfall can be at its heaviest, there has been none since the Winter Paralympics began. The Games have not been insulated from the consequences.

Published: March 12, 2026, 4:46 pm

From Run Nation to Power Slap: what is leading the dumbing down of sports?

From violent collision contests to celebrity-backed offshoots, spin-off sports are finding captive audiences. Their spectacle masks something more sinister

A few weeks ago a clip went viral of a strange new contact sport emerging from the antipodes. Two burly men, one of them holding a football, sprint at each other on a kind of catwalk, waiting for the bloop-bloop-bloop of an electronic countdown before they launch into their runs. Neither wears any kind of padding or protective gear. Surrounded by baying spectators, the men collide in the middle of the track, making impact through shoulders, knees, hips, stomachs: in most instances, one of the runners is knocked flat on his back or face from the force of the collision, and the other stands tall in triumph. “We are literally getting dumber as a civilization,” noted one of the many comments on the clip on X.

Run Nation Championship, as this new sport is known, launched in Australia last year, and is now holding combines ahead of RNC03, its third instalment. Many of the competing athletes seem, from the early video evidence, as wide as they are tall; the risk of injury – to their limbs, to their heads, to their brains – is obvious. But this is all part of the pitch. Like all new mixed martial arts and contact sports, RNC owes an obvious debt to UFC in the way it’s named, structured, and promoted; like UFC and UFC boss Dana White’s newer sport, Power Slap, in which two opponents face each other across a table and slap the side of each other’s faces as hard as they can until one collapses, Run Nation is not so much a sport as an exploration of the frontier of sporting violence, a macabre social experiment to see how far athletes will push their bodies in the pursuit of victory and money.

Published: March 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Call it the Rodman Rule or HIP, the NWSL’s new initiative is already impacting rosters

The rule made famous by Trinity Rodman’s offseason transfer saga had actually been in the works for years.

Sometimes, a rule’s official name is superceded by the player who seemingly inspired it. But sometimes, the origin story is a bit more nuanced.

Contrary to its initial prevailing narrative, the NWSL says it didn’t rush to create the High Impact Player rule (HIP) in reaction to the Washington Spirit’s efforts to sign Trinity Rodman. Stephanie Lee, the league’s vice-president of player affairs, said the league began looking at how it could keep pace with the growing women’s soccer market in the summer of 2023.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Will Iran play at the 2026 World Cup? Explaining the state of play

The United States’ and Israel’s war with Iran has implications in the sports world, with a war of words involving Fifa leaving the team’s status unclear

Iran’s participation in this summer’s World Cup appears to change on an almost hourly basis. US president Donald Trump caused more confusion on Thursday by saying he did not believe it “is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety”.

The incendiary post on Truth Social came less than 48 hours after Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said Trump had told him in a meeting at the White House on Tuesday evening that Iran would be “welcome” at the World Cup. Hours later, Iran’s football federation posted its response on Instagram, stating: “No one can exclude Iran’s national team from the World Cup” and going on to say that the US should be removed as host due to Trump’s implicit threat.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Russell takes pole for China GP sprint race in Mercedes front-row lockout

• Verstappen describes Red Bull as ‘undriveable’ on radio

• Bahrain and Saudi GP decision due after China race

George Russell laid down a further marker as the man to beat in the new Formula One season with a dominant run in qualifying to claim pole for the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix. He sealed another frontrow lockout alongside his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, with Russell finishing more than half a second clear of their nearest rival.

The first sprint weekend under the new regulations is a journey into the unknown for teams and drivers and they had only the single hour of practice to understand how best to optimise their cars for energy deployment before qualifying.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:38 am

‘We can always do more’: Tierna Davidson on injury return, Gotham’s title defense and USWNT activism

The World Cup champion, coming off a second ACL tear in three years, is eager to step back into leadership roles with club and country as the NWSL season begins

One of the most important players on the team that won the 2025 NWSL championship played in just three matches all season. Tierna Davidson, the captain of NJ/NY Gotham FC, went down with a torn ACL on 28 March, and was quickly ruled out for the rest of the year. It was a brutal moment for the center-back, who had torn her other ACL three years prior.

The injuries were low patches in the 27-year-old’s already prolific career. In 2019, she left Stanford to turn pro; she was drafted by the Chicago Red Stars as the No 1 pick in the NWSL college draft. That year, at just 20, she was also named to the USWNT World Cup squad that would win the tournament.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:37 pm

Wings, sex and hypocrisy: how the NBA tied itself in knots over a strip club night

The Hawks decided to pay tribute to Atlanta institution Magic City. The league soon found itself dealing with a narrative it doesn’t understand fully

Manufactured outrage will have to serve as the theme for what had been the most hotly anticipated game of the season.

For those who may have missed it: last month the Atlanta Hawks announced plans for a 16 March promotional event called Magic City Night. The name wasn’t just a nod to that evening’s opponent, the Orlando Magic; it was meant to honor the civic institution in the shadow of the Hawks’ arena – Magic City, America’s most famous strip club.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:00 am

Midtjylland weather the storm as Cho stuns wasteful Nottingham Forest

It never rains but it pours. Nottingham Forest, forced to cut their ticket prices twice this week to entice a capacity crowd back to the City Ground, can’t seem to buy a win at the moment. Twice now they have lost to FC Midtjylland in this competition this season after the substitute Cho Gue-sung further dampened their spirits with the only goal on a night when a second-half deluge was so severe the ball started getting stuck in puddles.

What a muddle Forest find themselves in: above the relegation zone only on goal difference, their fourth manager of the season, Vítor Pereira, is without a win in his five games since an opening triumph in Fenerbahce set up this last-16 window of opportunity. But as the Danish players celebrated with their hardy, bare-chested fans in a small, sodden but voluble corner of the Bridgford Stand, Pereira warned them they are far from home and dry.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:10 pm

King Charles concerned about Alberta separatist movement, First Nation chief says

Joey Pete of Sunchild First Nation said king seemed ‘committed to learning’ after meeting Indigenous leaders

King Charles has expressed concern over a simmering separatist movement in western Canada, according to Indigenous leaders who met the head of state at Buckingham Palace.

Members of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations travelled to London from their territories in the province of Alberta to raise the alarm over the secessionist movement, arguing that it ignores key agreements signed between First Nations and the crown nearly 150 years ago.

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:28 pm

‘Groundbreaking’ UN agreement on justice for women to include those in prison for first time

As numbers of incarcerated women approach one million globally, campaigners are hoping the recognition leads to action

The “groundbreaking” inclusion of female incarceration in a global agreement on justice for women and girls adopted at the UN this week has been hailed by campaigners as an opportunity to bring about change for hundreds of thousands of women in prison around the world.

The agreed conclusions of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), being held this week and next at the UN headquarters in New York, explicitly mention “women in detention and in imprisonment”. They set out to address their plight while taking into account the links between discriminatory laws, violence against women and girls and increased risk of incarceration.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

Bailiffs board Ryanair plane after airline refuses to pay delayed flight compensation

Austrian officials took action after airline ignored court order to pay €890 to unnamed women

Bailiffs have boarded a Ryanair aircraft after the airline refused to pay compensation to a passenger whose flight was delayed.

Austrian officials took action after the budget carrier ignored a court order to pay the unnamed woman €890 (£742) in legal costs and compensation for a delayed flight two years ago.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Fatal shooting at Virginia university investigated as act of terrorism, FBI says

Suspect who was convicted in 2016 for supporting Islamic State is dead after attack kills one and leaves two injured

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The suspect who killed one person and injured two others at Old Dominion University on Thursday was identified by authorities as Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the army national guard who pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.

Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Norfolk field office, told reporters the suspect had attempted to commit an “act of terrorism” and shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire. He was subdued and killed by members of the university’s ROTC program in a university classroom, she said, praising them for demonstrating “extreme bravery and courage” and preventing further loss of life. (ROTC is a college-based program that allows students to train to become a US military officer while also earning a college degree.)

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:48 am

Romania’s Eurovision song criticised for ‘glamorising sexual strangulation’

Calls for Alexandra Căpitănescu’s Choke Me to be banned as campaigners say lyrics are ‘dangerous’ and ‘reckless’

Romania’s Eurovision entry Choke Me has been labelled “dangerous” and “reckless” for appearing to glamorise sexual strangulation, an unsafe practice that can lead to brain injury and death.

Campaigners against sexual violence said the entry, in which the words “choke me” are repeated 30 times during the three-minute song, was “playing fast and loose with young women’s lives”.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Mining’s toxic timebomb: dams full of poisonous waste are dotted around the world. What happens when they burst?

While tailings dams are meant to last for ever, extreme weather events are making many unstable – with devastating consequences for nature and humans

As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway.

Thousands of lifeless fish rose to the surface as a plume of acid floated downriver, leaving dead crocodiles and other wildlife in its wake.

Published: March 13, 2026, 5:00 am

Do we want to keep fixing the same issue? Unlearned lessons from the first big oil crisis

As energy prices tripled in the 1970s due to Middle Eastern wars, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands sped up green transition

When Middle Eastern wars sparked an oil crisis in the 1970s, tripling energy prices and throwing economies into chaos, some countries looked beyond short-term solutions. The French made nuclear the pillar of their power system. Scandinavians insulated buildings and funnelled waste heat into homes. The Dutch built bike lanes where others wanted motorways. The Danes developed wind turbines.

Such steps cleaned filthy air and cut imports from autocrats but took a back seat when Russia invaded Ukraine half a century later. Europe raced to buy gas from the US and Middle East. Policies to roll out renewables by cutting red tape helped reduce dependence, but calls to use less energy and reduce waste were muted. Industry lobbying and populist backlash have since sabotaged efforts to phase out petrol cars and fossil boilers.

Published: March 13, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Kast is more like Trump’: Chile’s environmentalists prepare to do battle for the country’s future

Fears are growing that the new far-right president will slash environmental protections in favour of foreign investment

In Chile’s most northerly region, Arica y Parinacota, Andrea Chellew, 62, relies on tourists for her cafe. They usually travel from the coastal city of Arica to the unique biosphere of the Andean highlands, which rise well above 5,000 metres and host nature reserves and wetlands.

At 3,000 metres (9,800ft) above sea level, along Highway 11, she lives by the trade route that brings raw materials and goods between Bolivia and Chile. Yet the cafe remains empty as fewer tourists come, amid more reports of increased mining activity near environmentally protected areas, such as the Lauca national park.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:00 pm

London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution

Cycle lanes, electric cars and other interventions have helped 19 global cities slash levels of pollutants by more than 20%

London, San Francisco and Beijing are among 19 global cities that have achieved “remarkable reductions” in air pollution, analysis has found, having slashed levels of two airway-aggravating pollutants by more than 20% since 2010.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:00 am

Blistering early-season heatwave threatens California and other western states

Records could be smashed in southern California as experts warn weather set to be ‘exceptional – and not in a good way’

States across the US west are bracing for a brutal early-season heatwave threatening to cook several cities through the weekend and into next week. Forecasters warned temperatures will spike 20-30F above normal for several days.

Daily records could be shattered in southern California this week, the National Weather Service said, with a possibility that all-time records for March will be broken as well. Following the warmest winter on record across most of the region, the intense conditions are expected to eat into low snowpack levels, deepening drought concerns.

Published: March 12, 2026, 6:53 pm

Senate passes bill aimed at making US housing more accessible and affordable

The bipartisan bill’s future is uncertain, though, as Trump threatens to stall all legislation until voter-ID law is passed

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The Senate passed a broad bill on Thursday to make US housing more accessible and affordable, a rare bipartisan effort in Congress to address a growing national problem.

The bill, which passed 89-10, would reduce regulations, regulate corporate investors, and expand how housing dollars can be used to build affordable homes and rentals. It will now head back to the House, which passed a similar bill earlier this year.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:48 pm

‘She is our hero’: Oakland celebrates Alysa Liu after Olympics triumph

After earning gold in Milan, local figure-skating icon accepts a key to the city at a celebration of local artists

Nearly 5,000 people gathered in Oakland on Thursday afternoon to celebrate local hero Alysa Liu – a fitting homecoming for the two-time Olympic gold medalist who joyously shouted out the Bay Area city after her short program in Milan less than a month ago.

Scores of people arrived early on Thursday to snag a seat close to the stage in front of city hall at the free but ticketed event, which sold out quickly. One group of women donned striped wigs in tribute to Liu’s famously dyed hair, while others held handmade signs showing pride for the figure skating icon.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:50 am

Tennessee grandmother jailed after AI facial recognition error links her to fraud

Angela Lipps spent nearly six months in jail after AI software linked her to a North Dakota bank fraud case

A Tennessee grandmother says she is trying to rebuild her life after an incident of mistaken identity by an artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition system tied her to a North Dakota bank fraud investigation.

Angela Lipps, 50, spent nearly six months in jail after Fargo police identified her as a suspect in an organized bank fraud case using facial recognition software, according to south-east North Dakota news outlet InForum. Lipps told the outlet she had never been to North Dakota and did not commit the crimes.

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:29 pm

Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of Gaza detainee abuse

Five soldiers were indicted over alleged violent abuse and rape of Palestinian man at detention centre in 2024

Israel’s top military lawyer has dropped all charges against five soldiers accused of the violent abuse and rape of a Palestinian detainee from Gaza.

The military advocate general, Itay Offir, said prosecutors lacked key evidence after the victim was sent back to Gaza, and that the conduct of senior officials had affected the chance of holding a fair trial.

Published: March 12, 2026, 7:39 pm

British tourist among 20 charged in Dubai over videos of Iranian missile strikes

UAE cybercrime law means sharing images or footage of war can bring jail, prison time and deportation

A British man is among 20 people who have been charged in the United Arab Emirates under cybercrime laws in connection with filming and posting material related to Iranian attacks on the country.

The 60-year-old man, understood to be a tourist who was visiting Dubai, was charged under a law that prohibits sharing material that could disturb public security.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:20 pm

Two people die after donating plasma at Canadian clinics under federal investigation

Company that runs the sites says it has ‘no reason to believe there is a correlation between the donors’ passing and plasma donation’

Two people have died in Canada after donating plasma at a chain of clinics that has been under scrutiny by federal inspectors for failing to keep accurate records, screen donors or maintain its machines.

While experts say the deaths are exceedingly rare, critics say Canada’s embrace of private companies to handle blood products reflects a “slow collapse of a system that has been the envy of the world”.

Published: March 12, 2026, 3:24 pm

Eswatini says it received more ‘third country’ deportees as part of deal with Trump administration

Two deportees sent to Eswatini were from Somalia, one was from Sudan and one was from Tanzania

The government of Eswatini announced on Thursday it received four more “third country” deportees from the United States, as part of the Trump administration’s multimillion-dollar deal with the small African nation.

Now, a total of 19 deportees from the US have been sent to Eswatini when they hail from other countries, amid the Trump administration’s continued anti-immigrant crackdown and changes to immigration policy.

Published: March 12, 2026, 9:20 pm

Twisted Yoga review – a wild exposé of a tantric sex cult

This three-part documentary about women who were exploited and duped into sex work is filled with astonishing detail – while being sensitive to its interviewees

You are invited to an exclusive yoga retreat at “the villa”. When you arrive, it’s a grim building in Romania in which women cavort in micro-bikinis and drink each other’s urine after a mass orgy. You are summoned to meet a spiritual guru in Paris. When you arrive, a woman wraps your sim card in tin foil and drives you to the suburbs. Later you are taken to a dingy flat where you are expected to have hours-long sex with an elderly man whom you must “transfigure” into a less undesirable entity.

If this were a dream, you’d probably wake up disturbed by the weirdness of your subconscious. But for a number of women, this surreally terrifying chain of events was no nightmare. While the finer details of Twisted Yoga’s tale may be intriguingly wild, the broader picture is infuriating and sad.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:32 pm

South African photographer Zanele Muholi: ‘My mother worked for a white family. I remember the pools I wasn’t allowed to swim in’

The artist has spent three decades changing the face of African art, and has just won the prestigious Hasselblad award. But they say the win isn’t about them – it’s for under-represented people still living with the echoes of Apartheid

Zanele Muholi has been named the winner of the 2026 Hasselblad award. The South African artist, who identifies as non-binary, now takes their place within the pantheon of the world’s greatest art photographers, from Carrie Mae Weems, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wolfgang Tillmans and Sophie Calle all the way back to the forebears of the art form, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ansel Adams.

It’s the kind of accolade that codifies the breathless reception with which Muholi’s work has been heralded to date. When their 2020 survey show at London’s Tate Modern was stymied by pandemic visitor restrictions, the gallery brought it back four years later. One critic likened their arresting self-portraits to Rembrandt’s.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:00 pm

Oscars 2026: how to watch, nominations, what to read and predictions

Get ready for drama and glamour. Hollywood’s annual end-of-season party is on Sunday – here is your guide on where to watch and what to expect

The end is in sight: after months of campaigning, roundtables, red carpets and hot takes, it’s time for the big show. The Academy Awards are Hollywood’s end of season party, its senior prom and sports day all rolled into one, as the film world’s great and good stuff themselves into their tuxedos and/or fanciest frocks for a night of (we hope) entertaining mutual backslapping.

It’s fair to say that, so far, this awards season has been somewhat eventful, from the N-word fiasco at the UK’s normally sedate Baftas to the Timothée Chalamet Balletgate. Now the dust has settled, it looks like a straight fight between Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Thomas Pynchon adaptation One Battle After Another for most of the big prizes. Anderson’s chunky auteur project looked for a while as though it might have the edge, but since nomination day, when Sinners got more nods than any other previous film, momentum has appeared to move decisively in its direction. We shall see.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:19 pm

Dynasty: The Murdochs review – who cares which billionaire will control even more billions?

This Netflix’s documentary about Rupert’s warring children blurs the lines with HBO drama Succession. But, ultimately, it’s a depressing catalogue of nepotism that it’s hard to be enthused about

‘To explain the Murdochs, you have to understand the television show Succession.” So quips New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg a few minutes into this four-part documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s empire – and, specifically, his children’s battle for control of it when he dies.

It’s a canny opener. Jesse Armstrong’s series about media mogul Logan Roy and his warring children, thought to be based on the Murdochs, was a gripping smash hit, and this documentary is soon excitedly matching the eldest Murdoch siblings – independent Prudence from Rupert’s first marriage, dutiful favourite Lachlan, “problem child” James and brilliant but overlooked (pesky X chromosomes!) Elisabeth – to their Succession counterparts. (Rupert’s two younger daughters from his third marriage aren’t in the running.) But don’t be fooled: despite the suspenseful strings and off-key piano motifs, this is no Emmy-award-winning drama. Rather, it is an exhausting if exhaustive rundown of all things Murdoch, with the siblings’ manoeuvrings often the least interesting part. In the documentary, as in life, they are overshadowed by their dad.

Dynasty: The Murdochs is on Netflix now

Published: March 13, 2026, 8:01 am

Every Brilliant Thing review – Daniel Radcliffe sells tricky Broadway transfer

Hudson Theatre, New York

The hit one-man show about depression suffers from plain and often corny writing yet is saved by an exuberant turn from the Tony-winning Harry Potter star

Every Brilliant Thing presents a theatrical gauntlet for Daniel Radcliffe, the erstwhile Harry Potter, acclaimed Broadway stage regular and only star of this 13-week limited engagement.

It’s not that the show requires nonstop physical exertion – though it does require some, as in a scene of manic exuberance where Radcliffe’s character attempts to high-five the entire audience – so much as a quick-on-his-feet reactive (and interactive!) warmth. While Radcliffe is the only professional actor in the show, its framework involves pulling audience members, including but not limited to those in a semi-circle of on-stage seats, into the action, all while making sure the sorta-monologue (call it a monologue-plus) runs smoothly. This hybrid of acting, interacting and stage-directing must be exhausting. But apart from a few quick water breaks and one built-in collapse after sprinting around the aisles and doing those high-fives, Radcliffe doesn’t much show it. He appears to genuinely love the job, which requires either superhumanly high spirits or terrific acting. Maybe both.

Published: March 13, 2026, 3:00 am

Hit Netflix series has Germany’s spy agency dreaming of a less gaffe-prone future

Unfamiliar’s fictitious portrayal of hapless, rules-bound BND comes amid real-world calls to roll back postwar restraint

In the new Netflix series Unfamiliar, two spies working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency are trying to gauge the intentions of a Russian agent who has recently arrived in Berlin. They come up with a creative solution: hacking into his taxi’s dashcam and seizing footage of the spook as he shakes hands with a well-known hitman.

The six-part show revels in such flagrant disregard for red tape – the kind of brazen derring-do that Germany’s notoriously rule-bound Federal Intelligence Service (BND) can only dream of in real life.

Published: March 13, 2026, 7:00 am

Elisabeth Leonskaja review – piano legend’s unerring sense of architecture reveals connections and kinships

Wigmore Hall, London
In her recital programme of Beethoven, Schoenberg, Chopin, Webern and Schubert, the Austrian pianist brought new insights and expressive playing

Eighty-year-old piano legend Elisabeth Leonskaja throws herself on to the piano stool and into the two tumultuous descending chromatic scales that open Beethoven’s Op 77 Fantasia in G minor in a single gesture. We have a long way to go in a recital programme that reads like an Mittel-European lucky dip – Beethoven, Schoenberg, Chopin, Webern, Schubert – and Leonskaja isn’t messing around.

Of course, there was nothing chance about the programming. The Austrian pianist’s expressive, emotional playing may grab the headlines, but it’s the unerring sense of underlying architecture that’s the thread through her long career. We heard that here, not just within each of the works, but in the shared foundations, and sometimes secret connecting passages, she revealed between them.

Published: March 13, 2026, 1:09 pm

‘Villages are burned, animals slaughtered. We have to let the world know what’s happening’: Tinariwen and Imarhan fight for Tuareg music

Tinariwen went from Saharan weddings to Grammy-winning acclaim – but violence has forced the desert blues masters into exile. Now, a new generation is stepping in to help

Since their formation in 1979, Tuareg guitar band Tinariwen have been constantly moving. Based variously in Mali, Libya and Algeria, the Grammy-winning group have used their desert blues music as a lament for a wandering refugee status that continues to this day.

Co-founder Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni says the group are currently in Algeria, after band members had to flee their homes in Mali in October 2024. “The Malian military and the Russian mercenary group Wagner have been burning villages, slaughtering animals and raping women,” he says. “No one is talking about what is happening – no politicians or journalists – so we have to let the world know through our music.”

Published: March 13, 2026, 8:00 am

Add to playlist: the dadaist cubist racket of Angine de Poitrine and the week’s best new tracks

This hyped anonymous duo match the oddness of their costumes with shredding metal, microtonal flourishes and Dalek-style vocals

From Saguenay, Quebec
Recommended if you like Holy Fuck, Prescott, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Up next New LP Angine de Poitrine Volume II released 3 April. Touring the UK in May

In 2023, two young men – their earthly identities a jealously guarded secret – began “a joke that spilled into reality” intended to simulate something like its namesake heart condition. Weary of the solemn aura that attaches to guitar rock, they began playing what their website describes as “mantra-rock dada pythago-cubiste” as Angine de Poitrine. It is a joke delivered with mesmerising finesse.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Diagonale des Yeux: Madeleine review | Safi Bugel's experimental album of the month

(Knekelhuis)
Music boxes, miaows and strange melodies pepper the whimsical and charmingly lo-fi post-punk of Laurène Exposito and Théo Delaunay

The lyrics for Diagonale des Yeux’s debut album were written in the style of an exquisite corpse game, with members Laurène Exposito and Théo Delaunay taking it in turns to patch together ephemeral thoughts and themes in a mix of French, German, English and Spanish. The bizarre, multilingual stories that emerged match the French duo’s ramshackle, home-recorded sound, which features everything from toybox percussion to farmyard sound effects.

Their whimsical approach is anchored in the outsider pop and post-punk of 1980s Europe, which embraced discordant instrumentation and disaffected vocals. These 12 tracks are charmingly lo-fi, built around rudimentary synth and guitar melodies that often careen into strange directions. Acolytes jumps from frenetic punk jam into swooning breakdown and back again within just 90 seconds; Le Rayon Orchidée stumbles groggily to a halt like a malfunctioning music box. Both sing, adding to the theatrics: playing around with effects, they range from pitch-shifted, kitten-like miaows to macho groans.

Published: March 13, 2026, 9:00 am

Hooked by Asako Yuzuki review – follow-up to global hit Butter

A Tokyo high-flyer tries to befriend her favourite blogger in a novel that wears its aura of black comedy lightly, and its political statements more heavily

Asako Yuzuki’s international bestseller Butter was a taste sensation based on the true story of a Japanese female serial killer and gourmet chef who scammed and poisoned male victims with her culinary offerings. Attempting to get a scoop, a journalist bonds with the convicted prisoner by asking her for recipe tips, and gradually reassesses her own life and values as a result of this peculiar relationship. One review described the book as “the Martha Stewart Show meets The Silence of the Lambs”, but as well as the crime thriller/foodie mashup, a critique of capitalist society and deep-seated misogyny also emerged from the narrative. Yuzuki’s prose style, a mix of the banal and the profound, proved to be catnip for sales.

Hooked is the follow-up for English-language readers, though it was written earlier, in 2015, and like the previous novel is translated with crackling verve by Polly Barton. While a more introspective work, its high-wire plot and uneven trajectory make for a relentlessly dizzying experience. Fans of Butter might even view it as a trial run.

Published: March 13, 2026, 7:00 am

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan; The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan; Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison; Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman; Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran

The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan (Head of Zeus, £20)
Better known as a film-maker, Jordan has never stopped writing novels. His latest opens in 2084 in rural Ireland, where Christian Cartwright works for the Huxley Institute in the titular library, secretly misusing its memory storage technology to talk with his dead lover Isolde, restoring her to a semblance of digital life. The story moves between Christian’s experiences and similar events two centuries earlier in the life of his ancestor, Montagu Cartwright, the architect responsible for the Huxley Mansion and local church, who owned an ancient obsidian mirror, believed to have been the famous scrying glass of John Dee. Lyrically written, brimming with ideas, sometimes sinister and often humorous, it’s an enchanting read.

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan (Tor, £22)
This debut novel is based on the historic Beast of Gévaudan, a wolf-like creature that terrorised a region of France between 1764 and 1767. But it is much more than another werewolf fantasy. The narrator, Sebastian Grave, seems immortal, writing a memoir in the 21st century about his adventures in the 1700s. Even then he was old, and shared his mind and body with a demon called Sarmodel, whose occult powers helped him to destroy a terrible beast. Twenty years later, the same area is once again ravaged by a bloodthirsty creature: since Sebastian is sent for by the man who had been his boon companion on the first hunt, and his lover, he hopes this means an end to their long estrangement. A wonderfully original, engrossing novel, combining history and fantasy, with a unique narrative voice and fascinating characters.

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:00 pm

Daisy Johnson: ‘I wasn’t a fan of David Szalay, but Flesh is a masterpiece’

The Booker-shortlisted author on a momentous teenage encounter with The Bone People, getting a buzz from Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla, and trying to avoid The Lorax

My earliest reading memory
Memories from my childhood are opening up as I read to my own young children at the moment. Something in the pictures of Helen Cooper’s The Bear Under the Stairs or Lane Smith’s The Big Pets takes me back to being four years old and being read to.

My favourite book growing up
I love the Sabriel series by Garth Nix and first read it alongside my father and, later, my younger brother. It was truly a shared joy to be immersed in that world, for a book to give us a new connection to one another.

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Light and Thread by Han Kang review – a tantalising book of reflections

This prose work from the Nobel literature winner opens up her novels and offers beautiful imagery

When Korean novelist Han Kang won the Nobel prize in literature in 2024, the committee praised her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. In other words, Han’s work looks both out at the world – towards the 1980 Gwangju massacre fictionalised in her novel Human Acts –  and inward to the human experience, as with The Vegetarian’s portrait of one woman’s claustrophobic struggle.

Much of the appeal of Han’s work is in its mystery, the gaps she leaves for the reader to close. So it is tantalising to have this collection of prose, “a book of reflections” that might illuminate the darker corners of her work.

Published: March 13, 2026, 9:00 am

Less respawning, more re-rolling: six of the best board games based on video games

From war zones and socially virtuous farming to ever-changing boards and role-playing with 167 dice, here’s our pick of the most absorbing table-based entertainment

Video games have long been heavily inspired by physical games, from chess and Scrabble to Dungeons & Dragons. The deck-building collectible card game, for example, has become immensely popular in digital form, thanks to hits such as Slay the Spire, Marvel Snap and Balatro. Now, an increasing number of games are going in the opposite direction, trading pixels for pieces and screens for spinners. Here are six of our favourites.

Company of Heroes 2nd Edition (Bad Crow Games, £119.70)

Published: March 13, 2026, 10:00 am

Bafta games awards 2026: Clair Obscur and Dispatch lead the nominations

Last year’s celebrated French hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated in 12 categories this year, with Ghost of Yōtei, Dispatch, Death Stranding 2 and Indiana Jones also making strong showings

The 22nd Bafta games awards are coming up in April, and the 2026 nominations list is dominated by the impeccably stylish French breakout hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 which has 12 nominations, and has already won game of the year prizes at the UK’s Golden Joysticks last November, December’s Game awards in the US and February’s Dice awards in Las Vegas.

Dispatch, a game about a benched superhero roped into running a team of superpowered misfits at a call centre, has nine nominations. Among them is a best performer in a leading role nod for its star Aaron Paul, and one for Jeffrey Wright in a supporting role. Sony’s samurai epic Ghost of Yōtei came out with eight nominations, including best game and best performer in a leading role for Erika Ishii, who plays Atsu.

Published: March 12, 2026, 3:00 pm

Marathon is a stylishly merciless video game built for cut-throat times

A lot is riding on the success of the latest multiplayer online shooter from Halo creator Bungie, a DayGlo spectacular that whisks players to a far-off planet mired in an endless battle for resources

In rare quiet moments playing Marathon, you may find yourself overcome by the iridiscently pretty planet Tau Ceti IV. This fictional world seems to radiate a chemical glow: powdery pink skies and lurid green vegetation fill the screen alongside supermassive architecture emblazoned with ultra-stylish, neon graphic design. Yet enjoy the scenery for a split second too long and you might catch a bullet, causing your character to bleed an icky blue substance. In such moments, the camera locks – meaning you must stare down at their unceremonious expiry. Marathon’s considerable beauty is matched only by its clinical brutality.

The road to Marathon’s release has been long and contentious. This extraction shooter – so-called because you must do as much shooting and looting as you can in a given level before making an escape – was first shown off in 2022 with a ravishing trailer (below). Among many startling images, it showed tiny robotic bugs, a little like silkworms, weaving a synthetic body into existence. The game, made by Halo and Destiny creator Bungie, looked weird in a way that blockbuster shooters rarely do, causing excitable stirrings among both shooter stalwarts and art-game aficionados.

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:00 am

‘On YouTube, we can reach 2.5bn people at once’: Oscars head Bill Kramer on TV, AI and 4am starts

The Academy CEO on his decidedly non-Hollywood beginnings, bonding with Robert Redford – and a formative watch of All That Jazz

It’s a boiling day in downtown Los Angeles; crowds are milling about outside the Dolby theatre where Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony is to be held, selfie-ing the giant Oscar statuettes.

And this is where the man with whom the buck stops is looking at the set, going through the top-secret opening number and busy with a thousand admin details. Academy CEO, Bill Kramer, increasingly renowned as one of the most important people in Hollywood, meets me for a pre-ceremony chat in a suite in the next-door Hollywood Loews Hotel. “It’s so nice that we’re not on camera!” he says. “Yeah, so happy. Let myself relax!”

He is approachable and diplomatic, revered for his fundraising wizardry at the Academy museum, where he was managing director of external development in 2012 before ascending to his current job at the Academy 10 years later. Kramer has a business degree and came to Columbia after his first substantial job working for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York.

It was at a party in the 90s that this policy and financial strategist met the man who changed his life: Robert Redford. “He couldn’t believe how much I knew about movies!” says Kramer. “And he said he wanted to decrease reliance on corporate sponsorships and bring someone on board at Sundance to help generate philanthropic gifts from individuals. Would I be interested in doing that? I said: ‘Sign me up!’”

This can-do attitude is still evident in Kramer today. A few days out from showtime, he is, he says, “so incredibly excited. I’m an early riser, as my team will tell you, up at 4am. It’s a good moment to get my head together, to review our script. It’s a quiet moment where I can go through emails that have come in overnight.”

Published: March 12, 2026, 3:52 pm

The unbelievable life of Leo Sayer! The songs, the sex, being swindled – and a spooky phone call from Elvis

He lit up the 1970s with a string of hits, before falling out of the public eye. But was any man ever more connected? He discusses extraordinary encounters with Muhammad Ali and Keith Moon – and why he stormed out of Big Brother

Leo Sayer has stories. Boy, does he have stories! Muhammad Ali? Stories. Keith Moon? Stories. Elvis Presley? Stories. I’ve never met anybody with so many stories. He’s in Australia, where he lives, when we speak by video link. The pint-sized pop star with the mop of curly hair is 77 and still bouncing like a Superball.

Back in the 70s, he was famous for his turbo-charged energy. On his first Top of the Pops appearance with his breakthrough hit, The Show Must Go On, he dressed as a pierrot. If you’re looking for the footage, you won’t find it. Paedophile presenter Jimmy Savile played such a prominent role that the video was disappeared, Sayer claims. “He was creepy. He wouldn’t get off the fucking stage, so they can never show my first performance. I’m sure he fancied me.”

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

KPop Demon Hunters sequel confirmed at Netflix: ‘This is only the beginning’

The streamer’s biggest film of all time, also nominated for two Oscars, is getting a follow-up

A sequel to record-breaking hit KPop Demon Hunters has been officially confirmed at Netflix.

The film will again be a collaboration between the streamer and Sony with Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, the writer-directors, returning.

Published: March 12, 2026, 6:46 pm

Venice Biennale risks losing EU funding over planned Russia involvement

European Commission says it will suspend €2m grant if organisers of arts festival go ahead with proposals

The European Commission has warned it will cut funding for the Venice Biennale if organisers go ahead with plans to include Russia.

The commission reiterated that any breach of ethical standards by the art festival would be treated as a violation of contract, leading to suspension of the €2m (£1.7m) agreement.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘Beauty is always changing’: Alessandro Michele’s Roman tribute to Valentino

The first proper show since Valentino’s death is about the late designer, about beauty – and about Michele’s mother

Valentino Garavani wanted to make beautiful clothes for the women who could afford them. The perpetually tanned designer, whose vision of jet set glamour was matched only by his own yacht-and-pug lifestyle, died in January. So there was an obvious logic in taking the first proper catwalk show since his death off the fashion week schedule and back to Rome, where he lived, worked, and died. Milan and Paris may be the capitals of European style, but Rome looks better.

Garavani left his own brand almost 20 years ago. But his singular approach to beauty has not been without its obstacles for his most recent successor, Alessandro Michele, who took over the fashion house in 2024. “It’s a complicated DNA because beauty is always changing,” he said after the show, which took place in the 17th-century Palazzo Barberini. “This collection is about Valentino. It’s about beauty. But it’s [also] about the tension between me and the brand, a beauty I’m trying to translate.”

Published: March 13, 2026, 12:17 pm

I tested 10 plastic-free cutting boards for six weeks. These were the winners

Chopping boards are the foundation of cooking – and a good, sturdy one will last you years. We picked the best non-plastic ones, including wood and synthetic rubber

• The seven best non-toxic cooking pans in the US, tested in a food lab

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A cutting board is literally the foundation of most things you cook: any recipe that needs chopping, smashing, mincing, carving and sometimes even serving. And, let’s be honest, piling up other kitchen items while we make a bit of a mess.

Plastic boards are affordable and convenient, but have been shown to shed significant levels of microplastics into food. While the health damage caused by microplastics is still being studied, nobody really needs microplastics in their minestrone. And while many people assume that plastic boards are the most hygienic, a study from the Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety found little differences “in microbiological counts” on wooden and plastic cutting boards “after proper cleaning”.

Best overall:
Brooklyn Butcher Block’s End Grain Walnut Butcher Block

Published: March 12, 2026, 7:15 pm

Try small steps and set the bar low: how to find the meaning of life

Don’t treat it as a lofty quest, experts say. You can make each day feel more meaningful with humbler methods

What makes your life meaningful?

If you don’t really know, you’re far from alone. “We’re in the middle of a meaning crisis,” says Bill Burnett, executive director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University.

Published: March 12, 2026, 4:00 pm

Why is smoking so addictive – and what are the best ways to give up?

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

Published: March 12, 2026, 10:26 am

Plant a blossom tree in your garden and feel its magic for years to come

The sight of blossom against a bright blue sky is one of the joys of spring, and the right tree will keep on giving year after year

Just shy of three years ago, I planted a cherry tree in my garden. It was the result of a deeply postpartum, vaguely chaotic research mission: to find a tree that was small yet substantial enough for my compact London garden. I wanted a pollution-hardy tree with flowers the right shade of pale pink that would bloom around the time of my newborn son’s vernal equinox birthday. Celebrating a baby’s new arrival with a tree or a shrub is one of the most romantic, and hopefully enduring, gifts one can give.

I chose a Prunus ‘Accolade’ (pictured above). It feels funny to associate that tree with the boisterous little boy I live with. But the blossom was undeniably magic. There was a window on our stairway that framed it perfectly. Every time we popped up or down we got a hit of candyfloss pink. Six months later, when we marked his half-years with the autumn equinox, the tree’s leaves would begin to turn golden.

Published: March 13, 2026, 11:00 am

‘Highly problematic behavior’: Noma residency in LA starts with PR crisis

After stories of René Redzepi’s abuse of staff resurfaced, protests and sponsorship cancellations eclipsed the restaurant’s pop-up

It was always going to be an indulgence for René Redzepi, the Danish-Albanian chef of Noma fame, to bring his exacting, innovative vision of haute cuisine to Los Angeles and spend several weeks tickling the palates of well-heeled diners at a hilltop estate once dubbed “the most beautiful home in Hollywood”.

The timing has certainly been unfortunate, since the US is now fighting a destabilizing war in the Middle East and food prices are climbing so steeply that many ordinary Americans can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s, much less contemplate the counterintuitive delights of tacinga cactus, bougainvillea petals, mealworms and giant tuna eyes.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:23 am

I challenged ChatGPT to a writing competition. Could it actually replace me?

In week two of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic put his reputation on the line

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Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect being replaced by AI. Many of them say they never use it on principle; I know all of them do.

So this week, as part of my AI diary, I’m conducting the forbidden experiment in plain sight. I’m going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer. Can it truly match me, and might it replace me? Let’s settle this.

Sara lay on the comforter, visualising the fluttering in her chest. Was this panic? It was frustrating that her mind kept returning to work. Like an itch – when she was on the sales floor, the day always took on a prickly heat.

Quinn seemed to see straight through Sara. “When a guy comes in that you like, you stand different,” she had offered today, when Sara had only come over to re-fold cardigans. Then, as if playing a hand of cards, she’d turned. Unfurled her neck exaggeratedly, rose-tattooed shoulders open. She wore an expression somehow stupid yet alert, goose-like. Sara had to suppress the impulse to laugh. Her mortification mixed with an unfamiliar sensation, which she didn’t like. Not the feeling; the mystery of it.

At the heart of town there’s a florist whose roses look like sirens: all red mouth, all warning. I buy one because my chest feels unfurnished, an Airbnb between tenants. Outside, a bus screeches; a pigeon argues with a chip. A cellist saws at the air as if carving a door where no door exists, and for a second I believe in emergency exits.

“Take heart,” my therapist says, which sounds like a shoplifting tip for feelings. I picture slipping courage under my coat and walking briskly past security. Instead I take the long way home, past kebab glitter and the nail bar named after an emotion. The rose keeps pricking my palm through the paper, a tiny curriculum in pain: focus sharpens you, but you’ll leak a little.

Published: March 12, 2026, 11:00 am

You be the judge: should my housemate stop warming her mug and then pouring the water back into the kettle?

Brent thinks Amy’s habit is unhygienic, but she says his argument doesn’t hold water. Trouble’s brewing – and you decide who’s in the right

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Amy says that boiling water kills germs so it’s hygienic, but one time I found a hair in my mug

Pouring the water away is a waste, and I can use up my recycled water before Brent returns from work

Published: March 12, 2026, 8:00 am

‘I said no, then I just gave up’: Brooke Nevils on her sexual assault claims about one of TV’s biggest stars

The former NBC producer says she was repeatedly assaulted by Matt Lauer, an anchor at the network – then spent years blaming herself in the aftermath. She talks about power, preconceptions and life after #MeToo

When Brooke Nevils’ allegations about the former NBC anchor Matt Lauer, one of the most powerful TV stars in the US, became public in 2019, she found herself reading comments about herself online.

Nevils, formerly a producer at NBC, had alleged in Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill that Lauer had sexually assaulted her in his hotel room, after an evening drinking while covering the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Back in New York, there were other incidents – she went to his apartment, where she says it happened again. In his dressing room at the NBC studios, Nevils claims Lauer pushed her down and forced her to give him oral sex. Lauer has consistently denied Nevils’ allegations, in an open letter describing it as an “extramarital affair”. Lauer maintains that Nevils’ account is “filled with false details” creating the impression that the encounter was abusive. No charges were ever brought.

Published: March 12, 2026, 2:44 pm

‘Exploit every vulnerability’: rogue AI agents published passwords and overrode anti-virus software

Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

Robert Booth UK technology editor

Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.

With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.

Published: March 12, 2026, 12:04 pm

Where Duolingo falls down: how I learned to speak Welsh with my mother

Once violently defended from extinction, Welsh is still a part of daily life. By learning my family’s language, I hoped to join their conversation

My maternal grandmother died 20 years ago. The funeral was held in a small Methodist chapel in the lush Conwy valley of north Wales. Her entire life – she had almost reached 100 – was spent in these hills. The drizzle that morning had slicked the trees and turned the slate of the chapel black. Our family, gathered under umbrellas, entered in order of seniority: Mum, now the family elder, with Dad on her arm, then my six aunts and uncles with their spouses, and finally the cousins, led by my brother Mark and me.

The room was austere. White walls, sturdy wooden furniture, a plain cross on the wall. Our family squeezed into box pews in the centre of the chapel. A couple of older men among the crowd reminded me of my grandfather, who had died decades earlier: similar thatches of black hair; dark, weathered complexions; history-book faces.

Published: March 12, 2026, 5:00 am

Snow geese, a lava flow and Oscars prep: photos of the day – Friday

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

Published: March 13, 2026, 2:24 pm