U.S. crude oil rises as Trump makes ominous threat against Iran ahead of deadline

Oil prices after President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iran's civilization if his 8 p.m. ET deadline is not met.

Family missing for 7 days found alive by U.S. Coast Guard in Pacific

A family of three was found alive by the U.S. Coast Guard, seven days after they went missing on a small boat in the western Pacific Ocean.

DHS shutdown enters eighth week as Mike Johnson faces Republican revolt over funding deal – live

The partial government shutdown has now lasted eight weeks; Markwayne Mullin considers pulling US customs agents from airports in sanctuary cities

During a press conference in Budapest with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, vice-president JD Vance is asked how the military goals in Iran can be achieved if the US continues its attacks on the country.

Vance was also asked about reports about US attacks on Kharg Island. The vice-president said the plan was to hit “some military targets” there and “I believe we have done so.”

USMNT striker Patrick Agyemang will miss World Cup after ‘serious’ achilles injury

• Derby striker was stretchered off after awkward landing

• 25-year-old had scored for US in friendly v Belgium

US national team striker Patrick Agyemang will miss this summer’s World Cup after suffering a “serious” achilles tendon injury during Derby County’s 2-0 win over Stoke City on Monday, the club said.

The 25-year-old, who is in his first season at Derby, rose to settle a ball in the 37th minute and landed awkwardly. Play stopped for five minutes before he was stretchered off by medical staff.

Oil prices rise, stocks fall ahead of Trump's Tuesday deadline for Iran

"This is a potentially huge market event like no other. It's a known unknown with a clock," one investment adviser said.

Search underway for woman after husband says she fell overboard while on boat ride in Bahamas

Police in the Bahamas are searching for an American woman who disappeared over the weekend. Lynette Hooker's husband says they were on a boat ride when she fell overboard and was swept out to sea. Cristian Benavides reports.

Delta raises checked bag fees $10 amid jet fuel price surge, joining other carriers

Delta is joining United and JetBlue in raising checked bag fees.

UK government bans Kanye West from entering country

Rapper was booked to play at Wireless festival in London, prompting outcry over his past antisemitic remarks

• UK politics live – latest updates

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been banned from entering the UK amid a deepening political row over his previous antisemitic statements.

West, who is legally known as Ye, made an application to travel to the UK via an Electronic Travel Authorisation on Monday but it has been blocked by officials.

Inside the mission to rescue 2 U.S. airmen in Iran

Officials have released new information on the mission to rescue two U.S. airmen in Iran after their fighter jet was shot down. Charlie D'Agata reports.

Used car prices rise to highest point since summer 2023

Used car prices rise to highest point since summer 2023

Democrats accuse ICE of creating ‘disappearances’ on US soil

Lawmakers led by Elizabeth Warren in scathing letter say system used to track detainees ‘increasingly unreliable’

A group of 36 lawmakers says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created “disappearances” on US soil, due to the “increasingly unreliable” online system used to track people detained by immigration authorities, according to a letter shared with the Guardian.

The lawmakers, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren, are urging that the DHS inspector general’s office open an investigation into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “online detainee locator system” (ODLS), which has been used for years by family members, attorneys and journalists to track people in the federal immigration detention system.

Why does alcohol make us both happy and miserable – and what else does it do to our minds and bodies?

It sends us to sleep and wakes us in the night, excites us and depresses us, gives us confidence one moment, anxiety the next. How does this messy drug wield so much power?

Whatever you think of alcohol, you have to admit that it’s versatile. Ever since the first humans started smashing up fruit and leaving it in pots to chug a few days later, we’ve been relying on it to celebrate and commiserate, to deal with anxiety and to make us more creative. We use it to build confidence and kill boredom, to get us in the mood for going out and to put us to (nonoptimal) sleep. Where most mind-altering substances have one or two specific use-cases, alcohol does the lot. That’s probably why it’s been so ubiquitous throughout human history – and why it can be so hard to give up entirely.

“We often call alcohol pharmacologically promiscuous,” says Dr Rayyan Zafar, a neuropsychopharmacologist from Imperial College London. “It doesn’t just calm you: it can stimulate reward pathways, dampen threat signals, release endogenous opioids that can relieve pain or stress, alter decision-making and shift mood, all at the same time.”

Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’ if Iran does not make a deal – Middle East crisis live

The US president once again warned Iran to make a deal to avert threat of massive attacks

Here are some of the latest images coming in from the Middle East as the war continues in week six.

The Israeli military has just warned the people of Iran not to use trains, saying that doing so “endangers your life”.

Dear Citizens, for the sake of your security, we kindly request that from this moment until 21:00 Iran time, you refrain from using and travelling by train throughout Iran.

Your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life.

Ford recalls nearly 423,000 vehicles over windshield wiper issue

Federal regulators said the windshield wipers could fail, reducing the driver's visibility and increasing the risk of a crash.

Vance accuses EU of ‘foreign interference’ in upcoming Hungarian election while endorsing Orbán – Europe live

US vice-president claims ‘the bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary’

… and here they are!

JD Vance and Usha Vance off the Air Force Two, welcomed by Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó as they begin their two-day trip to the Hungarian capital.

Trump warns Iran’s ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ unless deal struck

The near closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the war began has led to a historic oil supply shock, which quickly sent global energy prices soaring.

An anti-ICE protest and a thumbs-up from space: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Australia charges ex‑soldier with 5 war‑crime murders in Afghanistan

Roberts-Smith is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

Scientists develop gene-edited wheat that can make toasted bread less carcinogenic

Bread and biscuits made from Crispr-edited wheat showed substantially reduced acrylamide levels

Scientists have developed gene-edited wheat that can be used to make bread that is less carcinogenic when toasted.

Researchers at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, used Crispr genome editing, which allows researchers to selectively edit the DNA of living organisms. This technology was adapted for use in the laboratory from naturally occurring genome editing systems found in bacteria.

Iran war upends spring housing market. Here's what real estate agents are seeing

Home buyers in the first quarter were more concerned about the economy and mortgage rates than they were about home prices, CNBC's Housing Market Survey found.

Universal Music stock rises after Pershing Square's $64 billion takeover proposal

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square said Universal Music's stock price has "languished" due to a range of issues that can be addressed with the merger.

UK Jewish groups threaten protests if Kanye West’s Wireless shows go ahead

Campaign Against Antisemitism calls on rapper to cancel gigs, while rapper offers to meet Jewish representatives

Kanye West will face mass protests if his three-night residency at London’s Wireless festival goes ahead, according to Jewish groups who say that if the rapper is truly sorry for his antisemitic remarks he should cancel this summer’s gigs.

In a statement on Tuesday, West, who is legally known as Ye, offered to “meet and listen” to members of the UK’s Jewish community after a backlash over his planned appearance at the festival in July.

Australia cricket legend David Warner faces court over drink-driving charge

• Batsman tested positive after roadside stop in Sydney

• The 39-year-old will appear in court on 7 May

One of Australia’s most decorated cricketers will face court after alleging blowing twice the legal limit in a random breath test on Easter Sunday.

David Warner was allegedly stopped at a roadside breath testing unit at Maroubra in Sydney’s east.

David Squires on … the shocks and flops from the FA Cup quarter-finals

Our cartoonist on humiliating exits for Arsenal and Liverpool, low-hanging fruit and Hugo Ekitike’s shirt swap

• Buy one of David’s cartoons | His favourites from 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

Porn, dog poo and social media snaps: the ‘taskers’ scraping the internet for Meta-owned AI firm

Scale AI gig workers describe desperation of using people’s personal profiles and copyrighted work to train AI

Tens of thousands of people have been paid by a company part-owned by Meta to train AI by combing Instagram accounts, harvesting copyrighted work and transcribing pornographic soundtracks, the Guardian can reveal.

Scale AI, 49%-controlled by Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire, has recruited experts across fields such as medicine, physics and economics – putatively to refine top-level artificial intelligence systems through a platform called Outlier. “Become the expert that AI learns from,” it says on its site, advertising flexible work for people with strong credentials.

Two Trump moves last week could kill off future accountability for his deeds | Jan-Werner Müller

The Trump ‘library’ and an attack on the Presidential Records Act have more in common than it might seem

Last week, the Trump administration proudly published two pieces of news which, at first sight, could not be more different: one a dry 52-page legal opinion from the justice department declaring the 1978 Presidential Records Act unconstitutional; the other an AI-generated clip of Trump’s planned “presidential library”, a waterfront skyscraper in Miami. Both sent the same message, though: the legal opinion – authored by a jurist heavily involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 election – leaves Trump free to destroy evidence of wrongdoing; the building envisaged for Biscayne Bay appears to be less of a library than a hotel complex. As the president reassured anyone suspecting that he might fill a glitzy edifice with boring papers and books: “I don’t believe in building libraries or museums.” These are clear signals about wanting to avoid accountability; it is not too early to devise strategies to counter politically motivated amnesia.

In what jurists widely saw as an opinion of breathtakingly bad faith, T Elliot Gaiser, the Ohio-based election denier and a former clerk of Samuel Alito, asserted that Congress had no right to ask the president to preserve records; the imperative to create and keep documents served “no legislative purpose” and could “impede” the day-to-day “performance” of the head of the executive. The act had been crafted in the wake of the misdeeds of Richard Nixon, who had wanted discretion over which of his tapes and papers to destroy; in response, Congress first passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act in 1974, making the government take custody of Nixon’s materials. Nixon sued; the supreme court rejected the view that the separation of powers had been violated; the justices also took the occasion to affirm the importance of “the American people’s ability to reconstruct and come to terms with their history”. Congress then passed the more general Presidential Records Act, which no one up until Trump appeared to have experienced as remotely burdensome.

Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University

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

They have degrees, expertise and years of experience – but can’t find work. For many Americans, AI training has become a last refuge in a brutal job market

When Patrick Ciriello lost his job and couldn’t find work for nearly a year, his family’s foundation crumbled.

“You hear about people who hit rock bottom,” Ciriello told the Guardian. “Well, I was there.”

House Democrats call on federal regulator to crack down on offshore prediction market war bets

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have exploded in popularity recently, raising questions about how to properly regulate the platforms.

U.S. soldier's newlywed wife detained on military base, faces deportation

Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank said he brought his wife, Annie Ramos, 22, to his base so that she could begin the process to receive military benefits and take steps toward a green card.

Ben Roberts-Smith arrested: former Australian soldier charged with five war crime murders in Afghanistan

Roberts-Smith previously failed in his attempt to sue three newspapers which published allegations he murdered unarmed civilians and bullied comrades

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Australia’s most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested at Sydney airport and charged with war crimes.

The Australian federal police and the Office of the Special Investigator announced details of the investigation in Sydney on Tuesday after midday.

Iran war to throttle oil flows even if Strait of Hormuz reopens soon

Shipping companies would take at least two months to resume operations in the Persian Gulf following a ceasefire in the region, according to the Eurasia Group.

Champions League: previews and predictions for the quarter-finals

All the stats for Sporting v Arsenal, Real Madrid v Bayern, Barcelona v Atlético Madrid and PSG v Liverpool

By WhoScored

Arsenal arrive in Lisbon having seen their quadruple dreams unravel after back-to-back defeats to Manchester City in the League Cup final and Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Those missed opportunities, though disappointing, should focus the players’ minds on a Double that is very much attainable.

Harry Styles announces jazz, pop, indie and electronic artists for his Meltdown festival

London festival will feature an intimate Styles performance as well as appearances from Warpaint, Kamasi Washington, Devonté Hynes and more

Harry Styles has announced the lineup of artists he has curated for this year’s Meltdown festival, held at London’s Southbank Centre.

As well as performing a solo concert on 16 June at Royal Festival Hall, sandwiched amid his run of 12 dates at the considerably larger Wembley Stadium, Styles has brought together a diverse range of artists spanning jazz, pop, indie rock and electronic music.

‘Even more beautiful than I imagined’: the nifty Japanese printing gadget uniting artists worldwide

It’s fast, affordable and its colours are as vivid as screenprints. Designer and risograph devotee Gabriella Marcella talks about founding Riso Club, connecting device users from New York, London, Damascus, Kyiv, Lille, Lima and beyond

Gabriella Marcella felt something in her brain click when she first used a risograph printer. “The process, the immediacy – it resonated,” says the Scottish-Italian designer. “A lot of my aesthetic comes from that machine.” Many artists and creatives share that reaction, and now Marcella has curated an exhibition of international art showcasing their work at Glasgow’s Glue Factory Galleries.

The risograph, created in Japan in the 1980s, is a nifty printer that looks like a photocopier but creates work like a screenprinter. The company that produced it, Riso Kagaku, was founded by Noboru Hayama, a businessman whose goal was to make intuitive and affordable printing products. Using soy inks to produce small print-runs of products with a handmade feel and distinctive style, the risograph print – or riso – has become synonymous with zines, activism and independent creatives.

‘We fear the epidemic will return’: Senegal’s harsh anti-gay law puts decades of HIV progress in jeopardy

Arrest toll mounts and gay men flee the country as new, harsher legislation cracks down on ‘promotion’ of homosexuality

Amadou Ndiaye has spent the past two months watching members of his organisation disappear – fleeing across borders, being arrested or simply going silent.

Ndiaye is the secretary-general of UJEC (Union des Jeunes Engagés pour Notre Communauté), a Dakar-based NGO that runs a refuge providing emergency shelter and community support for LGBTQ+ people facing homophobic violence.

Members of neo-Nazi ‘active clubs’ join combat events at secretive Virginia compound

Licensed school teacher and one-time police officer among those participating in riot-style gatherings as experts warn of threat to public safety

A network of militant neo-Nazi active clubs from around the US has been participating in riot-style combat events with other white nationalist groups in Virginia as part of what their founder called a “tip-off point for a fascist cultural revolution”.

Social media posts and group chats show members of so-called active clubs from Texas, Tennessee and Pennsylvania have in recent weeks and months travelled to Lynchburg, Virginia to train together at a secretive compound. The compound is run by the Wolves of Vinland, which the civil rights watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a neopagan white nationalist hate group. Also present were members of the white supremacist hate group Patriot Front and the neo-Nazi skinhead group known as the Hammerskins.

Drone racing to drone strikes: have war and sport become indistinguishable?

The Trump administration’s pushing of the war in Iran reflects a sporting culture driven by clipped-up content, shameless tribalism and a lust for escalation

Among the more surprising continuities of 2026 has been the visual kinship between the Winter Olympics and the US’s illegal and unprovoked war in Iran. High-speed camera drones were a highlight of TV coverage of the recent Games in Milano Cortina, bringing viewers within kissing distance of the action as Olympic athletes hurtled down the slopes and around the tracks in the skiing and sliding events. The incessant screech of the drones aside, the introduction of quadcopter-borne cameras felt like a real step forward in coverage of the winter sports, bringing a (literal) new perspective to events that had become, over recent decades, fairly static as a viewing experience.

No sooner had the Olympics finished than aerial video was back on our screens – only the footage, in this case, was of a far darker variety. In place of the ludicrous hip flexibility of the slaloming skiers and the high-speed cornering of the monobobbers, for the past month our feeds have been flooded with satellite and drone imagery of the US military blowing Iranian aircraft, ships, vehicles, munitions buildings, and citizens to smithereens. The aerial perspective that brought the strength and speed and elasticity and joy of Olympic competition to our screens now transmits the daily horrors of war in easily snackable, two-minute clips on to our phones. In the era of the milkshake duck, it’s almost expected that anything positive in our culture will eventually turn sour – and technology, of course, is ethically agnostic, a tool that can be used for both good and evil ends. But even in a culture as depraved and hypocritical as ours, the seamless transition from drone-supplied footage of Olympic excellence to drone-supplied footage of war crimes has felt genuinely jarring.

Novo Nordisk's explosive Wegovy pill launch draws a new wave of patients into GLP-1 weight loss treatment

CNBC spoke with five U.S. patients who recently started the pill following its launch and have varying initial experiences with the drug.

Trump's deadline for an Iran deal looms. And, Artemis II crew begins the journey home

In a press conference last night, Trump reiterated threats against Iran if the country doesn't accept a deal by 8:00 p.m. ET tonight. And, the Artemis II crew are on their way back to Earth.

UK government caps student loan interest rates at 6% from September

Minister says change for plan 2 and 3 loans in England and Wales will ‘protect borrowers’ from impact of global conflict

• UK politics live – latest updates

The interest rate on plan 2 and plan 3 student loans will be capped at 6% from September, ministers have announced, amid concerns that higher inflation will drive repayments up for many graduates.

Ministers acted after months of criticism over the loans becoming a “debt trap” that often leave graduates in England and Wales paying tens of thousands more than the original loan amount.

As Trump's deadline approaches, Iranian leaders respond in defiance

Hours away from President Trump's 8 pm ET Tuesday deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, attacks continued in the Persian Gulf with no agreement in sight. Trump has threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants if a deal is not reached.

How Bill Phillips used flowing water to model the economy

Bill Phillips was an outsider to economics, but he used a machine and a chart to change the way we think about the government's role in a capitalist economy.

Pet Shop Boys review – no hits? No problem on first night of a masterful obscurities run

Electric Ballroom, London
The era-defining duo’s ultras are suitably spoiled in the first of this intimate five-day run, showered with rarities that put a different spin on their well-known history

‘Tonight …” says Neil Tennant, with a suave pause, “no hits!” The crowd roars. “B-sides?” he teases. “Album tracks! And what we’re calling – although really it’s both of those – fan favourites.” It is a rare gig when the singer of a history-defining pop band can promise that no one will be hearing some of the best songs of all time tonight – West End Girls, Always on My Mind, Rent, to name some of several dozen – and get a hero’s welcome. But Pet Shop Boys have been on their Dreamworld greatest hits tour since 2022, one that’s barely even made room for their excellent and underrated 2024 album Nonetheless on the set list, let alone many wildcards. The Pet Shop Boys casual has been lavishly fatted in recent years. The Pet Shop Boys ultra, however, has been a little parched.

It’s something this five-day run of intimate shows at Camden’s Electric Ballroom seeks to remedy, drawing from the band’s margins to promote a new tome on their highly intentional visual history: in typical one-word fashion, the tour is called Obscure. Tennant and synths foil Chris Lowe announced beforehand that they had rehearsed 35 possible songs from their 42-year run, but their enduring commitment to the single format, with its considered B-sides and remixes, makes the possibilities endless: one fan compiled a pre-game playlist of 226 “B-sides and non-singles”, and doubted even then that it was comprehensive. Tennant has a tray containing the lyrics – fair play, given that two songs tonight have never been played before, while others are getting their first trip out of the cupboard in decades.

US is ‘using Mexico as a garbage sink’ leading to ‘toxic crisis’, UN expert says

Marcos Orellana, a special rapporteur, found lax environmental standards and lack of oversight allowed pollution to accumulate

Mexico is facing a “toxic crisis” and has become a “garbage sink” for the US, exposing Mexican communities to dangerous pollution, a UN expert has warned.

In an interview with the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, an investigative outlet, Marcos Orellana, an environmental specialist, said pollutants ranging from imported waste to dangerous pesticides are affecting people’s right to live healthy lives.

Let’s stop going into space. There’s nothing to see and no one to talk to | Zoe Williams

I’ve nothing against astronauts or scientific innovation. But what’s the point of Artemis II?

It is absolutely self-evident to me that space exploration is pointless, and the more urgent the crises besetting this planet we live on, the more pointless it becomes. I can see why people got excited about it in the 1960s, back when the world was young and we still thought there might be little green people out there – who wouldn’t want to meet them? Most serious opinion, however, has now settled on the “Where is everybody?” paradox first framed by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950. If there is intelligent life anywhere, why has it not sought to make contact? It’s because there isn’t. There’s nothing out there except planets infinitely less beautiful than this one we live on.

All that seems pretty uncontroversial, and I almost never mention it, except for when astronauts yet again pointlessly go into space, as with the latest moon mission. Here’s what I’ve noticed: people get really annoyed. I have loads of opinions way more vexatious than that one, yet none of them attract the same ire. Everyone’s annoyed for a different reason – some of them think I’m deliberately setting out to ruin a festivity; others act as though I’m opposing innovation and modernity, which I absolutely am not. They point to all the discoveries that wouldn’t have been made without the space-based wanderlust, most of which seem to involve finding better ways to kill each other, and then they mourn the kind of world I want to live in, where nobody can see beyond their own horizon.

A new economic superpower could spark a global retreat from fossil fuels | Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

Eighty-five countries have sought a roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels. A conference this month offers hope they could unite

• This article is published as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

The Iran war is also a climate war. Beyond its terrible human costs, the war’s disruptions of oil, gas, fertilizer and other shipments is another reminder of the risks inherent in basing the world economy on fossil fuels. The war’s jets, missiles and aircraft carriers, and the tankers, refineries and buildings they blow up, represent millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions that further imperil a climate system that is already “very close” to a point of no return, scientists say, after which runaway global warming could not be stopped. Nevertheless, petrostate leaders around the world continue doing their utmost to stave off a desperately needed course correction.

Now, a little noticed ray of hope may be peeking over the horizon.

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are co-founders of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

Georgia runoff to decide Marjorie Taylor Greene replacement

Voters in Georgia's 14th Congressional District will choose between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris.

Beer cans, helium balloons and mortgages: An unexpected mix of things affected by war

It's not just oil and gas that are affected by the Iran war. All sorts of shortages and price spikes are starting to pop up that stand to affect people's daily lives.

Upward Bound by Woody Brown review – extraordinary debut from a non-speaking autistic author

This garrulous, charming story of a young man stuck in a daycare centre for disabled adults offers a vital insider’s perspective

Upward Bound is a dismal adult daycare centre in the Los Angeles suburbs, with “poop-coloured” walls and a small swimming pool out the back. The name on the sign is cruelly misleading because Upward Bound serves as a dumping ground for the city’s disabled community, a pen to hold people who have aged out of school. Any inmate who manages to clamber free – be it up, down or sideways – has slipped the net, beaten the odds and might therefore be viewed as a small miracle.

The author Woody Brown feels similarly touched with magic, having swerved the hell of adult care in pursuit of a professional writing career. He’s the first non-speaking autistic graduate of UCLA and a 2024 alumnus of the writing programme at Columbia University; Upward Bound, his triumphant first novel, looks back not with anger but with compassion and grace. Brown feels for the centre’s exhausted staff almost as much as he does for its mouldering, desperate “clients”, who are forced to map out their days with pointless time-wasting activities. Upward Bound – a jailbreak story of sorts – suggests that practically everyone here has been falsely imprisoned. His book is the literary equivalent of sending the ladder back down.

Taiwan's opposition leader arrives in China for a 'Journey of Peace'

The visit takes place ahead of President Trump's own summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month, where Taiwan is expected to be a top agenda item.

‘I couldn’t see, breathe or sing. I blacked out twice’: why are so many metal bands wearing masks?

From Sleep Token to Ghost and Slaughter to Prevail, the genre’s biggest stars are using freaky facial disguises. Are they hiding behind them – or revealing their true nature?

When US avant garde metal band Imperial Triumphant decided that their image needed a shake-up in 2015, they considered putting on corpse paint, the ghastly makeup popularised by 90s black metal. But, their singer/guitarist Zachary Ezrin says, they then realised how much effort it would take – and how uncool the post-gig rituals would feel: “You just rocked a show, and now you have to sit backstage and wipe off your makeup.” (Perish the thought of being the average female pop star.)

They instead chose to wear striking gold masks modelled after 1920s art deco architecture, though these brought their own problems when they got lost in transit. “We had to do one show where Steve [Blanco, bass] was wearing a new mask that we put together from parts. We went to some Hungarian costume shop and just started grabbing stuff and piecing it together.”

Universal Music, home to Taylor Swift and Drake, receives €55bn takeover offer

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square claims world’s biggest music company has suffered due to delay of US listing

• Business live – latest updates

Billionaire Bill Ackman’s hedge fund has offered to buy Universal Music Group (UMG) in a deal that values the world’s biggest music company at around €55bn (£48bn).

Pershing Square, the New-York based hedge fund, has offered to buy the business, which is home to artists including Taylor Swift and Elton John, in a cash and stock deal that would move its stock market listing from Amsterdam to New York.

Houseplant hacks: do eggshells deter fungus gnats from laying eggs?

It sounds thrifty and natural, but kitchen waste won’t help. Here’s what will

The problem
Fungus gnats are one of the most annoying houseplant pests because they seem to appear out of nowhere, hovering around the soil and your face with equal enthusiasm. One internet fix suggests crushing eggshells and adding them to the compost to keep the gnats away. It sounds thrifty and natural.

The hack
The theory is that a layer of crushed shell will stop adult gnats from laying eggs and maybe even add a little natural fertiliser to the soil. It’s also the kind of hack people love because it recycles kitchen waste.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe review – a compulsive tale of money, lies and avoidable tragedy

A New Yorker writer traces the web of deceit that led a troubled teenager to his violent death

Early one winter morning in November 2019, a surveillance camera at MI6’s headquarters on the Thames registered the silhouette of a young man on the balcony of an apartment complex on the opposite side of the river. It was dark but the fifth-floor balcony was brightly lit. The man seemed to hesitate a moment before he jumped. On the way down his hip struck the embankment wall and, possibly unconscious as he hit the water, he drowned. His body was found five hours later face down in riverbank mud, shirtless and in tracksuit bottoms. The autopsy revealed multiple injuries (including a broken jaw) that were caused either by the fall or by a prior assault; the pathologist was unable to determine which.

The Metropolitan police identified the body as that of Zac Brettler, aged 19. He had spent the night he died with a gangland debt collector and drug trafficker named Verinder Sharma. Sharma, 55, said he owned the apartment and allowed Zac to stay with him in the complex rent-free. But phone records and CCTV showed that a third man, Akbar Shamji, had been present that night. A cryptocurrency and real estate trader who lived in Mayfair, Shamji denied any wrongdoing during police interrogation, and continues to maintain his innocence. He stated that Brettler was a compulsive liar who had pretended to be the son of a dead Russian oligarch in order to befriend him and his business associate Sharma. In a further bizarre imposture, Brettler used the alter-ego “Zac Ismailov” and even affected a Russian accent. Shamji could not be arrested on suspicion of murder since he was not in the apartment at the time of the fall. As for Sharma, the M16 camera provided proof that he had not pushed Brettler over the balcony. If these men did not cause the teenager’s death, who did?

‘Before I can stop her, my daughter is licking crumbs from the table’: my search for the perfect kids’ menu

Chips, fish fingers, pizza … restaurant food for children is depressingly predictable. Are there more adventurous options? I took my four-year-old daughter on a month-long mission to find out

We’re heading out for dinner. Before I tell my four-year-old where we’re going, she has already announced that she’s going to have fish, chips and lots of ketchup. It sounds delicious; a classic. But there’s the irksome feeling that the intrepid impulses of childhood should be met with food that expands palates rather than feeding into the well-trodden path to a beige meal.

My guilt is only slightly assuaged by the ungenerous thought that maybe I can lay some blame at other people’s feet. Namely – as if it hasn’t got enough on its plate already – the hospitality industry. A certainty of fish and chips hasn’t come from nowhere – so often, regardless of the type of restaurant, kids’ menus have the same fodder.

Bracing for federal cuts, some states are already paring back Medicaid services

Paying for doulas to help birthing moms in maternity care deserts was a priority for Montana. But it halted the plan amid a budget shortfall and fears over coming federal Medicaid cuts.

AI in the mental health care workforce is met with fear, pushback — and enthusiasm

Artificial intelligence tools that help mental health therapists take notes and keep records are quickly entering the marketplace. But some question the safety of AI in mental health care delivery.

Morning news brief

Trump repeats threat to bomb Iran's infrastructure if a deal isn't reached, strikes in the Middle East intensify as Trump's deadline looms, Artemis II crew heads home after historic moon mission.

The Stranger review – lustrously beautiful and superbly realised modern take on the Camus classic

François Ozon’s adaptation of the 1942 novella L’Etranger passionately honours the original text while bringing a contemporary perspective to its themes of empire and race

A heatstricken reverie of violence and mystery unfolds in this film, a numb ecstasy of the inexplicable, as experienced by a sensitive white European under the unbearable noonday sun. Set in 1940s French Algeria (and filmed in Morocco), François Ozon’s lustrously beautiful and superbly realised monochrome version of Albert Camus’s novella L’Etranger has an almost supernaturally detailed sense of period and place. It amounts to a passionate act of ancestor worship in honour of a renowned French artwork, though by making changes that bring a contemporary perspective on the book’s themes of empire and race – changes that include a critique of the original text – this adaptation perhaps loses some of its source material’s brutal, heartless power and arguably some of the title’s meaning.

An archive reel introduces us briskly to Algiers and its casbah, with a hint of Julien Duvivier’s Pépé Le Moko; then we are shown our antihero Meursault, remanded there on trial for the capital crime of murder, played with many an unreadable moue of listless unconcern by Benjamin Voisin. Flashbacks show us his dull office job in Algiers, where he turns down a promotion and transfer to Paris, one of his many shrugging gestures of indifference to his own interests.

Viktor who? Sporting’s new Gyökeres has sights trained on Arsenal

The Sweden striker’s goals had inspired Sporting for two years but in Colombian Luis Suárez they have found an equally prolific target man

In Portugal, two of the most familiar sayings claim that “green is the colour of hope” and that “hope is the last thing to die”. For Sporting, a club draped in green, those proverbs are not merely poetic – they are operational.

After a humiliating 3–0 defeat in Norway by Bodø/Glimt in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, logic suggested it was all over. Sporting disagreed. Backed by about 50,000 supporters, the team surged with belief and delivered a 5–0 victory that carried the club to their first quarter-final in the tournament in 43 years. Arsenal come next, as does an old question: is hope a cultural relic or Sporting’s most powerful ally?

A violent waiter and Joselu’s heroics: six of Bayern and Madrid’s finest games

As the most played fixture in European competition looms once more, we look back on 50 years of thrills and spills

The Champions League’s answer to el clásico resumes in Madrid on Tuesday. Real Madrid v Bayern Munich is the most played fixture in European competition: 28 matches and counting, including 13 knockout ties. Here are six of the best.

The Masters is a welcome oasis in golf’s fractious world, despite its stuffy foibles | Ewan Murray

No phones, no littering, no cheering bad shots – ‘patrons’ face strict rules at Augusta, but what a contrast to last year’s disgraceful Ryder Cup

It is easy to poke fun at the prissy traditions of the Masters. Golfers, never mind spectators, enter a state of panic over what horrible fate may befall them should they break the rules inside Augusta National. It is preposterous in so many ways; adults consumed by fear over missteps at a golf tournament. People do not typically feel this way inside the Sistine Chapel.

This year, there are reasons to be grateful for Augusta’s unapologetic approach. The Masters provides a welcome break from the ear-bashing noise of the modern world. The United States is an especially fractious place. This major also offers a timely escape from the racket within golf itself. Brief serenity should be appreciated.

Michigan holds off UConn to win 2026 NCAA men's basketball title

This is Michigan's second NCAA title in school history, and the win ends a 26-year national championship drought for the Big Ten.

‘Something you only see in films’: Czech case yet another example of sexual abuse crisis

Petr Vlachovsky’s non-contact sexual abuse has had long-term effects and could finally be the catalyst for safeguarding policy change for women and girls in the sport

Kristyna Janku answered the phone to a police officer, not sure what she was going to hear. She had heard the rumours, the gossip, and was not sure what was true and what was not.

The defender’s former coach Petr Vlachovsky, who coached women and girls at FC Slovacko for almost 15 years and was once voted the best women’s football coach in the Czech Republic, had been arrested and she was about to find out why.

Bangladesh launches measles vaccination drive as child death toll passes 100

UN assists in emergency vaccination drive as country battles worst surge in cases in years amid fall in vaccination rates

Bangladesh is battling its worse measles outbreak in years, with more than 100 children dead amid a rise in unvaccinated infants.

The government, in partnership with the United Nations, has begun conducting an emergency measles-rubella vaccination drive for children across the country, after more than 900 cases were confirmed since March.

Sluts, simps and body shaming: the rise of Africa’s manosphere

Experts have been alarmed at the growth of deep misogyny dressed up as self-help on social media. We profile seven men from across the continent who are gaining traction

It is not just Europe and the US that are grappling with a growing landscape of misogynistic influencers online. While Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines, Sneako and other voices grow in toxicity in the manosphere of the west, across Africa – which has more than 400 million people aged between 15 and 35 – several individuals are gaining traction.

The manosphere is a loose network of communities that claim to address men’s struggles such as dating and fitness, but often promote harmful misogynistic attitudes. Sunita Caminha, who leads UN Women on ending violence against women and girls in east and southern Africa, first started noticing its presence in Africa about five years ago, and believes it is on the rise. “Research and data that keeps coming out is very consistent [in] showing this is an alarming issue in different countries and contexts across the continent.”

On the shoulders of giants: roaming among England’s famous chalk figures

Ancient hill carvings of horses, crosses and crowns have fascinated artists, writers and travellers for centuries. I went in search of their stories

In the churchyard next to Wilmington Priory in East Sussex, I found a yew so ancient and stooped that its trunk had eaten half a gravestone. Its boughs were supported by long poles, a creepy sight that made me shudder. I had come here to see something just as strange, but more benign than this folk-horror vision – the figure of the Long Man of Wilmington on the hillside opposite, on the steep scarp of the South Downs. He treks over the hill, a stave clasped in each hand. Climbing Windover Hill, just beneath the South Downs Way, I saw that while he was once a chalk giant, his lines are now marked with concrete blocks.

The Long Man may be Anglo-Saxon in origin – the shape is similar to the design on a buckle discovered in Kent in 1964 by the archaeologist Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, which probably represents the god Odin (or Woden); but he may be a much later adornment for the hillside, made to be viewed from the priory. His form entranced the photographer Lee Miller and her husband, the artist Roland Penrose, who lived close to the Long Man. Penrose painted a surrealist representation of the Long Man on the inglenook fireplace at Farleys, their home – for them the figure was a protective spirit. It also inspired the composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor, the folk collective the Memory Band, and Benjamin Britten picnicked at its feet.

Gangnam styles: South Korea’s brutalist gems – in pictures

It’s all about the austere beauty of concrete in photographer Paul Tulett’s starkly stunning shots of the country’s jaw-dropping, rapidly evolving architectural highlights

Artemis II crew on path back to Earth after historic trip around the moon

The Artemis II crew flew farther from Earth than any humans in history as they passed over the far side of the moon on Monday night.

Some might pay: Noel Gallagher guitar used to write Oasis’s second album to be auctioned

Signed acoustic guitar used on (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? – the bestselling album of the 90s – could fetch up to £60,000 at Sotheby’s

Incredibly, some critics were lukewarm about Oasis’s second album, with one calling it “laboured and lazy” and another dismissing it as a “marginally less hook-laden reprise” of their debut.

But (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? went on to become the bestselling British album of the 90s and a guitar Noel Gallagher used to write it will, Sotheby’s has announced, be a star lot of its April rock and pop sale.

‘I felt ashamed and scared’: how an online friendship became a sextortion nightmare

Thomas found connection online after moving to a rural village with no friends nearby. Then things started to spiral

• Children in UK report online sextortion attempts in record numbers

“I still describe them as the best friend I’ve had.”

Thomas* knows how it sounds, but it’s his honest description of what he initially thought was an online friendship with another teenager who, just as he did, felt lonely and like he didn’t quite fit in at school.

In the Rohingya refugee camps, we really want you to keep the gas running | Ajas Khan

Aid cuts mean the ethnically-cleansed refugees from Myanmar face a return to cooking over toxic flames, or keeping children out of school to spend all day scouring for firewood

Four years ago the US recognised the genocide of my people, and nations around the world came to our aid. Today, we ask the world to reaffirm that commitment. What do we ask for that will save lives, the local habitat and even dollars for Rohingya refugees?

Cooking gas.

Country diary: A bum note amid the dawn chorus | Mark Cocker

Hogshaw, Derbyshire: Our old Buxton tip is an area rich in nature. It’s depressing out local council wants it developed

Our old Buxton tip might bear the scars of former abuse, but it’s now an entangled, self-willed wood, largely made up of willows and birch, which is surrounded by flowers in summer and has a species list of 870, composed mainly of insects. The diversity arises because these two pioneer trees are among the most invertebrate-friendly in our islands.

Where you find insect abundance, you’ll also hear birdsong, because the music is fuelled largely by invertebrate protein. Recently we organised a dawn-chorus walk and managed 20 early spring vocalists. Song and mistle thrushes, dunnocks and wrens, as well as bullfinches and greenfinches, were among the breeding birds we heard and which are red- or amber-listed by the British Trust for Ornithology.

‘I see it as trafficking’: the brutal reality of life as a foreign student in the UK

Universities in Britain rely on overseas applicants paying full fees, which has given rise to some unscrupulous recruiters and left many hopefuls and their families deep in debt

When Sam started looking into studying abroad, it didn’t take long for his phone to start ringing. At 24, he was living with his parents in a small city in the southern Indian state of Odisha and he’d been stuck in an entry-level job for four years. He hoped a master’s degree in the UK might lead to a high-flying finance job in London, or at least give him an edge when he came back home.

After filling in a few forms on study abroad websites, Sam soon started receiving calls from unknown numbers. Eventually, he answered one. The person on the phone was an education agent – a recruiter who helps students apply to foreign universities – pitching his services. The offer sounded appealing. The agency would help Sam decide which universities to apply to, advising on the most suitable courses and where he had the best chance of admission. They would help draft his application, and if he got in, assist with immigration. They would do all of this for free. “I was sceptical,” said Sam. “Like, why would you do that?”

From ‘stink bugs’ to ‘enemies of the people’: how Viktor Orbán blazed a trail for Trump’s media assaults | Amrit Singh

Hungary’s prime minister has conducted a systematic attack on independent media. The parallels with the US are chilling

During his state of the nation address earlier this year, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, outlined a chilling vision of the country’s future. Signalling a new level of aggression in his campaign against the truth if he is returned to power in elections on 12 April, Orbán vowed to purge the country of “bought journalists” and “fake civil society organisations”.

Media repression isn’t just a Hungarian problem. According to the V-Dem Institute in Sweden, a leading democracy monitor, it is the most commonly used weapon in the authoritarian arsenal. Strikingly, its latest report finds that US democracy is now at its worst level since the 1960s, marked by a sharp decline in media freedom.

Amrit Singh is professor of practice and founding faculty director of the Rule of Law Lab at NYU School of Law

A gangster, a bogus inheritance and a dead 19-year-old: the mystery Patrick Radden Keefe couldn’t ignore

When Zac Brettler jumped to his death in London, the coroner recorded an open verdict, admitting: ‘I don’t know what happened.’ The acclaimed author of Say Nothing and, now, London Falling, talks about his search for answers

In the summer of 2023, the American writer and journalist Patrick Radden Keefe was in London for the filming of Say Nothing, the television adaptation of his much-lauded, much-awarded account of a Troubles murder. It was there, on set, that Keefe got talking to a visitor, a friend of the director, who happened to tell Keefe about friends of his, the Brettlers, a London family who had experienced something tragic, strange and terrible.

Rachelle and Matthew Brettler’s 19-year-old son, Zac, had died in November 2019 when he jumped from the fifth-floor balcony of a luxury apartment overlooking the Thames. There had been no reason to believe he was suicidal – but plenty to suggest that he was very afraid. Zac had spent his last few months in the orbit of two men who believed him to be the son of a Russian oligarch, heir to a £200m legacy. Both men had been with Zac on the night he died – one had been in the apartment at the time – and gave varying accounts in police interviews. The family believed that the Met response had been full of holes – key witnesses hadn’t been formally interviewed, bloodstains on the apartment walls hadn’t been tested – and the investigation concluded in 2021 with the Crown Prosecution Service deciding there was insufficient evidence to bring charges for murder and perverting the course of justice. The inquest in 2022 ended in an open verdict. “I can’t fill in the gaps; I can’t speculate,” the coroner concluded. “I don’t know what happened.”

Trump calls Artemis II astronauts "modern-day pioneers" in live conversation

President Trump praised the crew of NASA's Artemis II mission in a brief chat late Monday, saying they had "inspired the entire world" after they looped around the moon in a record-breaking voyage.

Accused Pinochet agent turned Bondi nanny Adriana Rivas to be extradited to Chile

Woman denies allegations of aggravated kidnapping during Augusto Pinochet’s 1970s military dictatorship

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A former Sydney nanny and cleaner accused by Chile of being a torturer and kidnapper for Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in the 1970s will be extradited to Chile to face court over kidnapping allegations after losing her seven-year battle to remain in Australia.

Adriana Elcira Rivas, now in her 70s, is accused of participating in the disappearances of seven people in 1976 – including a woman who was five months pregnant – while working for Pinochet’s secret police force.

4/6: The Takeout with Major Garrett

Trump sheds new light on mission to rescue F-16 crew members in Iran; Artemis II sets record for farthest distance travelled from Earth.

Blackouts, broken records and a message from the past: five key moments from Artemis II’s lunar flyby

Crew of Orion capsule spent emotional day documenting surface of moon – and paying homage to astronauts who paved the way

• Artemis II sets new record as astronauts travel farther from Earth than ever before

On the sixth day of a lunar mission that has rekindled global interest in space exploration and reinvigorated Nasa’s aims to return to the moon, the astronauts of Artemis II flew further from Earth than any human before them.

Across a six-hour flyby, the crew of the Orion capsule captured views of the moon’s far side that have never been seen before – while honouring the astronauts who paved the way for their record-breaking mission.

Artemis II travels around far side of the moon

Artemis II on Monday broke the Apollo 13 mission's record for farthest distance humans have travelled from Earth as the crew looped around the far side of the moon. Mark Strassmann reports.

14-year-old running for governor of Vermont

Dean Roy, a 14-year-old boy who works part-time at his parents' pizza shop, has officially earned a spot on the ballot for governor of Vermont. Tony Dokoupil has the story.

Savannah Guthrie returns to "Today" show as search for mother continues

Savannah Guthrie returned to the "Today" show on Monday as investigators continued to search for her mother, Nancy. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy reiterates truce offer ahead of Orthodox Easter

Ukrainian president says Russia unlikely to accept – ‘for them, nothing is sacred’; Australian police arrest army reservist for joining war. What we know on day 1,504

Ukraine’s president has renewed his offer to Russia of a mutual ceasefire on strikes against energy infrastructure. “If Russia is ready to stop strikes on our energy infrastructure, we will respond in kind,” he said. “This proposal has been conveyed to the Russian side through the Americans.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered last week to observe a ceasefire for Easter, which Orthodox adherents mark on Sunday (13 April) in Russia and Ukraine.

In his remarks on Monday, after an overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa killed three people and injured at least 16, Zelenskyy said Russia appeared unwilling to agree to the ceasefire. “We have repeatedly proposed to Russia a ceasefire at least for Easter,” he said. “But for them, all times are the same. Nothing is sacred.”

Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s oil shipping terminal in southern Russia early on Monday, damaging a mooring point and setting four oil tanks on fire, the Russian defence ministry claimed. The Ukrainian army said it had attacked a different terminal in the port of Novorossiysk – without mentioning the CPC, which did not immediately comment. The CPC pipeline handles about 1% of the world’s oil supplies, as well as about 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.

A reservist in the Australian army has been charged after allegedly working as a drone operator for Ukraine. The 25-year-old man from Felixstow, in the South Australian city of Adelaide, was charged by the Australian Federal Police with working for a foreign military without authorisation, the AAP news agency reported. It is the first time someone has been charged with the offence, with the man facing up to two decades in jail if found guilty. Australian laws limit the work defence personnel can perform with a foreign military, government or company without authorisation. The man allegedly travelled to Ukraine in May 2025 and returned to Australia in January 2026.

A Russian ship carrying wheat believed to have sunk in the Sea of Azov after a drone attack has been found and towed to shore, Russia’s state news agency Tass said on Monday. The death toll has risen to three, it added. Crew abandoned the ship last Friday and made it to shore on Monday, according to Russian reports.

Russia jailed on Monday a former governor of the Kursk border region, where Ukraine’s army broke through in 2024, for 14 years over alleged kickbacks for government contracts related to the construction of fortifications. Since August 2024, the Kremlin has gone after top regional and military officials for failing to stop the incursion – a massive embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Alexei Smirnov, the former Kursk governor, was “sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of 400 million rubles [£3.8m/US$5m]”, a court statement said. Another former Kursk governor, Roman Starovoyt, who led the region until just before the Ukrainian breakthrough, died last year by alleged suicide – a fate that regularly befalls officials who run foul of the Russian president.

Parents charged after toddler injured by wolf at Pennsylvania zoo

The parents of a 17-month-old child are facing endangerment charges after the toddler stuck his hand under the fence of a wolf enclosure at a Pennsylvania zoo. Tom Hanson reports.

Trump, top officials share new details of rescue of U.S. airmen from Iran

President Trump and top national security officials shed new light on the daring rescues of two American airmen who were shot down over Iran last week.

Indianapolis city councilor says his home was shot at over data center project

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said officers found evidence of gunshots and believe it was "an isolated, targeted incident."

Indianapolis councilman says his home was shot at over data center support

Indianapolis councilmember Ron Gibson says 13 rounds were fired at his home and a note was left under his doormat saying "no data centers" after he voiced support for building one. Shanelle Kaul reports.

Trump defends attacking civilian infrastructure in Iran, warns the country is running out of time

In a news conference on Monday, President Trump continued to threaten bombings against Iran's bridges and power plants. Weijia Jiang reports.

Broadcom agrees to expanded chip deals with Google, Anthropic

Broadcom said it agreed to produce future versions of Google artificial intelligence chips, and announced an expanded deal with Anthropic.

Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis says he never wanted to hurt wife Melissa Hoskins and attacks media’s ‘false narrative’

Dennis, whose car fatally struck Hoskins in 2023, wrote on Instagram ‘I have ALWAYS been against any sort of abuse against women’

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The Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis has lashed out at journalists on social media, saying they created a “false narrative” about him after his wife’s 2023 death.

“The narrative which the media ran with was clear,” the former professional cyclist wrote on Instagram late on Monday night. “They wanted me to look like the husband who abused his wife.”

Trump reveals new details on mission to rescue downed F-15 crew in Iran

New information emerged from the White House on Monday about the daring rescue of the crew of an F-15 fighter jet that was shot down in Iran last Friday. Charlie D'Agata has more.

The Hair of the Pigeon by Mohammed Massoud Morsi review – an epic tale of a refugee’s journey

The Egyptian-Danish-Australian journalist’s second novel spans continents, following a Palestinian teen as he comes of age during the Syrian civil war and is forced into exile

The air thrums with whistles and drums as people pour around corners, spill down streets. It’s March 2011 in Damascus, Syria, and revolution has arrived in the form of the Arab spring.

Palestinian teen Ghassan, stopping to watch the crowd of protesters, recalls a recent warning from a friend: “What the people want out there, they will never allow.” But among other onlookers, he claps along. Then he is grabbed, bound and forced underground into Syria’s most notorious prison – Sednaya, or Slaughterhouse.

The Hair of the Pigeon by Mohammed Massoud Morsi is published by UWA Press ($34.99)

4/6: CBS Evening News

President Trump warns Iran is running out of time; Artemis II travels around the far side of the moon.

Epstein files: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick set for May 6 interview by House Oversight

Commerce Secretary Lutnick originally claimed to have cut off contact with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005. But he and his family had lunch with the predator in 2012.

Wireless festival promoter stands by decision to have Kanye West perform

Performer is being extended ‘forgiveness’ over antisemitic remarks, says Melvin Benn, despite calls for ban

The promoter of Wireless festival has stood by the decision to have Kanye West perform at the event, despite an outcry over the rapper’s antisemitic behaviour and calls to cancel his appearance.

West, who is legally known as Ye, has been criticised for making antisemitic remarks including voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler. Last year he released a song called Heil Hitler, a few months after advertising a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.

Trump says Iran ceasefire proposal 'significant' but 'not good enough' as Hormuz Strait deadline nears

The 45-day ceasefire proposal, which could lead to an end to the war, is reportedly being discussed by the U.S., Iran and a group of regional mediators.

The upper middle class is now the largest income group in the U.S.

America's middle class is shrinking, but not because people are getting poorer. Instead, more households are climbing the ladder, new research suggests.

The Guardian view on Trump’s apocalyptic threats: a sign not of strength, but of moral and strategic weakness | Editorial

An expletive-ridden post on social media shamed the office of the US president. Its substantive message, if acted on, would be a war crime

Article 52 of the first additional protocol to the Geneva conventions prohibits attacks on civilian targets. It is on those grounds that the international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Russian military officers and officials responsible for attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Such assaults, and the missiles rained on Ukrainian cities and towns in order to terrify and demoralise, constitute war crimes. Exactly the same would apply to the United States, should Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back to the “stone age” this week be carried out.

Such basic tenets of international law bear repeating at a time when Mr Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, appear to speak as if from within a bloodthirsty fever dream. Glorying repulsively in his capacity to order death and destruction from the Pentagon, Mr Hegseth, an Evangelical Christian, has presented Operation Epic Fury as a 21st-century crusade “to break the teeth of the ungodly”. On social media at the weekend, Mr Trump topped that by unleashing a stream of expletive-ridden abuse, ranting that unless Iran reopens the strait of Hormuz to shipping, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day … Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”.

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The Drama: sex, secrets and that gobsmacking twist – discuss with spoilers

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s dark dramedy is a stylish acting showcase, but does it do justice to its weighty themes?

Ever since its first trailer dropped – and, on certain corners of Reddit, even before that – the internet has been abuzz with speculation over just what goes down in The Drama. The auteur production powerhouse A24 somewhat ingeniously pitched writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s pitch-black film as a tart romantic comedy, with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a seemingly happy couple derailed by a disturbing revelation a week before their wedding. The actors, among a cohort of vanishingly few young movie stars, appeared as their characters in a fake wedding announcement in the Boston Globe; Zendaya’s rumored marriage to actor Tom Holland became a meta discussion point on a press tour that saw her method dressing in “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”, her wardrobe slowly darkening in a nod to something gone horribly awry.

The Norwegian film-maker’s second English-language film depicts what we could loosely call premarital jitters as a psychological unraveling with a surrealist touch. The Drama is lustrously filmed, virtuosically acted and crisply edited – but, inevitably, attention will focus on its very combustible, deliberately provocative premise, one somewhat spoiled by a pre-embargo TMZ headline citing a recent American tragedy. There’s no way to talk about this movie without talking about “the twist” – which plays out less as a dramatic turn of events than as an unsettling divulgence that, depending on your view, the film may or may not justify. Obviously, spoilers ahead, so tread carefully and, presuming you’ve seen it … let’s discuss.