‘What happened in Texas is a warning’: advocates say Republicans suppressed votes in the primaries

In Dallas and Williamson counties, voters faced long lines, extended wait times and confusion about voting location

On Tuesday, Texas held its Democratic and Republican primaries ahead of the upcoming November midterms. Democratic voters chose between Jasmine Crockett, the anti-Trump firebrand congresswoman, and James Talarico, the populist state representative, in an election that attracted national attention. Crockett conceded the race and endorsed Talarico on Wednesday, but only after claiming late on election night that she wasn’t ready to concede because of a voting issue in Dallas.

“We don’t have any of the results because there was a lot of confusion today,” Crockett told supporters at her election-night party. “We were able to keep the polls open, but I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.” Crockett received 45.6% of the vote, compared with Talarico’s 53.1%.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:10 pm

‘Our consciousness is under siege’: Michael Pollan on chatbots, social media and mental freedom

In his new book, the celebrated author explains why we need ‘consciousness hygiene’ to defend ourselves from AI and dopamine-driven algorithms

Each day when you wake up, you come back to yourself. You see the room around you, feel your body brush against your clothes and think about your plans, worries and hopes for the day. This daily internal experience is miraculous and mysterious, and the subject of Michael Pollan’s new book, A World Appears.

It also may be under siege, Pollan said. He recently suggested that people need a “consciousness hygiene” to defend our internal world against invaders that are trying to move in. Our ability to sit with our thoughts and perceive the world, he argues, is increasingly disrupted by algorithms engineered to tickle our dopamine receptors and capture our attention. Meanwhile, people are forming attachments to non-human chatbots, projecting consciousness on to entities that do not possess it.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:00 pm

Kamala Harris might run for president again in 2028. Please, no | Arwa Mahdawi

Harris’s 2024 campaign lacked authenticity and conviction. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you today. The bad news is, well, everything. As you may have noticed, the world is on fire. The good news, however, is that a savior may be at hand. Kamala Harris, a politician who has never won a presidential primary and lost the popular vote to Donald Trump in 2024, hasn’t ruled out running for president again.

Harris has kept a fairly low profile since November 2024, focusing most of her energy on promoting 107 Days, her account of her truncated presidential run, and appearing as the guest of honour at the 2025 Australian Real Estate Conference. But she has also made it clear that she still has an eye on the White House: in an interview with the BBC last October, Harris said she was “not done” with politics and strongly suggested she might run for president again. Harris echoed these sentiments in a conversation with the podcaster Sharon McMahon last week. “I might,” she said when asked if she will run again.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:00 pm

$700 Erewhon hauls, 21-hour shifts: celebrity assistants go public with their grueling, fabulous work

Staff for the rich and famous are influencerizing their day-to-day lives, giving followers access to luxury while creating financial safety nets for themselves

Victoria Hiegel, personal assistant to a celebrity client she cannot name because of a nondisclosure agreement, spent 13 February ferrying Valentine’s Day cookies across Manhattan. Her boss “doesn’t love chocolate,” so Hiegel had to hunt for a bakery that could swap the batch’s chocolate chunks for sour hearts. She posted part of her search to TikTok, where she received thousands of views from people keen to watch her cater to the whims of the rich and famous.

Hiegel, 26, is a microcelebrity in her own right. Wearing her blond hair in carefully styled waves and speaking with a practised ease, she has obvious star appeal. But it is her career that fascinates her 1m followers.

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:00 am

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man review – Tommy Shelby returns for muddy, bloody big-screen showdown

Cillian Murphy reprises his haunted gang boss in Steven Knight’s muscular film spin-off – as a wartime clash with Nazis and family betrayal pulls him back to Birmingham

After six TV series from 2013 to 2022, which caused a worrying surge in flat cap-wearing among well-to-do men in country pubs, Peaky Blinders is now getting a hefty standalone feature film, a muscular picture swamped in mud and blood. This is the movie version of Steven Knight’s global small-screen hit, based on the real-life gangs that swaggered through Birmingham from Victorian times until well into the 20th century. Cillian Murphy returns with his uniquely unsettling, almost sightless stare as Tommy Shelby, family chieftain of a Romani-traveller gang, a man who has converted his trauma in the trenches of the first world war into a ruthless determination to survive and rule.

As we join the story some years after the curtain last came down, it is 1940, Britain’s darkest hour and Tommy is the crime-lion in winter. He now lives in a huge, remote mansion, far from the Birmingham crime scene he did so much to create, alone except for his henchman Johnny Dogs, played by Packy Lee. Evidently wearied and sickened by it all, Tommy is haunted by his ghosts and demons: memories of his late brother, Arthur, and dead daughter, Ruby, and working on what will be his definitive autobiography. (Sadly, we don’t get any scenes of Tommy having lunch with a drawling London publisher or agent.)

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:00 pm

From Mulder and Scully to Marge and Homer: your favourite TV couples

Slow-burn office crushes that left you weeping, sitcoms that made you fall in love and vampire shows that changed you for ever: Guardian readers pick their ultimate television romances

A mark of a true romance is that the couple are closer than anyone else in the world. As Emily Brontë said, “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” This is true for Miss Piggy and Kermit. They’ve had a longer relationship than most TV couples (since 1976), although it has been tumultuous. No matter what universe, from Dickensian London to Treasure Island to their various TV shows and movies over the years, they find each other – even after their official separation in 2015. Did Ross ever say to Rachel: “You don’t need the whole world to love you, you just need one person”? I don’t think so. Michelle, 19, Manchester

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:41 pm

US House rejects war powers resolution to end Trump’s hostilities with Iran

Democratic-backed measure that would have forced US to withdraw troops failed by a vote of 212-219

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The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a Democratic-backed measure to halt hostilities with Iran, as Republicans cleared the way for Donald Trump to continue the conflict that has drawn in countries across the Middle East, but criticized as having unclear goals.

By a vote of 212-219, the House voted to reject a war powers resolution proposed by Thomas Massie, a Republican representative, and Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative, which would have forced the US to withdraw from the conflict until Congress authorized military action. The vote was largely along party lines, with two Republicans breaking with their party to support the resolution, and four Democrats voting against it.

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:56 pm

Middle East crisis live: Israeli military begins strikes on Beirut suburbs; Trump demands say in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader

IDK says it is striking Dahiya neighborhood in southern suburbs of Beirut after earlier issuing evacuation order; Trump dismisses idea of Khamenei’s son succeeding his father as leader

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

Iran says it has targeted Kurdish groups in Iraq and warned “separatist groups” against action in the widening war.

Tehran said on Thursday it had hit Iraq-based Kurdish groups “opposed to the revolution”, as reports said the US was looking to arm Kurdish militias to infiltrate Iran.

We will not tolerate them in any way.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:38 pm

‘There’s no safe place any more’: inside Tehran under attack – photo essay

Photojournalist Stefanie Glinski speaks to Iranian photographer Mohammad Mohsenifar, who has been documenting the attacks on the Iranian capital over the past week

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iranians woke up on Thursday to a new round of explosions in Tehran, on the sixth day of war since the US and Israel launched attacks that have so far killed more than 1,200 people, including the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The casualties include 168 children who were killed at a school in the southern province of Hormozgan; thousands more people have been injured.

People mourn the killing of Ali Khamenei along Enghelab Street in Tehran on Sunday

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:03 pm

Trump fires homeland security secretary Kristi Noem

Markwayne Mullin, Republican senator and Maga ally, to replace Noem as Democrats cheer departure of ‘disaster’

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as the homeland security secretary, capping weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership after immigration agents killed two US citizens and reports emerged that she was involved in a personal relationship with a top deputy.

Noem’s firing was the first major personnel shake-up of Trump’s second term. The president made it public in a post on Truth Social, in which he said Markwayne Mullin, a Republican Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:47 pm

New York and other US states sue Trump over ‘illegal and reckless’ tariffs

Lawsuit says president does not have authority to impose levies and demands refunds from federal government

A coalition of Democratic attorneys general and governors across 24 US states are suing Donald Trump to block his latest round of tariffs.

The White House is planning to enact a new 15% tariff on all imports after the supreme court declared Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs illegal. The tariffs have yet to go into effect, though the White House said the new rate would start this week.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:10 pm

Trump says he fired Anthropic ‘like dogs’ as negotiations with Pentagon reportedly restart

Reports say talks have resumed between defense department and startup over military’s use of company’s AI

• US politics live – latest updates

• Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem

Donald Trump boasted about severing the ties between the US military and Anthropic on Thursday, the same day multiple reports said that negotiations between the Department of Defense and the AI startup had resumed.

They’re among the latest developments in the twisting rift between the US government and the AI company.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:11 pm

Senators demand investigation after ninth American killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in West Bank

Lawmakers cite ‘consistent pattern’ in which Americans are being killed ‘without justice or accountability’

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More than 30 US senators have signed a letter demanding that the Trump administration open an independent investigation into the February killing of a 19-year-old American in the occupied West Bank, the ninth US citizen killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since 2022.

The letter, led by Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and addressed to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the US attorney general, Pam Bondi; and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, asks for a US-led investigation and a full accounting of where all nine cases stand, and for the administration to brief Congress on the killing by 5 April. None of the cases have resulted in a criminal conviction.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:47 pm

Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’

In leaked chats, students at Florida International University referenced Nazis and made antisemitic and racist remarks

It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.

Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:30 pm

Dismay as Hegseth urges Latin American allies to join ‘offense’ against cartels

Critics sceptical Pentagon chief’s plan for increased military force – amid rising US intervention – will stop drug gangs

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has urged Latin American countries to adopt a more aggressive approach against drug cartels, warning that the Trump administration may otherwise act unilaterally in the region.

Hegseth’s remarks come in a context of escalating US intervention in the region, both militarily and in elections, which culminated in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro – the first US ground military attack on a South American country.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:50 pm

Mark Zuckerberg says criminal behavior on Facebook inevitable

Meta CEO, grilled about children’s safety, says in taped deposition a user pool of billions will include bad actors

Harms to children, such as sexual exploitation and detriments to mental health, are inevitable on Meta’s platforms, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram leader Adam Mosseri said in taped depositions played at a trial in New Mexico on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I just think if you’re serving billions of people, the unfortunate reality is that some very small percent of them are going to be criminals, and we should work as hard as we can to stop that activity from happening,” said Zuckerberg. “I don’t think that the standard for our platforms would be that you should assume that it will ever be perfect.”

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:26 pm

Suspect apprehended after three women found dead in rural Utah

Suspect identified as Ivan Miller, 22, found after he was tracked in one of the victims’ vehicles, authorities say

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Authorities have apprehended a suspect after three women were found dead at two separate locations in Utah on Wednesday.

The suspect has been identified as Ivan Miller, 22, of Blakesburg, Iowa. He was taken into custody early on Thursday morning after law enforcement “tracked him in one of the victims’ vehicles”, the Utah public safety department said in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:01 pm

Britney Spears arrested in California for DUI

Singer was handcuffed by highway patrol on Wednesday night and has since deleted her Instagram profile

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Britney Spears was arrested in Ventura county, California, on Wednesday night for driving under the influence.

The singer was stopped and handcuffed by the California highway patrol at about 9.28pm local time, as first reported by TMZ and confirmed by Variety.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:38 pm

Panel reviewing Trump’s $400m White House ballroom postpones vote

National Capital Planning Commission cites ‘large amount of public input’, with a majority opposing the plan

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A federal panel reviewing Donald Trump’s planned $400m ballroom addition to the White House postponed an expected vote on the project until next month, after receiving thousands of negative public comments.

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) had been expected to cast a final vote on the proposal on Thursday, but instead, the chair of the commission announced at the beginning of the meeting that the vote would now be held on 2 April, citing the “large amount of public input” submitted during the public comment period.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:00 pm

South Africa’s president calls Trump’s policy to offer refuge to white Afrikaners ‘racist’

US president is ‘truly uninformed’ for spreading claims of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa tells New York Times

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has called Donald Trump’s policy of allowing white Afrikaners to apply for refugee status in the US “racist”, saying the US president was “truly uninformed” in a rare instance of direct criticism.

Ramaphosa told the New York Times that last year’s Oval Office meeting with the US leader, when Trump turned down the lights and played a video that he falsely claimed showed there was a “white genocide” in South Africa, was a “spectacle” and an “ambush”.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:23 pm

US judge orders refunds for more than $130bn in illegal Trump tariffs

Trade court directs customs to repay importers with interest after supreme court ruled tariffs unlawful

A US trade court judge on Wednesday ordered the government to begin paying potentially billions of dollars in refunds to importers who paid tariffs that the supreme court said last month were collected illegally. Richard Eaton, a judge of the US Court of International Trade in Manhattan, ordered the government to finalize the cost of bringing millions of shipments into the US without assessing a tariff, according to a court filing. He ordered the refunds to be made with interest.

When merchandise is brought into the United States, an importer pays an estimated amount at entry which is then finalized around 314 days later, a process known as liquidation. Eaton directed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to finalize the entry cost on shipments without the tariff being assessed, resulting in a refund.

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:17 pm

No deportation officer has been killed in the line of duty since ICE’s creation

Only one person working job that today would be called ‘deportation officer’ has died from act of violence, Guardian review shows

Since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, homeland security officials have consistently argued that deportation officers are facing unprecedented threats.

To better understand the dangers facing those officers, the Guardian examined the agency’s own tracking of its fallen officers, as well as recent violent incidents targeting immigration officers flagged by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:00 pm

Why does Trump want Kurdish fighters to join the war in Iran? - The Latest

Intense waves of airstrikes have hit dozens of military positions, frontier posts and police stations along northern parts of Iran’s border with Iraq in what appears to be preparation by the US and Israel for a new front in their war. Iran has warned ‘separatist groups’ in this region against joining the widening conflict and launched strikes against Iraq-based Kurdish groups it described as ‘opposed to the revolution’. Could the involvement of these militant groups increase the risk of a civil war in Iran if the regime collapses? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to deputy head of international news Devika Bhat.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:44 pm

Donald Trump insists there are no wind farms in China. Here are 20 of them – in pictures

The US president has made the easily debunked claim that there are no wind farms in China

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:01 pm

Even in these depressing times, Love is Blind is profoundly bleak television

The 10th season of Netflix’s reality TV show has given us old-fashioned gender roles, bad behavior and a dark look at what dating looks like in 2026

In this rotted year that is 2026, there is no shortage of things to depress us: domestic terrorism by federal agents, war, the predominance of AI and sports-betting ads at the Super Bowl. The Epstein files. The Fifa peace prize. Six more weeks of winter. The need for escapism, or catharsis, or both, is as pressing as ever. And yet the thing that has depressed me most, in the low-stakes “I can actually wrap my brain around this” way is the pinnacle of smooth-brained, escapist entertainment: the new season of Netflix’s Love Is Blind, set in Ohio.

To be clear, Love Is Blind has never been a good show, even by reality TV standards. The first season of the series, in which young, generally attractive singles form emotional connections in “pods” and then get engaged sight unseen, had the good(ish) fortune of premiering just before a pandemic that gave “pod” a terribly relatable new valence; even still, it was described as “toxic”, “revolting” and, of course, “totally addictive”. At its best, the show can voyeuristically poke at our judgments and vocalize uncomfortable feelings, bringing up issues of race, politics, weight, attractiveness and age on top of the usual alcohol-aided drama, idealized romance and classic reality TV victim and villainy. At worst, it’s boring. Generally, it’s pleasantly baffling – modern dating sucks, for sure, but getting married after six weeks? That’s unrelatable content, perfect second-screen fare. But the Ohio version, and I say this with much love and ardent loyalty for my home state, has reached new lows, both on the level of production and in the spectacle itself.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:11 pm

Mitski review – pop meets performance art in a masterful spectacle

The Shed, New York City
At a six-night residency, the singer creates an immersive world filled with wry humor and big emotions

Mitski was one of the great social media posters before the internet tried to swallow her whole. “I used to rebel by destroying myself, but realized that’s awfully convenient to the world,” went a 2016 tweet from the musician, who long ago nuked that account. “For some of us, our best revolt is self-preservation.”

As her career has skyrocketed with multiple TikTok-powered streaming juggernauts following the 2018 viral hit Nobody, Mitski has gradually withdrawn from the public eye and declined most interviews. Over her last few albums, she has adopted a mode of performance that contrasts with the emotion of her lyrics: on the tour to support 2018’s Be the Cowboy, she used plain folding chairs and tables as props in a performance that felt almost robotic in its precision.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:18 pm

With the advance of AI, I feel my work as an artist is no longer respected. Should I just give up? | Leading questions

Think back to the reason you started making art, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes, then separate this from the money or acclaim

• Read more Leading questions

I’m an artist in my 30s without any major success. Before the pandemic I had quite a lot of opportunities. Unfortunately Covid and then political and personal matters beyond my control shattered my work and social circles. I lost contacts and had no time for networking.

My art evolved with me and has become less conceptual, more narrative and accessible. The most fulfilling moment in the last few months was when I surprised a local cashier by giving her an illustration. Nevertheless, I’ve started to doubt that I can move people with my art.

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:17 pm

Stephen Colbert on Republican double-speak for war in Iran: ‘A war that got a thesaurus for Christmas’

Late-night hosts discussed the confusing, contradictory rhetoric from Republicans to justify the Trump administration’s bombing of Iran

Late-night hosts unpacked the Orwellian double-speak of congressional Republicans trying to justify the Trump administration’s military strikes in Iran.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:41 pm

Power without a throne: how Khalifa Haftar controls Libya

When Nato helped overthrow Gaddafi in 2011, there were hopes of a new beginning. More than a decade later, a former CIA asset runs the country – and Libya has become yet another lesson in the unintended consequences of foreign intervention

In July 2025, four of Europe’s most senior officials landed in eastern Libya for an urgent meeting. Italy’s interior minister had watched migrant arrivals surge during the previous six months. Greece’s migration chief was reeling after 2,000 people reached Crete in a single week. Malta’s home minister feared his island was next. And the EU’s migration commissioner was scrambling to rescue an agreement worth many hundreds of millions that was visibly failing to stop the boats.

Libya is a place where crises converge. Its 1,100-mile coastline, the longest Mediterranean coastline in Africa, has become the main departure point for migrants heading north. Since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011, the country has been torn apart by successive civil wars. Russia, Turkey, Egypt and the UAE arm rival factions, and the contest no longer stops at Libya’s borders. From military bases in the south, Russia and the UAE funnel weapons and fighters into Sudan’s civil war, which has driven hundreds of thousands more refugees north towards Libya’s coast.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:00 am

The US-Israel relationship is finally facing a reckoning. It doesn't need to slide into antisemitism | Joel Swanson

Israel’s role in drawing the US into a war on Iran is attracting healthy scrutiny. It’s also creating a permission structure for antisemitism

The joint US-Israel military strikes on Iran have forced a reckoning that American political culture has been approaching for years, but has perhaps never had to face as head-on as it does right now. It is a reckoning that contains two urgent, legitimate, and partially contradictory imperatives – and neither should be abandoned.

Let us start with one simple truth. Israel’s role in drawing the United States into military action against Iran warrants serious scrutiny. Whatever one believes about the strategic logic of the strikes, the process by which the United States came to participate in them raises profound questions about the relationship between the two countries. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has claimed that the US struck Iran partly because it knew Israel was going to act unilaterally and feared the blowback. In other words, Israeli strategic priorities shaped American military timing, and by extension, American casualties.

Published: March 5, 2026, 12:00 pm

Why are Democrats surrendering the issue of healthy food? | Tim Ryan and Justin Talbot Zorn

Under RFK Jr and the Maha movement, Republicans have claimed the mantle – but their actions are full of contradictions

On 25 February, in her opening remarks at her Senate confirmation hearing, Casey Means, Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, called on the US government to address key drivers of chronic disease, including “ultraprocessed foods, industrial chemical exposure” and other factors. The same month, in a provocative Super Bowl ad for the federal government’s RealFood.gov site, Mike Tyson warned of the dangers of processed food. The recent developments confirm what’s becoming conventional wisdom: the GOP is now the party of healthy food.

It’s not just Robert F Kennedy Jr’s high-profile moves on red food dyes or the USDA food pyramid. Conservative politicians and influencers are now attacking chemical additives, plastics, and ultra-processed ingredients as drivers of chronic disease. Republicans see Maha, the “make America healthy again” movement, as a rare cultural wedge that resonates outside the party’s Maga base. The GOP’s own polling memos show that Kennedy’s movement could be their single most promising midterm strategy.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:00 pm

The ‘Jim Carrey is a clone’ theory is absurd. Of course people believe it | Dave Schilling

Conspiracy claims have erupted over the star’s appearance. These days, I can’t blame people for endless skepticism

Last week, my ex-wife texted me. She usually does that when my son falls off his skateboard or learns a new expletive to say on the playground. This time was different. “Have you seen Jim Carrey?” she asked, apropos of nothing we had discussed previously. It was as if she was asking me if I’d seen her misplaced keys.

“No, I have not seen Jim Carrey. Have you looked under the couch?” I replied.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:00 pm

The US and Israel are waging war on an Iran they think they know. The reality is very different | Ali Vaez

Is the Islamic Republic a messianic theocracy or a brittle dictatorship? It’s neither – as those attacking it are finding out

When the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran on 28 February, the campaign was structured like a textbook air war: destroy defences, degrade retaliatory capabilities and decapitate leadership. Iranian air defences – already battered in last summer’s war – were further dismantled to secure uncontested skies. Missile factories, drone infrastructure and naval assets were hit to erode Iran’s ability to retaliate. And a steady cadence of precision strikes removed senior commanders in what amounted to a sustained attempt to disorient Tehran’s decision-making.

From a purely operational perspective, the advantages have been stark. Once skies are open, the war becomes cheaper: plentiful, relatively inexpensive munitions can replace the long-range systems that defended airspace typically demands.

Ali Vaez is Iran project director and senior adviser to the president at the International Crisis Group

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

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:45 pm

In a Trump war, with great power comes no responsibility | Jamil Smith

When presidents ask the country to support a war, honesty is not optional

The bombs fell in our name before any of us knew. Then the president saw fit to inform us.

Legal scholars and politicians alike began debating whether they were constitutional. Markets responded within hours. Cities across the United States moved to heightened alert amid fears of retaliation.

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:00 am

Why are today’s children’s books and films often so much better than adult ones? | Catherine Shoard

It’s not simply that kids’ culture has improved since I was young. Across stage, screen and cinema, grownup offerings pale in comparison to those aimed at my son

World Book Day dawns once more, with its morning chorus of swearing and sticky tape. This year, it falls shortly before we’re throwing a Harry Potter birthday party, so the living room has already surrendered to chocolate frogs and wand clay and preparations for the Dobby Sock Toss. Good timing, then. If you’ve already made a Nagini piñata, what’s one more hippogriff for the list?

Is competitive cosplay the best way to foster a love of literature in young people? That’s for finer minds than mine to debate, but with books like these, I’m surprised it’s required. What a time to have recently mastered phonics. What reluctant reader could fail to laugh at Mr Gum, or indeed anything by Andy Stanton? Who wouldn’t be thrilled by Louis Sachar or Lottie Brooks or Malorie Blackman?

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:00 am

Checking your ex’s socials or overusing Find My Friends? Welcome to the age of interpersonal surveillance | Tatum Hunter

Invasive behaviour that would have shocked us a decade ago now barely registers. And that includes the way we digitally track and monitor each other

A TikTok comedian recently launched a fake ICE tip line and received dozens of calls – including one from a teacher suggesting agents look into a kindergartener in her class. Governments and companies are the architects of surveillance culture, but civilians are increasingly keen to play a part. And it’s not just our perceived political enemies we’re willing to watch. It’s our friends, neighbours, partners and children.

As corporations and governments tunnel further into our digital lives – hoarding information about where we shop, who we know and what we believe – we’ve grown increasingly comfortable demanding the same access in our personal lives. While multiple apps log our location throughout the day, we demand that our friends also share their real-time movements through Apple’s Find My feature. While OpenAI uses our chat logs to train its models, we peek into the text messages of our partners. And while Palantir analyses social media data to help ICE identify its targets, we record strangers in public without their consent.

Tatum Hunter is a technology journalist based in Brooklyn. She writes on Substack at Bytatumhunter

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:00 am

The Guardian view on the expanding Iran crisis: no clear aim and no end in sight | Editorial

The US and Israel started a war that is escalating rapidly, with repercussions beyond the region too

There will be no quick or easy wins – even on US and Israeli terms. They have celebrated assassinating Iran’s supreme leader; their offensive has also killed more than 1,000 civilians so far, including scores of children, according to a US-based rights group. As Iran retaliates, hoping America’s allies will try to rein it back, it is targeting US bases and civilian sites across the region – even in Oman, which was at the forefront of efforts to stave off the war. Gulf powers are increasingly irate, though wary of acting on threats to go beyond defensive action. Israel has ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians to leave a vast swathe of southern Lebanon, blaming Hezbollah’s retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Those who warned that the US-Israeli attack on Iran would lead to war engulfing the Middle East have proved, if anything, conservative in their predictions. A Hezbollah-launched drone hit an RAF airbase in Cyprus at the weekend. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan reported strikes on an airbase (though Iran denied responsibility, as it did over a missile fired towards Turkey). The day before, the US sank an Iranian warship 2,000 miles away, in waters close to Sri Lanka, as it returned from multilateral exercises with India – killing at least 87 people. And governments around the world face soaring energy prices and rattled markets thanks to Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz.

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

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:30 pm

Sarr sinks 10-man Spurs as Crystal Palace plunge imploding club closer to relegation

Tottenham are sinking in a sea of venom. Relegation is no longer a distant prospect for the owners of the finest stadium in the country. They have rolled the dice, replacing Thomas Frank with a bewildered Igor Tudor, but their flaws are starting to look overwhelming and lie only a point above the bottom three after their complete lack of unity and cohesion was exposed in this shambolic defeat to Crystal Palace.

This is getting all too real. Tottenham have lost all three of their games since appointing Tudor as their interim manager and are not coping with the pressure. Nottingham Forest and a resurgent West Ham are hot on their heels but Tottenham have frozen. They are winless since the turn of the year and could not even kick on after going 1-0 up against Palace.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:06 pm

Bills reportedly give Josh Allen much-needed weapon with trade for DJ Moore

• Exact terms of deal have yet to be revealed

• Moore recorded career lows last year with Bears

The Buffalo Bills are acquiring wide receiver DJ Moore from the Chicago Bears, multiple media outlets reported on Thursday.

It is not immediately known what the Bears will receive in the deal, which cannot be processed until the new league year begins on March 11.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:38 pm

Jennifer Shahade: ‘There’s a long and embedded history of abuse in chess’

The former US women’s champion changed her life and her sport when she made allegations against a grandmaster. Now she’s turned her hand to writing and poker

On 15 February 2023, Jennifer Shahade took a deep breath and wrote “Time’s up” above a long message about allegations of sexual abuse in the cloistered world of professional chess. Shahade knew her words would have an impact but she didn’t expect the social media post to go viral and change her life.

A two-time US women’s chess champion, Shahade chose her words carefully as she made serious allegations against Alejandro Ramirez, a then 34-year-old grandmaster from Costa Rica who was based in America and coached the St Louis University chess team: “Currently there are multiple investigations [into] Alejandro Ramirez and sexual misconduct, including a series of alleged incidents involving a minor. I was assaulted by him twice, nine and 10 years ago. I’d moved on until the past couple of years when multiple women, independent of each other, and with no knowledge of my own experience, approached me with their own stories of alleged abuse. These accounts were from much younger alleged victims.”

Published: March 5, 2026, 12:00 pm

‘That person has gone’: Lewis Hamilton ditches despair for feelgood Ferrari reboot

Seven-time world champion admits he ‘lost sight of who I was’ but has optimism as new campaign begins on Sunday

In the dying embers of the 2025 Formula One season there was a period when Lewis Hamilton, one of the greatest drivers of all time, seemed cut from an almost unrecognisable cloth. The confidence, humour and calm assurance in his own abilities had been stripped away, replaced by an almost despairing bewilderment.

It was so alien to his usual character that many considered it a wonder that he was managing to drag himself on to see the year out. In the buildup to this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, Hamilton was typically forthright in acknowledging it had been something of a psychological break.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:00 pm

Seven countries to boycott Paralympics ceremony over flag-flying Russians

• No ParalympicsGB athletes will be present in Verona

• IPC says Russian presence ‘determined by members’

Seven countries and the British government will boycott the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympics in protest at the inclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine would not be sending athletes or officials to the ceremony on Friday night.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:49 pm

Saka responds to criticism of Arsenal by insisting ‘we don’t listen to that stuff’

• Forward says all that matters is they keep winning

• Saka unconcerned by lower goals and assist tally

Bukayo Saka says he is untroubled by the rising tide of criticism against Arsenal and wants to do one thing and one thing alone – win. The winger marked his 300th appearance for the club with the only goal in Wednesday’s 1-0 victory at Brighton, which moved Arsenal seven points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. City have a game in hand.

It was an emotional night at the Amex Stadium. Fabian Hürzeler had complained about Arsenal’s timewasting beforehand, the Brighton manager raged about it during the match – as did the home crowd – and he signed off with another blast, saying Arsenal had again taken advantage of the inability of referees to combat delaying tactics.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:30 pm

USL emails players about union resignation procedures as strike looms

• Email includes ‘FAQ’ on crossing picket line

• Active player calls letter ‘a bunch of bullshit’

• USL declines to comment

On Wednesday night, the United Soccer League (USL) emailed every player contracted in the second-division Championship with information about the procedures for crossing a potential picket line and resigning their membership in the USL Players’ Association, multiple sources have confirmed to the Guardian.

The USL, which runs the second-division Championship and the third-division League One as its professional US men’s leagues, has been locked in labor talks with Championship players for more than a year, with tensions recently spilling into the public. The previous agreement between the league and the USL Players Association (USLPA) expired on 31 December 2025.

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:24 pm

From bupkis to $100m blockbuster: has the World Baseball Classic finally arrived

The tournament is celebrating its 20th anniversary and some of the best players on the planet are competing for a title that means something

For years, while football fans salivated over Fifa World Cups, and basketball and hockey enthusiasts enjoyed an endless parade of NBA and NHL stars at the Olympics, baseball fans had bupkis, with no legitimate international tournament to speak of. Instead, there was something called the Baseball World Cup. Played without a Yankee, Cub or Dodger in sight, but with representatives from teams including the Montgomery Biscuits, Mexico Red Devils and Winnipeg Goldeyes, few fans in North America knew it existed, or when it was played. The only team with legit talent, Cuba, with players who could play in Major League Baseball, but did not because of politics, dominated the tournament.

Then in 2006 came a breakthrough with the debut of the 16-nation World Baseball Classic, which featured legitimate professional stars. The platform was built, the mysterious Cubans finally got to play in the US and the fans came. The tournament averaged nearly 19,000 fans a game, and that included the empty seat, Australia-Italy type match-ups. The face paint was bright, the vibes were October-like and the games were compelling; Japan held off Cuba as they took the maiden crown. The WBC passed its first test with a flourish and moved boldly into the future.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:00 am

Aston Martin reveal fears over nerve damage will prevent F1 team from finishing Australian GP

• Vibration from Honda engine leaves drivers’ fingers numb

• Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will be unable to complete race

Aston Martin have admitted that ­Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will not be able to complete even half the race at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix this weekend for fear of suffering permanent nerve damage because of a vibration problem with their car.

The team principal, Adrian Newey, who designed the team’s new car, said the drivers were suffering such severe vibration through the steering wheel that they would be able to ­complete 25 and 15 of the 58 laps respectively.

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:24 am

‘A subversion of the justice system’: DoJ shifts into Trump’s ‘political wing’ as criminal investigations accelerate

President has ‘succeeded in completely politicizing’ justice department, experts say, using it to punish his enemies

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DoJ) has increasingly become his administration’s “political wing” with criminal investigations of economic and political foes and an FBI raid of a Georgia election office seeking evidence for Trump’s debunked claim that his 2020 election loss was rigged, say ex-prosecutors.

The shifts at the DoJ have been especially marked since the start of 2026 and the growing politicization of the department – headed by Trump’s loyalist attorney general, Pam Bondi – was symbolized on 19 February , when a large banner with Trump’s picture was unfurled over the door of the DoJ headquarters.

Published: March 5, 2026, 12:00 pm

RFK Jr urges medical schools to increase nutrition education training

As part of his Maha agenda, health secretary wants schools to incorporate 40 hours of instruction

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Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a new effort on Thursday aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools.

For months, Kennedy has urged medical schools to expand their nutrition curriculum and warned that institutions refusing to do so could face cuts to federal funding, while those that adopt the changes may receive public acknowledgment.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:41 pm

New York sex-trafficking case against high-end real estate broker brothers goes to jury

Lawyers for Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander argued that the brothers were womanizers but not rapists

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Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander surrounded themselves with beautiful women. Young and wealthy, they enjoyed sex and the pursuit of it. They flirted at nightclubs and on dating apps, and partied with potential hookups in the Hamptons, Aspen and other ritzy locales.

The brothers – two of them high-end real estate brokers known as “the A Team”, the other a private security executive – were certainly womanizers, their lawyer told jurors. But they aren’t the drink-spiking rapists and sex traffickers that federal prosecutors allege.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:26 pm

EU agrees to chop meaty names from vegetarian and vegan food products

Lawmakers will outlaw use of 31 meat-related names as part of efforts to help livestock farmers in food supply markets

EU lawmakers have agreed to ban meaty names such as steak and bacon for vegetarian and vegan foods, but “veggie burgers” and “meat-free sausages” will remain on the table.

Negotiators from the European parliament and EU council of ministers found a recipe for compromise on rules for food names on Thursday, although critics said they were creating needless complexity.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:44 pm

Savannah Guthrie ‘plans to return’ to Today show as mother remains missing

NBC confirmed the host will return but ‘remains focused’ on the search for her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie

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Savannah Guthrie, the Today show host whose elderly mother has been missing from her Arizona home for more than a month, visited NBC’s studios in New York on Thursday and the network confirmed, for the first time, that she plans to return to her presenting duties.

NBC confirmed the visit to CNN’s Brian Stelter, but gave no timeline for when Guthrie, who has recorded a succession of emotional video appeals for information about her mother, Nancy Guthrie, will be back at work.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:23 pm

‘It creates a sense of belonging’: Brazil bets on hiking trails for conservation

The country’s network of footpaths is growing – with hopes they will develop local economies and better preserve the environment

Follow the yellow footprints along Brazil’s newest long-distance trail, and they will take you through lush green forests and sandy shrubland, past sweeping vistas and bizarre rock formations, into grottos and rural communities.

Spanning 186km (115 miles) of paths once used by 19th-century merchants, the Caminhos da Ibiapaba is the first waymarked long-distance footpath in Brazil’s north-east region, adding to a growing network of hiking trails in the country.

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:01 pm

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea

The chances of finding one mammal species thought to be lost was ‘almost zero’ and finding two is ‘unprecedented’, biologist Tim Flannery says

Researchers led by the Australian scientist Tim Flannery have made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery: that two charismatic marsupial species that had been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West Papua.

The pair are rare examples of “Lazarus taxa” – species that disappeared from fossil records in the distant past that are later found to have survived.

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:01 pm

Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition

Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountable

The Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.

The US has demanded that Vanuatu, an archipelago in the south Pacific, drop its UN draft resolution that calls on the world to implement a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling from last year that countries could face paying reparations if they fail to stem the climate crisis.

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:00 am

Tiny, lost and constipated: what a baby turtle told Australian scientists about warming seas

The arrival of loggerheads in New South Wales shows these ‘sentinels of climate change’ are being forced into unknown territory

When Bulwal Bilima (BB for short) first arrived at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, she, or possibly he, was lethargic, badly constipated and dehydrated. Named “strong turtle” in the Aboriginal Dhurga language of the Yuin people on whose land it was found, the tiny 110g loggerhead hatchling, no bigger than a bar of soap, had a fight on its hands.

The baby turtle was found stranded in New South Wales’s Booderee national park last April, much further south than the usual hatching grounds. After days of feeding on squid, sardines and marine vitamins, BB, whose sex cannot be determined until it is fully mature, revived.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:00 am

Pakistani man on trial in Brooklyn for Trump assassination plot says he was recruited by Iran

Asif Merchant testified that Revolutionary Guards coerced him into scheme by threatening his family in Tehran

A Pakistani businessman accused of plotting to kill Donald Trump told a federal jury on Wednesday that he was coerced into the scheme by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which he said had threatened his family to secure his participation.

Asif Merchant, 47, took the unusual step of testifying in his own defense at Brooklyn federal court, where he faces terrorism and murder-for-hire charges. Speaking through an Urdu translator, he told jurors he went along with the plot only out of fear for his wife and adopted daughter in Tehran.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:43 pm

Trump administration to reportedly close controversial ICE jail in Texas

Camp East Montana facility, part of the Fort Bliss army base, has repeatedly been criticized for harsh living conditions

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The Trump administration is reportedly closing a controversial immigration jail in Texas where three detainees have died and a measles outbreak has forced more than a dozen others into quarantine.

Plans are advancing for the shuttering of Camp East Montana, part of the Fort Bliss army base, less than eight months after it opened, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:31 pm

Pentagon releases names of final two soldiers of six killed in Kuwait

Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45, were from California and Iowa, respectively

The Pentagon has released the names of the final two of the six soldiers who were killed during a recent drone strike in Kuwait. They were killed on Sunday, the day after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Their names were released by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday.

The two soldiers were identified as Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45. They were from Sacramento, California, and Indianola, Iowa, respectively.

Published: March 5, 2026, 4:38 pm

How a clump of moss helped convict grave robbers in Illinois

Four cemetery workers dug up and moved more than 100 bodies to resell the burial plots nearly 20 years ago

It was a particularly heinous crime. Four workers at a cemetery near Chicago dug up more than 100 bodies and dumped the remains elsewhere in the grounds, in order to resell the burial plots for profit.

Now, nearly two decades after the scandal broke at Burr Oak cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, scientists have released details of how a tiny clump of moss became crucial forensic evidence that helped convict the grave robbers.

Published: March 5, 2026, 2:00 am

Germany moves to legalise wolf hunting in response to livestock ‘bloodlust’

Lower house votes in favour of polarising law after rapid increase in population and attack on grazing farm animals

Wolf hunting will be allowed in Germany under legislation passed by the lower house of parliament in response to a rapidly growing population and a sharp rise in attacks on livestock.

The return and growth of the wolf population in the last three decades has emerged as a wedge issue in Germany, the land of the Brothers Grimm who popularised the spectre of the Big Bad Wolf.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:56 pm

BBC says ‘irreversible’ trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul

In opening response to charter review, corporation points to ‘mismatch’ between TV licence rules and viewing habits

• From subscription models to ‘Britflix’: key takeaways from BBC response to charter review

The BBC has said it is facing “permanent and irreversible” trends that mean it cannot survive without a major overhaul, as it revealed a stark divergence between the number of people consuming its content and those paying the licence fee.

In its opening response to government talks over its future, the corporation said 94% of people in the UK continued to use the BBC each month, but fewer than 80% of households contributed to the licence fee.

Published: March 5, 2026, 12:00 pm

'Gringo go home': Mexico’s growing tourism backlash – video

Tourism in Mexico is at an all-time high, with foreign visitors lured by the country’s rich culture and low costs. The Guardian visits Oaxaca, a state synonymous with indigenous culture, where tourism has grown 77% since the pandemic and once private family rituals such as the Day of the Dead are now big international parties. But with this opportunity comes a growing backlash across the country, as local people struggle with a cost of living crisis that is exacerbated by the tourism industry’s exponential growth

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:43 am

Social climber: Punch the monkey starts to outgrow his Ikea plushie

Japanese baby macaque, who appeared to find comfort in the djungelskog toy after being rejected by his mother, seems to be mixing more with his peers

Punch, a baby macaque that stole the hearts of animal lovers around the world, is outgrowing his Ikea djungelskog plushie that comforted him after he was initially rejected by his mother and other monkeys at a zoo in Japan.

Images of the seven-month-old dragging around a toy bigger than him drew attention to the residents of Ichikawa city zoo near Tokyo. When other monkeys shooed the baby away, Punch rushed back to the toy orangutan, hugging it for comfort.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:05 am

Vladimir review – Rachel Weisz is unswervingly brilliant in a TV show you’ll admire for years to come

This adaptation of the 2022 novel – starring Weisz, Leo Woodall and John Slattery – fits it perfectly to television. It’s a proper show for proper grownups

Vladimir is that rare visitor to the screen – proper television for proper grownups. The eight-part adaptation of Julia May Jonas’s provocative 2022 debut novel of the same name has not shied away from the properties that made the book great – black comedy, bleak insight, evisceration of accepted pieties – and fitted them perfectly to the new form. The screenwriter, Jeanie Bergen, who has obviously absorbed the book into her very bones, retains all of Jonas’s wit, confidence and, crucially, her willingness to dwell in grey areas and luxuriate in the complexities that govern life in middle age.

She also has Rachel Weisz, giving an unswervingly brilliant performance as the unnamed protagonist, a tenured English professor beloved by her students, whose husband, John (John Slattery, playing his one part, but he does it so well and so much better than anyone else, who are we to object to seeing it again?), another tenured academic on the same campus – has just been suspended for sleeping with students. His defence is that this was before the rules changed. “It was a different time” is a recurring phrase – not just from him (for here is the beginning of Jonas and Bergen’s devotion to rug-pulling) but from his wife and other members of their faculty and peer group, male and female.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:01 am

Why Bugonia should win the best picture Oscar

Contains spoilers: Emma Stone’s hard-faced corporate CEO has a lot of explaining to do when she is kidnapped by Jesse Plemons’s conspiracy kook. But in this film, asking whether someone is an alien seems an ordinary inquiry

Emma Stone as a kidnapped, shaven-headed pharmaceuticals CEO who might also be the ruler of an alien master race? It says a lot about director Yorgos Lanthimos that Bugonia was arguably his most straightforward film to date.

For this remake of the cult 2003 South Korean movie Save the Green Planet! we were invited into the unkempt home of beekeeper Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a paranoid conspiracy theorist whose internet research has led him to believe that aliens are poisoning his bees – and that only he can save life on Earth from extinction. He enlists his neurodivergent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) to kidnap high-flying Michelle Fuller (Stone), whose company Auxolith seems to have caused Teddy’s mother some kind of irreversible harm in the past.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:00 am

Soul to Soul review – joyous 1971 concert film captures Black American stars’ emotional return to Ghana

Restored documentary records a historic independence day show in Accra, with electrifying performances from Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett and more

This exuberant, distinctively high-minded documentary, now restored, comes from the Oscar-winning though now somewhat overlooked film-maker Denis Sanders, made just one year after his renowned 1970 film Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, about Elvis Presley in Las Vegas. Soul to Soul is a record of an epic independence day concert in Accra, Ghana, in 1971, given by American and Ghanaian musicians. Ghana was chosen as it was the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence from Britain. Among the US contingent were Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Santana, the Staple Singers and the Voices of East Harlem.

The concert and film can be seen now as part of the American Black consciousness debate of the time, which specifically prized the concept of the African motherland and the spiritual importance of returning to the wellspring of Black American inspiration. With its shots of the musicians aboard the plane to Ghana, and the rich and teeming ambient material showing Accra’s street life, you might find yourself reminded of Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings, about the Ali/Foreman fight in what was then Zaire, although without the talking-head perspective. There are richly enjoyable performances, and the extreme closeup shots of Tina Turner are where its energy is at its most visceral.

Published: March 5, 2026, 11:00 am

‘At first, she couldn’t come off the oxygen long enough’: the film that gives Marianne Faithfull one final thrilling performance

In new docu-drama Broken English, the much misunderstood singer looks back at all her past selves – and gives a performance that moves her audience to tears. Its makers relive an extraordinary shoot

When Marianne Faithfull died early in 2025, at the age of 78, she left the world one final musical performance. It comes at the end of a new film, Broken English, celebrating her six-decade career. It is a deeply moving scene, almost guaranteed to leave you in tears. You don’t need to be a full-on fan, up to that point, to have relished Faithfull’s unvarnished takes on her astonishing life – but that final husky-voiced number, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis accompanying, should clinch it.

How do you make a film about Faithfull without rolling out all the cringey 1960s rock mythology? Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard seem to have nailed it. The film-makers initially had just three days with Faithfull, on a set at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. She was living in a care home and needed oxygen intermittently, meaning the pair had to work quickly. “She was so ill when we first met her,” says Pollard.

Published: March 5, 2026, 5:00 am

The Bride! review – Jessie Buckley is electrifying as frizzy-haired, black-tongued monster’s wife

The actor has a blast as bride to Christian Bale’s lonely creature in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s darkly comic and gleefully bizarre reimagining of the 1935 film

Did you know that “Frankenstein” isn’t the name of the monster, but the mad scientist who created him? The answer is almost certainly yes. But that’s no thanks to the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, which appears to have created this monstrous misconception – because let’s face it, the idea of a middle-aged Swiss scientist getting married isn’t all that shocking. In that sensational Frankenstein sequel with Boris Karloff returning as the monster, Elsa Lanchester was his bride and Mary Shelley, a doubling that may have inspired this new riff on the monster’s other half from writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal. There’s another barnstorming performance from Jessie Buckley as the sinister spouse, leaving savage bite marks all over the scenery and on her gallant co-star Christian Bale. It’s her name, not the title, that deserves the exclamation mark..

This new monster’s-wife tale is a rackety, violent black comedy with twists of Rocky Horror and extended homages to the top-hat-and-tails sophistication of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. It’s also a gangster joyride from the roaring 20s and 30s with Mr and Mrs F-M reimagined as a kind of post-death Bonnie and Clyde. It takes as its premise the idea that Mary Shelley is an angry ghost, spewing out into the shadowy netherworld her patrician contempt for the mediocre menfolk that surrounded her in life, and longing for a suitable living woman to insinuate herself back into.

Published: March 4, 2026, 8:00 pm

‘A woman of her time, in the worst way’: Industry, Ghislaine Maxwell and the Epstein scandal

An heiress helping to traffic young women to brutal billionaires: the finale of the banker drama used one of its characters to take on a huge real-life scandal

Just who is Yasmin Kara-Hanani? It’s a question that has dogged Industry’s trauma-logged heiress since the series began in 2020. “Who have I married?” wonders Henry Muck, Yasmin’s hapless aristocratic new husband about his ruthlessly ambitious bride in her Lady Macbeth era.

The season four finale solves the mystery with a shocking Epstein-inspired arc. As the Tender scandal spirals, revealing the payment processor/wannabe bank as a front for Russian intelligence, the former Lady Muck cuts and runs from her marriage to Henry, as well as her job in communications at Tender. She is now carving a niche for herself trafficking young women to a transnational crew of brutal billionaires hellbent on breaking the social contract nation by nation. Turns out, Yasmin (Marisa Abela) is a millennial-style take on Ghislaine Maxwell. It’s a ruinous evolution perversely pitched as a dream realised.

Published: March 4, 2026, 2:39 pm

Harry Styles: Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally review – nice all the time. Good, occasionally

(Columbia)
The music on Styles’s new album is muted, subtle and pleasant – but from the title downwards, he has a real problem with words

Everything about the launch of Harry Styles’s fourth solo album underlines that its author is a very big deal indeed. Record stores in the UK are opening at midnight or first thing in the morning on the day of release, the better for fans to avail themselves of a copy at once. Styles has been announced as curator of this year’s Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre, an honour previously bestowed on Scott Walker, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Ornette Coleman and David Bowie. Last week’s Brit awards featured not merely a beautifully choreographed performance of the album’s lead single, Aperture, but a comedy skit that was, essentially, a two-and-a-half-minute-long advert for Styles’s new album: there was no doubt who the organisers thought the star of the show was. Most striking of all, the accompanying tour largely eschews actual touring in favour of lengthy residencies in one venue per country, or even continent: North America is covered by a staggering 30 dates at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The expectation seemed to be that Styles’s fans are so devoted, they’ll cross the country to see him, rather than vice versa.

This sense, that people will travel wherever Harry Styles wants them to, attends the album itself. It is devoid of unequivocal pop bangers along the lines of As It Was or Watermelon Sugar. Aperture’s hazy, post-club mood wasn’t a soft launch. Whether it’s dealing in mid-tempo house beats topped with plangent piano chords, as on American Girls, or the acoustic singer-songwriter-isms of Paint By Numbers, a lot of what’s here feels like music made in the small hours, with the curtains drawn against the dawn. It somehow manages to sound understated even on Are You Listening Yet? – which variously features a clattering dance rhythm, a bassline not unlike that of Reel 2 Real’s I Like to Move It and a spoken word vocal that inexorably recalls Robbie Williams’s Rock DJ – perhaps because it doesn’t really have a chorus, or rather, the part you assume is going to lead into the chorus turns out to be the chorus itself.

Published: March 4, 2026, 5:00 am

Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘If you weren’t tits-out-for-the-lads, they called you middle of the road’

Her first album was a huge hit – then she faced the sudden tragedy of her husband’s early death. She describes the rupture of grief, her return to music and the harsh reality of fame as a woman in the 00s

Twenty years ago, Corinne Bailey Rae had her first huge hit single, and her only one. Put Your Records On was one of the great feelgood anthems of 2006. A warm, breezy hymn to authenticity, its key message was keep playing those songs you love, and don’t give a toss about what others tell you is cool. The single was accompanied by her first self-titled album, which topped the charts in the UK and reached number four in the US.

If there was one thing Bailey Rae seemed assured of, it was longevity. She wrote or co-wrote her own songs, had a voice that was compared to that of Billie Holiday and Minnie Riperton, there was a timelessness to her music and she was super smart (four As at A-level, if you must know). Then she was hit by a tragedy that derailed her. In 2008, her husband of seven years and fellow musician Jason Rae died of an accidental drug overdose.

Published: March 4, 2026, 5:00 am

‘We had no future. So we made a future for ourselves’: the untold history of Welsh reggae sound systems

A country known more for rock and choral music became a hotspot of the dub reggae sound system scene in the 70s. Rival crews recall Cardiff’s riotous parties – and racist hostility

Growing up Black in Wales in the 1970s, “it was like we were cut off from the rest of mankind”, says Lawrence “Tylo” Taylor. “There was nothing for young Black people.”

Despite Cardiff being home to one of the oldest Black communities in the UK, stretching back to the 19th century, it could be a tough place. “As children, the police would abuse you, calling you a Black bastard,” Tylo says. “There was pure racism in school and you’d be singled out by teachers and belittled. We grew up very disillusioned.”

Published: March 4, 2026, 3:29 pm

Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps review – tender portrait of a woman with a learning disability

Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this ambitious debut journeys into the inner world of a vulnerable teenager who is left traumatised by a toxic friendship

Lucy Apps’s debut novel tells the story of 19-year-old Gloria, who is living in east London with her mum in the summer of 1999. Gloria has a learning disability and is past the age when the state might offer her support. Often she is happy enough “to stop outdoors where it is nice and busy, and watch things happen and be part of it”.

But sometimes people steal from her, or shout abuse. Then she has a “heavy feeling inside her” because she has no option except “to walk around the parks and streets on her own trying not to attract too much attention”. When she develops a friendship with Jack, she is happy because: “He has no one to talk to and she has no one to listen to, so they can fit with each other.”

Published: March 5, 2026, 9:00 am

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley audiobook review – a topical time-hopping romance

Actor Katie Leung narrates this genre-bending debut in which an Victorian Arctic explorer is catapulted into our brave new world

The Ministry of Time opens in the middle of a job interview. The applicant, a nameless British Cambodian civil servant, is in line for a role that involves working with expats of “high-interest status and particular needs”. When she asks where these expats come from, she is told: “History.” The interviewer adds, casually, “We have time travel.”

Listeners concerned about the practicalities of this time-hopping tale will be reassured by our protagonist’s observation that contemplating the physics leads to a “crock of shit”, so it is best not dwelled upon. “All you need to know is that in your near future, the British government developed the means to travel through time but had not yet experimented with doing it.” Her job, then, is to act as minder or “bridge” to individuals removed from their eras and bounced into the present.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:00 pm

Tales of the Suburbs by John Grindrod review – queer goings on behind the curtains

From ‘gaybours’ to treasure hunts in Tunbridge Wells, a tragicomic history of LGBTQ life outside the big city

Generations of readers have loved Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City novels. His chronicle of queer life began in 1976 in the eclectic glamour of San Francisco’s Barbary Lane, where queer people learned who they were and how to live their lives. But even Maupin relocated in the end. The most recent instalment, Mona of the Manor, saw one of its key characters move to the Cotswolds to navigate a very different kind of village.

The social historian John Grindrod nods to Maupin in this fantastically entertaining alternative history of queer life in Britain, which departs from the usual tales of city-based freedom and discovery to tell the stories of people who grew up in the suburbs. “The suburbs” resist easy definition, and Grindrod handles this lightly. Sometimes they’re marked out by social class, sometimes by geography, each facet blurring into the other. His locations range from London’s commuter belt to hamlets, farms and towns, from the edges of Portsmouth and Hull to pockets of Glasgow and Wilmslow and a tiny village in Lincolnshire, where a gay builder is protected from homophobic abuse in the pub by the local darts team.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:00 am

Chasing Freedom by Simukai Chigudu review – a powerful memoir of postcolonial unease

A historian and exponent of ‘Rhodes must fall’ explores how political liberation doesn’t always bring personal freedom

To be part of Zimbabwe’s “Born Free” generation was to be handed a promise: that your life would no longer be shaped by colonial rule. Skin colour would not dictate the right to vote, learn or work. For Simukai Chigudu, born in 1986, six years after independence, that promise was stamped on him from the very beginning: “Your name, Simukai, it means to stand up,” his father, a former liberation fighter, tells him.

Yet, as Chigudu reflects in his compelling memoir, the end of colonial rule does not mean freedom from historical events and how they reverberate in everyday life. He tells two interlinked stories: Zimbabwe’s brutal war of independence, and his own search for belonging in the years that followed. It is a wide-ranging, restless book, passing through Uganda, Rwanda, Ireland and Mexico City. Yet at its centre are Zimbabwe and Britain, “former colony and metropole”, and the unfinished business between them.

Published: March 4, 2026, 9:00 am

Pokémon Pokopia review – collectible creatures create their own perfect world

Nintendo Switch 2; Game Freak/Omega Force/Nintendo
Work together with a bunch of lovable Pokémon to restore a long-abandoned town in this novel, absorbing game that’s quite unlike others in the series

Bear with me here: Pokémon has always had an environmentalist subtext. As you wander its verdant, creature-filled worlds, collecting species like an acquisitive David Attenborough, you are constantly shown that people and Pokémon should live in harmony. The bad guys in these stories, from Team Rocket to Bill Nighy in the Detective Pikachu film, are always the ones who want to abuse these creatures for personal gain. Otherwise you are shown that people must have respect for Pokémon; both the critters you catch and the ones that exist in the wild. There is a delicate independency between humans and the natural world.

In this new spin-off from the series, we see what happens when there are no humans around. You, a shapeshifting blob of jelly called Ditto, awaken in a half-demolished wasteland that was once, presumably, a lively town. There are some other Pokémon around, confused and lonely, and together you work to restore the place and make it beautiful again. Taking the uncanny humanoid form of your half-remembered former trainer, you learn useful talents from the Pokémon around you: how to water parched grass, dig up weeds and grow flowers, punch rocks until they crumble to clear all the old paths.

Pokémon Pokopia is out 5 March; £59.99

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:15 pm

Even for fans like me, the Pokémon 30th anniversary ‘stuff’ is a bit much

With the wait for the new Winds and Waves games set to stretch into 2027, Pokemon’s 30th anniversary celebrations have plugged the gap with a deluge of nostalgia bait. Is the franchise in danger of losing its heart?

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It has been almost impossible to escape Pokémon for the past few weeks. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original games, the Pokémon Company has been on an unprecedented promotional nostalgia trip for the entire month: there was a campaign where celebrities gushed about their favourite Pokémon, gifting us the memorable sight of Lady Gaga singing with a Jigglypuff, and Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (great Game Boy Advance remakes of the original 1996 games) were rereleased on the Nintendo Switch. The Natural History Museum in London has opened a special Pokémon pop-up shop, and a limited-edition greyscale Pikachu plush toy sold out in about three seconds (they will be making more, to the disappointment of scalpers everywhere).

And all that is just the start. We’ve seen the opening of a Pokémon theme park in Tokyo, the announcement of a tiny Game Boy-shaped music player that plays the games’ soundtrack, a collaboration with high-fashion brand JimmyPaul that had its own runway show … it’s been endless. Regular readers will know that I am exactly the target audience for this festival of Pokémon nostalgia: the first generation of Pokémon kids and now hurtling towards 40. And yet I have been unmoved by most of this, even slightly annoyed by it.

Published: March 4, 2026, 3:00 pm

Paramount-Warner Bros mega-merger could still face ‘real threats’, antitrust experts say

The $110bn deal will require approval from regulatory authorities in the US, the EU and the UK

Champagne reportedly flowed at Paramount Skydance headquarters late last week after the media conglomerate edged out Netflix to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery for a cool $110bn.

And on a call with analysts and investors on Monday morning, David Ellison, Paramount Skydance’s chief executive, said the company was “absolutely confident” that the merger will expeditiously pass regulatory muster both in the US and abroad.

Published: March 5, 2026, 12:00 pm

Paddington and Into the Woods up for 11 Olivier awards each

Two musicals dominate nominations while Tom Hiddleston and Bryan Cranston vie for best actor, with Cate Blanchett and Rosamund Pike up for best actress
• Olivier awards 2026: full list of nominations

Michael Bond’s marmalade-loving bear will go up against a band of fairytale characters at the Olivier awards next month, as two musicals dominated the nominations announced on Thursday.

The frontrunners for London’s biggest theatre awards are Paddington: The Musical and Into the Woods, which each received 11 nominations. Paddington, which opened to five-star reviews at the Savoy theatre, is up for best new musical, best director (Luke Sheppard), best theatre choreographer (Ellen Kane) and best actor in a musical for the duo who play the lovable ursine hero. James Hameed provides the bear’s voice and is the remote puppeteer while Arti Shah dons the furry costume. Their co-stars Tom Edden, Amy Booth-Steel and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt are also nominated for their supporting roles. Gabriella Slade’s costumes, Tahra Zafar’s puppet designs, Tom Pye’s set, Ash J Woodward’s video, Gareth Owen’s sound and Matt Brind’s orchestrations and arrangements were all recognised.

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:42 pm

Bright and beautiful? The man causing millennial rapture with his school hymn singalongs

Primary School Bangers caused a sensation on TikTok, then at Glastonbury, and now it’s gone nationwide. Is it harmless nostalgia – or a symptom of an increasingly conservative culture?

He’s got the whole Warwick Arts Centre in his hands. It’s Friday night and the 550-capacity venue is sold out. The theatre is full of adults singing the school assembly hymns you may remember from childhood. They are rising and shining, conducting gleeful hand actions of wiggly worms and fish in the sea. Just what is going on?

James B Partridge’s Primary School Bangers is the hit show that is storming UK arts centres, originally a viral video that has become a defiantly IRL phenomenon. “It just brings back memories of primary school, sitting in the hall,” enthuses Hayley, 40. She is one of many teachers attending tonight. “We don’t sing in primary schools much any more,” mourns Katie, 33. She is right: in the 2010s, funding cuts, Conservative policy and a crisis in teacher retention caused an ongoing fall in music at primary level. At her school, children sing just once every three weeks. Some of tonight’s pull is communal. “You go to a show and you have to sit and watch,” says Frank, 61, “but you’re actually participating in this, that’s the big difference.”

Published: March 5, 2026, 3:00 pm

Chic couture, bio-terror and a whole load of Mike Leigh: Lesley Manville’s finest films – ranked!

With her 70th birthday around the corner, we assess the greatest screen outings of everybody’s favourite underrated doyenne of British cinema

Among the bold choices in Luca Guadagnino’s feverish film of William S Burroughs’ novel are the late 20th-century pop and alternative soundtrack (Nirvana, Prince, New Order) for a 1950s story, and the casting of an unrecognisable, orc-like Manville in a trumped-up cameo as the shaman Dr Cotter, who was male in the original book.

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘There is no shame in being vain’: the relentless rise of impossible male beauty standards

Men’s faces are under scrutiny as never before, with more opting for cosmetic procedures than ever. What is behind this sudden and significant shift?

The images are familiar: square-jawed white men, faces set hard, barking the language of strength and command. Over the past week, as the United States has pressed its military campaign in the Middle East, the face of defense secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared on screen after screen delivering the rhetoric of the warrior-patriarch. It is a face already known for other performances: posing in the gym alongside Robert F Kennedy Jr for the Department of War YouTube channel; lecturing the military about “fat generals”; hosting a weekend show on Fox News.

But here, borrowing the glory of the troops, Hegseth presented the general’s mask – the jutting jaw, the unflinching gaze – albeit without, some critics would suggest, the military experience or strategic judgment it usually signifies. Donald Trump, too, has offered his own version of the strongman face; the commanding presence, white and unyielding, though recently people have been rather more distracted by the new rash on his neck.

Published: March 5, 2026, 10:00 am

Google Pixel 10a review: cheaper Android is great, but no real advance

Quality camera, good software and long battery life, but you should just buy the Pixel 9a instead

The latest smartphone in the lower-cost A-series Pixel line shows what makes Google phones so good, while undercutting the competition on price. The problem is that it differs little from its predecessor, which is still on sale.

Priced from £499 (€549/$499/A$849), the Pixel 10a is more like a second edition of last year’s excellent Pixel 9a. The two phones share the same Tensor G4 chip, not the newer G5 in the rest of the £799 and up Pixel 10 line; the same memory, storage and cameras; the same size 6.3in OLED screen, though the Pixel 10a reaches a higher peak brightness making it slightly easier to read outside.

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:00 am

The best beginner pickleball gear, according to pros

The right shoes, paddles, and eye protection can improve your game while preventing injuries

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Maybe it was the contrarian in me, or maybe just the tennis player, but I must confess that I spent years dissing pickleball during its meteoric rise. When I finally decided to give up my grinching and try the sport I had derided as “mini tennis”, I discovered what I’d been missing.

Learning how to play was fun, simple and affordable. I began my journey with a beginner class at Court 16, a New York-based indoor tennis and pickleball club where I started working with coach Dylan DeBiase, assistant director of tennis.

Pickleball shoes:
Wilson Pickle Pro

Pickleball paddle
Joola Journey Pickleball Paddle

Published: March 4, 2026, 8:15 pm

A moment that changed me: my girlfriend criticised my kisses – and it led to the best decision of my life

She said kissing me was like licking an ashtray, and I knew I had to quit smoking. But with a 40-a-day habit, it was no easy task ...

In 1970, as an 18-year-old college freshman in Boston, living away from home for the first time, I started to smoke cigarettes. A pack a day grew in short order to two packs a day, or a cigarette about every 30 minutes.

I choreographed my life around my smokes, puffing away after every meal, taking a drag with a drink and blowing smoke rings as I wrote, usually late into the night. I needed no pretext for smoking, but found plenty; every occasion fit the bill.

Published: March 4, 2026, 6:45 am

Gen Z flocks to Chinese medicine as trust in US health system plummets: ‘It’s so personalized to being human’

As Americans embrace ‘alternative’ remedies, people online joke that they’re ‘Chinamaxxing’ their wellness routines

Did you drink ice water today? If you did, that was “not very Chinese of you”, according to Sherry Zhu, a 23-year-old Chinese American creator based in New Jersey. If you were really serious about “becoming Chinese”, you would be sipping hot water every day, she warned in a TikTok video with millions of views. “I really do feel like, digestion-wise, a lot better when I’m drinking hot water,” she later explained to GQ.

Zhu’s guidance is taken from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a health system that dates back 5,000 years and offers a holistic approach to treating symptoms – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Other creators of Chinese descent have their own TCM hacks: keep your feet warm and your periods will be more bearable. Drink tea made with goji berries, jujubes and ginger as a cure-all. Move your body every day to promote the flow of qi, or internal energy. “Do my Chinese baddie routine with me,” they caption their videos in half-authoritative, half-joking tones. “Advice from your Chinese big sister.”

Published: March 4, 2026, 3:00 pm

Stella McCartney Paris show is a whistle-stop tour of her life

A spot of ‘equine therapy’ marks Chinese year of the horse as designer turns fashion week show into a moment

Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the industry by letting slip that she was to receive the most prestigious French accolade, the Légion d’honneur, on Thursday – and making a jumper using yeast.

Never mind that she has not turned a profit since 2017. The fashion designer knows how to turn a show into a moment, opening with “some equine therapy” in the form of a dozen dancing horses to mark the Chinese year of the horse, and closing it with a vest that said “My dad’s a rock star” in front of a grinning Paul McCartney who sat front row next to Oprah Winfrey.

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:57 pm

Rise of the veavage: how one look came to rule the red carpet

Forget cleavage. A deep V plunging to the waist is the current style – as seen on Gwyneth Paltrow and many others this year. Why is it suddenly so popular?

Good news for anyone looking to portion off their skin in new and creative ways: we have entered the era of the “veavage”. This new term for a deep, V-shaped cleavage plumbed new depths this weekend at the SAG awards. As seen on (deep breath) Kristen Bell, Jenna Ortega, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Paulson, Odessa A’zion and Lauren Miller, this neck-to-navel style appeared on wafer-thin tops and second-skin dresses. In a red carpet first, veavage somehow outweighed cleavage 2:1. Other recent veavage-flaunters about town include Zendaya, Emma Stone, Elle Fanning and Erin Doherty. Think the boyband JLS meets Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, by way of a couture gown cut with exacting technical rigour.

The talking point is not the clothes, though. It’s what they leave behind, which is the boobs. Or at least the bit where the boobs usually are. Because the great thing about this trend is that you don’t need boobs to do it. In fact, it’s better without. Or a bra. Nipple tape, which is worn to stop nipples sticking out in frigid temperatures, is probably useful but otherwise you could see it as a cost-saving exercise – a way of using up less fabric. Right?

Published: March 4, 2026, 9:03 am

A quick hack for looking A Bit Dressed Up? Just add a dash of shine | Jess Cartner-Morley

If you want to add some glitz to elevate your look, try shiny earrings, metallic shoes or a snazzy belt

Once in a while, it is fun to pull out all the stops and get properly dressed up. To wear something gorgeous and probably impractical, do your makeup carefully, rather than in two and a half minutes, and coerce a family member into taking a photo before you leave the house.

It is awards season, and red carpet fashion hoopla is all around us. But for those of us who don’t have an Oscar nomination, the nights that call for weapons-grade glam are few and far between, especially at this time of year. Which is fine by me because, frankly, who has the time? In real life, for most of us, quick styling hacks when you want to look A Bit Dressed Up are way more useful than a ball gown. Accessories that elevate your look from blah to belle, easy tricks that give your outfit a sense of occasion. These, not the bells-and-whistles party dresses, are the real treasures of your wardrobe.

Published: March 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

YSL lights up Paris fashion week show with return of Le Smoking suit

Anthony Vaccarello marks decade at helm of fashion house with powered-up take on Yves Saint Laurent’s classic

The most famous suit in the world, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, has returned to the Paris catwalk 60 years after its invention.

Designed by the late couturier to be worn by men in smoking rooms to protect clothing from the smell of cigars, he adapted it for women, slimming the trousers and lapels. It wasn’t a runaway success – only one sold from his 1966 collection – but it became a global symbol of power dressing and gender dismantling, and would appear in every collection until Saint Laurent retired in 2002.

Published: March 4, 2026, 9:23 am

On the trail of Peaky Blinders, Black Sabbath and the perfect pint – an alternative guide to Birmingham

As the Peaky Blinders film is released this week, we follow in the footsteps of the Shelbys, make a heavy metal pilgrimage and find the city’s best places to eat, drink and dance

The runaway success of the TV crime drama Peaky Blinders has been credited with boosting tourism to Birmingham and the West Midlands since it first aired in 2013, even though much of the series was actually shot farther north, in Merseyside, Yorkshire and Manchester. The release this week of the Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man (much of which was filmed in and around Birmingham this time) will undoubtedly generate a new wave of interest, particularly in the Black Country Living Museum in nearby Dudley, whose authentic recreations of streets, houses and industrial workshops appear in key scenes in the TV show and the film – most notably as the location for Charlie Strong’s yard (pictured below).

Published: March 5, 2026, 7:00 am

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for apple, honey and poppy seed cake | A kitchen in Rome

The chemistry and alchemy of honey’s special kind of sweetness, and how it complements just the right kind of apples in a humble yet delicious cake

Honey is, among other things, a successful embalming agent. It is also a humectant, which isn’t an eager cyborg, but one of many short-chained organic compounds that are hygroscopic, meaning they attract and hold water, which in turn prevents hardening and encourages softness. Other hardworking humectants are glycerine, which is what keeps face creams creamy and hydrating, and sorbitol, which ensures toothpaste can be squeezed and smeared all over the sink and on the mirror. Honey, though, is the humectant that’s most suitable for this week’s recipe: a one-bowl, everyday cake inspired by my neighbour’s Polish honey cake, miodownik, combined with the tortino di mele e papavero (apple and poppy seed cake) enjoyed at a station bar in Bolzano.

Not only does honey keep the cake moist, its sweetness comes largely from fructose, which is naturally sweeter than refined sugar, so the perception of sweetness is much greater even when less is added. I have suggested 160g, but adjust as you see fit. The small amounts of amino acids in honey also mean that the chemical Maillard reaction is more pronounced as the cake bakes, resulting in caramelisation and a crust the colour of chestnut, as well as a deep, nutty flavour. While I am sure all varieties of honey will work well, I can particularly recommend chestnut honey and Greek pine honey, both of which have complicated, almost malty notes that pair well with the apple and the pleasing, slightly bitter but also soil-like taste of poppy seeds.

Published: March 5, 2026, 6:00 am

Relentless sun and ruthless populists: how the climate crisis will change the next 20 years

Former diplomat Arthur Snell says a heating planet is accelerating conflict and migration – and fostering a new age of empire. Democracies are dangerously unprepared, he warns

After a diplomatic career spent in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, the last place Arthur Snell expected to cheat death was on holiday.

But it was an uncomfortably close brush with a falling boulder while climbing in the Swiss Alps that helped to bring his personal and professional lives together. His beloved mountains were, he realised, becoming less stable thanks to a changing climate. And if physical geography drives the way states exercise their power, as classic geopolitical theory argues, then a heating planet must be dislodging more than rocks.

Published: March 4, 2026, 1:00 pm

‘In the face of death, we are all equal’: Ukraine’s Roma fight for recognition for those serving in war

With many lacking official documentation or unable to speak Ukrainian, the families of men killed in action are struggling to get the compensation they are owed

As a father of four, Viktor Ilchak was not supposed to serve in the army. Ukraine does not mobilise men who have three or more children. His wife and children cried and begged him not to go to war. But he had made up his mind. “A typical Capricorn, so stubborn,” says his wife, Sveta.

It was 2015, the war in Donbas was growing in intensity. “I heard someone on TV complaining that Roma aren’t defending their homeland. This pissed me off, and so I volunteered,” says Ilchak. In the territorial recruitment centre in Uzhhorod the Ukrainian soldiers were surprised, but they had to take him.

Published: March 5, 2026, 8:00 am

Trump-aligned candidates surge as some incumbents fall: five key takeaways from US primary elections

From Texas to North Carolina, incumbents fall as Democrats gain in Arkansas, signaling 2026 turbulence

• US politics live – latest updates

There was more at stake in Tuesday’s primary elections than just the high-profile nominations for US Senate seats in North Carolina and Texas. Further down the ballot were contests that offered hints of how the electorate was reacting to the Trump administration’s rapid and radical changes in Washington, and to whether Democrats were rebuilding popular support after suffering pivotal losses in 2024.

Here are some of the lesser-known outcomes of Tuesday’s vote in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas, which also held primary and special elections:

Published: March 4, 2026, 7:33 pm

What a viral speech in Ireland reveals about colonial history and Caribbean English

Linguists say reaction to Irish TD’s remarks reflects shared regional English roots and enduring impact of empire

• Patwa is not ‘broken English’: the African ties that bind US and Caribbean languages

When the politician Thomas Gould rose to speak in the Irish parliament recently, few expected a lesson in colonial linguistics.

Yet clips of his speech began circulating online last week, with some viewers saying he sounded unmistakably Jamaican. The reaction was animated, particularly among Jamaican heritage communities.

Published: March 4, 2026, 2:00 pm

Maritime and port workers: how is the Middle East conflict affecting you?

With shipping routes disrupted and tensions rising across the region we want to hear from maritime workers, sailors and port workers and others working at sea who are affected

The conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping across the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.

Maritime traffic through the strait, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, has effectively been closed since strikes on Iran began. Some vessels have been diverted or delayed and ports and shipping companies are dealing with heightened security concerns and uncertainty.

Published: March 4, 2026, 2:08 pm

Paris fashion week and a well-groomed collie: photos of the day - Thursday

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

Published: March 5, 2026, 1:34 pm