Middle East crisis live: Trump calls Nato members ‘cowards’ for not helping secure the strait of Hormuz

US president says ‘Nato is a paper tiger’ as he condemns alliance members for not wanting to ‘join the fight’

• ‘Doomsday scenario’: a visual guide to the oil and gas site attacks

Kuwait’s state oil firm KPC said its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery was hit by multiple drone attacks early on Friday, causing a fire in some units, with no initial casualties reported, the state news agency said.

Firefighters responded immediately, with several units shut down as a precaution to ensure workers’ safety.

Martial arts star Chuck Norris dies at 86

Norris karate chopped and kickboxed his way through more than a dozen action films in the 1980s, before leaping to TV in Walker, Texas Ranger.

Trump aides tried to block appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to US, reports say – US politics live

Senior figures said to have been skeptical over Keir Starmer’s appointment of ‘arrogant’ veteran politician, later sacked over connections to Jeffrey Epstein

• Sign up for the Breaking US News US email

The US military is deploying thousands of additional marines and sailors to the Middle East, three US officials told Reuters on Friday.

One of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the USS Boxer, along with the marine expeditionary unit onboard, were departing the west coast of the US about three weeks ahead of schedule.

Tuchel explains ‘tough decision for Trent’ and refuses to rule out Dowman for England – football live

⚽ Football updates as England squad announced
⚽ Things to look out for this weekend | Mail Xaymaca

So, who has been left out of the squad? The big omission is Trent Alexander-Arnold. The defender has started seven of Real Madrid’s last nine games after being out of favour earlier in the season. Reece James is also unavailable as he picked up a hamstring injury against Newcastle. It seems strange to leave him out of a 35-man squad.

Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson, Jordan Pickford, James Trafford, Aaron Ramsdale, Jason Steele

French navy boards alleged Russian shadow fleet tanker with assistance from UK and other allies – Europe live

Macron says forces boarded Mozambique-flagged vessel this morning and condemns ‘boats that circumvent international sanctions’ as ‘war profiteers’

Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron has confirmed the seizure of the tanker, which he said belonged to the Russian shadow fleet.

In a strongly worded post on X, he said:

“The French navy boarded this morning in the Mediterranean a new vessel from the shadow fleet, the Deyna.

The war in Iran will not divert France from its support for Ukraine, where Russia’s war of aggression continues.

Spanish police say James Gracey's death was likely accidental

Police in Barcelona said the death of Jimmy Gracey, a University of Alabama student from Illinois who went missing on vacation, was likely an accident.

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump Pearl Harbor joke: ‘Everything he knows about it begins and ends with the Ben Affleck movie’

Late-night hosts panned Trump’s joke about the 1941 attack, addressed new unredacted Epstein emails and talked popular puppy names

With The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on hiatus until at least 27 March, late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Donald Trump’s snafu while meeting Japan’s prime minister, his caginess over Iran, and new findings in the Epstein investigations.

Trump admin unveils national AI policy framework to limit state power

AI industry leaders have opposed state-level regulatory efforts, arguing that a "patchwork" of laws would hobble innovation and give China a competitive edge.

U.S. sues Harvard, alleging it failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students

The Trump administration argued that Harvard unlawfully discriminated against Jewish and Israeli students, in violation of federal civil rights law.

Chuck Norris, prolific action star and martial arts champion, dies aged 86

Actor who rose to fame after starring in Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon also became a TV fixture with Walker, Texas Ranger

Chuck Norris, the former world karate champion who used his fight prowess to become the star of a string of low-budget but financially successful action movies, has died aged 86.

His family posted a message on social media saying Norris had died on Thursday, adding: “While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace.”

‘Yes to fields of wheat, no to fields of iron’: how the world’s greenest country soured on solar

In Denmark, the spread of solar panels in rural areas has become a divisive issue among voters, especially in rural areas

In one telling of the story, the golden fields of a proud farming nation are under attack. Besieged by an industrial sprawl of solar panels, they are being smothered at the behest of an urban elite.

That narrative has failed to thrive in conservative heartlands such as Texas and Hungary, which have embraced solar power while lambasting green rules. But it is taking root in Denmark, the most climate-ambitious nation on Earth. “We say yes to fields of wheat,” said Inger Støjberg, the leader of the rightwing populist Denmark Democrats in a speech in 2024. “And we say no to fields of iron!”

Police planned to disperse Isaac Herzog protest in Sydney if crowd hit 6,000, encrypted messages suggest

Senior public servant wrote ‘police will be dispersing them if numbers exceed capacity’ while premier says protesters confronted after attempting to march

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Police planned to disperse the crowd at a Sydney protest against the visiting Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, if it exceeded 6,000 people, according to correspondence between senior New South Wales public servants.

The messages released under freedom of information (FoI) laws contain information not referenced in public comments by the NSW premier, Chris Minns, and the police commissioner, Mal Lanyon.

Moments amid the chaos of war in the Middle East – in pictures

Since the conflict broke out in the middle east at the end of February, everyday life has been upended for thousands of ordinary people in the region. Amidst the devastation and threat to life, people find moments to grieve, children play, protesters stand in silent solidarity and combatants manage to carve out moments of solitude and reflection

• ‘Doomsday scenario’: a visual guide to the oil and gas site attacks in the Middle East

When your home country is ravaged by war, is it possible to stay neutral? | Shadi Khan Saif

Refusing to take sides in wartime can be dangerous. The ‘choice’ for civilians trying to survive is often an illusion

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Living in London, my elder brother – someone I have always looked up to – makes good use of his relative proximity to our ancestral home in Afghanistan. He travels back and forth so often that, from my base in Melbourne, I sometimes joke he has visited our village more times in the past few years than I have visited any other Australian city.

His most recent trip, however, did not go as planned. Flight disruptions linked to escalating tensions in the Middle East left him stranded in Istanbul for several days. Eventually he gave up and flew back to London, missing both the anniversary of our mother’s death in Kabul and the Eid celebrations many of the family members had hoped to mark together at the end of Ramadan.

‘It all feels very natural’: Britain’s sauna boom heats up as people seek warmth of human connection

Evidence suggests saunas can boost heart health, but their real power may lie in bringing people together in an increasingly digital world

From fields to floating pontoons, in horseboxes, barrels and beach huts, saunas are springing up across Britain. The British Sauna Society now lists about 640 saunas – up from 540 at the start of the year – while a recent report predicted that the UK could become the world’s largest sauna market by 2033, outpacing even Finland and Germany.

“The continuing growth suggests that the peak has still yet to come – if there is one,” said Gabrielle Reason, the society’s director. But are saunas a tonic for the nation’s health – or a wellness fad with hidden risks?

How rising fuel prices impact consumers shopping in stores or online

Rising fuel prices can impact consumers beyond the gas pump. Oil prices have surged more than 40% since the Iran war effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz. The price hike can impact everything from cargo ships crossing the Pacific to the delivery van pulling up outside your home - and the costs could quickly trickle down to retailers and consumers. Charlie D'Agata has the latest on the war and Kelly O'Grady explains the rising oil prices' impact on consumers.

Fed Governor Waller urges caution for now, says rate cuts possible later in the year

Waller said in a CNBC interview that recent developments require a more conservative approach.

Matisse, 1941-1954 review – hit after glorious hit in a show of life-enhancing genius

Grand Palais, Paris
An epic collection of the artist’s final 13 years of work explodes with the stunning colours and spiky cutouts that redefined art

Forget the joy and energy of youth – your best days might yet be ahead. Henri Matisse’s were, even when he barely made it out of surgery alive in his early 70s as war was breaking out across France. Sitting in his wheelchair, his hand wobblier and weaker than ever, his body scarcely able to muster the strength to stand and paint, he reinvented himself and reshaped modern art in the process.

The Grand Palais’s huge exploration of the last years of Matisse’s life – from his surgery in 1941 to his death in 1954 – is a dizzying, joyous celebration of colour, form, line, light and then a whole bunch more colour. It’s so good, so beautiful, so totally overwhelming. It was always bound to be – it’s Matisse, with all the resources of France’s vast collection of Matisse works. It’s a show full of hits.

Georgia woman charged with murder over alleged use of abortion pills

A 31-year-old Georgia woman has charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an abortion.

Couple sees rolled-up carpet removed from home as neighbor disappears

In the summer of 2013, Minnesota resident Gary Herbst seemingly disappeared. Years later, investigators made a startling discovery. Peter Van Sant has the story for "48 Hours."

‘The saddest day for Muslim worshippers in Jerusalem’: al-Aqsa mosque closed at Eid

Palestinians say the move is part of a wider Israeli strategy to leverage security tensions to tighten restrictions

For the first time since 1967, al-Aqsa mosque – Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – was closed at the end of Ramadan on Friday, with tensions rising among Palestinians as Israeli authorities keep the complex shut, forcing worshippers to hold Eid prayers as close as they could to the sealed site.

On Friday morning, hundreds of worshippers were forced to pray outside the Old City, as Israeli police barricaded the entrances to the site.

The Tech Download: Agentic tools and chips take center stage at Nvidia's 'Super Bowl of AI'

CNBC's Katie Tarasov shares her key takeaway's from the world's most valuable company's annual AI conference

Two people arrested after trying to enter UK nuclear submarine base

Man and woman, one of whom is understood to be Iranian, held after asking to enter sensitive military site

Two people have been arrested, one of whom is understood to be Iranian, after they tried to enter the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland in what may have been an attempt at espionage.

A man, 34, and a woman, 31, were detained by Police Scotland after they had asked to enter one of Britain’s most sensitive military sites late on Thursday afternoon. The base is home to the UK’s Trident submarines and not open to the public.

‘She made it sound like the cosmos breathing’: the revival of jazz harpist and pianist Alice Coltrane

The radical work of the musician and composer was dismissed by sexist critics and overshadowed by the legacy of her late husband John. But today, musical stars from Doja Cat to David Byrne all champion her experimental sound

It is 19 years since Alice Coltrane’s death and more than half a century since her best known albums, yet only now is her first biography, Andy Beta’s Cosmic Music, being published. The first major exhibition dedicated to her took place last year in LA, too, and she’s championed by musicians from mainstream to left field, to the point there’s now even an abundance of cosmic jazz harpists on festival lineups. “For so long it seemed like her contributions were overlooked,” says her grandnephew Steven Ellison, AKA the psychedelic electronic and hip-hop musician Flying Lotus, who’s worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Thom Yorke and Herbie Hancock alongside his own acclaimed solo material. “As I was growing up, it seemed like everyone just wanted to ask her about John Coltrane.”

Of course John Coltrane was a musical titan. But, as Cosmic Music spells out, Alice was integral to the radicalism of her husband’s late, gamechanging period from the masterpiece A Love Supreme onwards. Not only did they create a sense of stability from 1963 in raising a family and marrying, post his quitting heroin, but they were partners in spiritual and musical exploration. She was a formidable musician before she met him, too. As pianist Alice McLeod, she was “known as a badass on the scene”, says Carlos Niño, longtime California “beat scene” colleague of Flying Lotus and, lately, producer of André 3000’s avowedly Alice-inspired New Blue Sun album; her skills honed in Detroit’s gospel churches and playing Stravinsky and Rachmaninov for pleasure by her mid-teens.

Cocktail of the week: Bear by Carlo Scotto’s wild garlic martini – recipe | The good mixer

Herb is the word in this pungent seasonal infusion with a taste of honey

It’s wild garlic season, which is as much cause for celebration on the drinks trolley as it is in the kitchen. Forage your own, ideally before the plants flower, or ask a decent greengrocer to get some in for you.

Matthew Wakeford, sommelier, Bear by Carlo Scotto, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

Over 10% of TSA officers call out nationwide in single day as partial shutdown drags on

TSA says more than 10% of its officers called out nationwide on Wednesday, with callout rates as high as 38% in Atlanta and Houston. The staffing shortages forced some security checkpoints to close in Houston and Philadelphia. Skyler Henry reports.

Confusion abounds over future of US vaccine advisory committee

Former ACIP members make contradictory statements following judge essentially invalidating panel and recent decisions

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

Does the US have a vaccine advisory committee? The answer became surprisingly murky on Thursday, as former members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and health officials made contradictory statements following a federal judge essentially invalidating the committee and their recent decisions on Monday.

According to a former member of the committee who asked not to be identified to discuss sensitive matters, ACIP will continue to exist without the 13 members who were stayed by Judge Brian Murphy on Monday – and officials plan to start the process over again with new members.

The war in Iran is ripping up the Gulf’s plan for stability | Sanam Vakil

As missiles fall from the sky and energy infrastructure is targeted, the limitations of relying on the US for protection are becoming all too obvious

For more than two weeks, missiles and drones have been crossing the skies of the Gulf, as a war many in the region sought to avoid – between the USand Israel, and Iran – continues to escalate. Airlines are diverting flights, shipping routes are being disrupted and air defence systems across the region are operating at constant alert. Now, with attacks extending to energy infrastructure including gas facilities and production sites, it is likely that the war has entered into a dangerous phase of escalation.

Yet the governments now living with these risks were among those that most tried to prevent the conflict, encouraging negotiations in recent months and warning about the dangers of escalation.

Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House

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.

Too many, bro? Broaching the subject of men’s lapel messaging at the Oscars

All the talk on red carpet night was of leading guys such as Adrien Brody and Leonardo DiCaprio flashing the bling

While the eyes might be the window to the soul, lapels are certainly doing some talking. On the Oscars red carpet last Sunday night, Hollywood’s leading men flashed a lot of bling on their suits.

From Adrien Brody who wore an astronomically large brooch titled Ulysses, arguably as big as the James Joyce tome is thick, to a clean-shaven Pedro Pascal, who distracted from his newly bare chin with a silk and feather Chanel Camélia brooch, lapels were vying for the spotlight.

BTS: Arirang review – the world’s biggest pop band return with dumb fun and downright weirdness

(Big Hit Music)
Ending a hiatus that began in 2022, the septet recapture a distinctiveness that had been threatening to ebb away

The general consensus seems to be that as BTS’s commercial stock has gone stratospheric – more than 500m units sold worldwide, including over 104bn streams, making them the bestselling Asian act of all time – the actual music has become more and more irrelevant. Before taking their hiatus in 2022 to fulfil their mandatory military service in South Korea, their saccharine, English-language bops such as Dynamite and Butter – while gargantuan global hits – had smothered the K-pop-specific idiosyncrasies that peppered their earlier material. By 2020’s double whammy of Map of the Soul: 7 and Be, the band’s early years as a hip-hop-focused collective were a distant memory, and thanks to a more westernised sound and studio cast list, so was their identity as a Korean act.

On the eagerly anticipated Arirang – pointedly named after a Korean folk song dating back to 1896, and presented with the tagline “born in Korea, playing for the world” – the septet do their best to right those wrongs. Crucially, it manages to capture the K-pop spirit of experimentation while welding it to a litany of memorable hooks. And when western collaborators are brought in, they’re interestingly off-kilter, including outsider rapper-producer Jpegmafia, and producer El Guincho, known for his work with Björk and Rosalía.

Don’t mention the m-word: are mutant X-Men about to show up en masse in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

An intriguing chat about warped DNA in the record-breaking trailer for the new Spider-Man movie could mean a host of long-awaited arrivals in the MCU

There was a time when the mere mention of the term “mutant” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was frowned upon. Rival studio 20th Century Fox owned the rights to the X-Men and with it the whole idea of a parallel branch of humanity, which meant superheroes were contractually obliged to have received their powers from somewhere else. Radioactive accidents, experimental serums, infinity stones, the bite of an unusually committed arachnid: Marvel tried them all, but left the mutation thing alone. Occasionally, comic book icons such as Scarlet Witch were retconned in the MCU to remove their X-gene origins, but for the most part, the very notion of mutation seemed to be placed under narrative quarantine – as if this were a door the studio had quietly agreed not to open.

This week saw the record-breaking release of the debut teaser trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it was immediately clear that something had changed. We all know the X-Men are coming to the MCU: Deadpool and Wolverine have already had their own movies, while various mutants have turned up in post-credit scenes and brief multiversal detours. Now Spidey seems to be edging close to the same territory.

He's one reason why aid cuts weren't as dire for the HIV population as predicted

Harerimana Ismail of Uganda is a community health worker who checks on kids with HIV. He lost his salary after the Trump administration's aid cuts but he keeps doing his job.

Behind the bombast, Trump will be worried: when he tries to stop the war on Iran, will anyone listen? | Simon Tisdall

Though the president wields great power, the conflict in the Middle East is spiralling in unforeseen ways that he may not be able to control

What a pity Benjamin Netanyahu remains at large after an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza was issued in 2024. Had he been detained, as he certainly should have been, the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, the Gulf – and Israel itself – might have been spared much present-day pain and suffering.

The Israeli prime minister’s lifelong, passionate obsession with eradicating the real and imagined threats posed by Iran was reportedly a key factor in prompting Donald Trump’s abrupt, unprovoked plunge into all-out war. Netanyahu should be in jail, not committing more crimes while the powerful but ego-driven US president negligently looks on.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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.

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Whidbey by T Kira Madden; Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan; Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson; The Dangerous Stranger by Simon Mason; Astronaut! by Oana Aristide

Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson (Phoenix, £20)
In her second psychological thriller, Watson, a former nurse, perfectly captures the frenetic atmosphere and mordant humour of an under-resourced A&E department in a city hospital. The plot revolves around three strongly drawn characters: senior nurse Aoife, whose extramarital trysts with clinical lead Michael help keep her sane, and whose new intake includes the naive, sanctimonious Eden and the more experienced but alarmingly cynical Sophie. After their arrival, the death rate spikes: long wait times may play a part, but Eden makes mistakes and Sophie has an attitude problem … The conclusion is surprising yet authentic in a story that is ultimately less about individual culpability than the policy failures of successive governments.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Tinder, £20)
Native Hawaiian writer Madden’s powerful debut novel explores both the aftermath of child sexual abuse and the commodification of trauma. It’s summer 2013, and former reality TV star Linzie King is publicising her ghostwritten memoir of abuse at the hands of Calvin Boyer, the adult son of the school bus driver. It contains information about Boyer’s other victims, among them Birdie Chang who, unhappy with the appropriation of her story and trying to escape media scrutiny, has fled Brooklyn for Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. Linzie is grappling with the narrative produced by the ghostwriter – the truth is considerably more complicated – and Boyer’s mother, who has always defended him, blaming his “sickness”, is struggling to process her feelings after he is deliberately run over and killed. A satisfying mystery, although whodunnit takes second place to Madden’s unflinching, unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned into compliance, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred “victim narrative”.

Estonia exports a modernist, Glasgow gets poetic and Leonora Carrington goes wild – the week in art

Konrad Mägi is given his time to shine, Fiona Banner hits a word-picture high and Carrington takes over the home of Sigmund Freud – all in your weekly dispatch

Konrad Mägi
You mean you haven’t heard of “Estonia’s greatest modernist painter”? Who knows, this exhibition may put his name in lights.
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, from 24 March to 12 July

Sports quiz of the week: youngsters, old timers, records, protests and posh grub

Have you followed the big stories in football, rugby, golf, baseball, horse racing, winter sports, F1, snooker and more?

Trump is dismantling democracy, reports find. And, Treasury to take over student loans

Recent studies show the U.S. is slipping further from democracy. And, the Trump administration plans to transfer federal student loans from the Education Department to the Treasury Department.

Fire experts ‘kept awake’ over growing hazard of lithium-ion batteries

Fire service warns ubiquity of batteries in everyday products is outpacing public understanding and safety regulations

Lithium-ion batteries represent a new technological hazard that one fire science expert has said keeps him awake at night, as fire service chiefs warn the ubiquity of the batteries in everyday products is outpacing public understanding and safety regulations.

The blaze that devastated a historic building in Glasgow and resulted in the closure of Central Station, Scotland’s largest rail interchange, is believed to have started in a shop selling vapes, which are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Glasgow’s Central Station has since reopened.

Luke Littler applies to trademark his face in bid to combat AI fakes

• Teenager files application to prevent fake products

• Littler defies boos to fight back and defeat Gerwyn Price

Luke Littler has made an application with the Intellectual Property Office to trademark his face. It is understood the application will prevent fake products powered by AI using his picture without permission and breaking copyright laws.

The teenager, who has won back-to-back World Darts Championship titles, is highly marketable and his face appears on a wide variety of branded products, from his own dart board to video games and bags of nuts. Littler has already trademarked his “the Nuke” nickname in the US.

Weather tracker: Unseasonal storms hit parts of Pakistan and India

Karachi particularly badly affected with 18 people killed, more than 50mm of rain and winds gusting up to 60mph

Unseasonally wet weather struck southern Pakistan and north-west India on Wednesday, as heavy rain rolled in from the west, accompanied by thunderstorms, hail, and strong winds.

Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, was particularly badly affected, locally recording more than 50mm of rain with winds gusting up to 60mph. Walls, buildings, and a pedestrian bridge collapsed, with flooding and power outages across the city. At least 18 people were killed and several more injured, many by structural collapses, with other deaths attributed to a fallen tree and a lightning strike.

‘Agriculture of life’: the Rio families growing bananas to protect the world’s largest urban forest

In the middle of the city, traditional growers blend crops with native species to preserve Pedra Branca state park’s biodiversity

The sound of the scythes wielded by brothers Jorge and Ubirajara Cardia breaks the silence in the hills of Vargem Grande, in the south-west zone of Rio de Janeiro city. Quilombola from the Cafundá Astrogilda community, they harvest bananas the same way their ancestors used to. Every week, they select the bunches of prata, maçã, and Cavendish bananas, cut them down and, on the back of their mules, go down the hillside with the newly harvested crop.

Through sloping ways in the forest, they travel about 5km (3 miles) along paths first opened by the Indigenous Tupinambá people and enslaved workers of African descent.

Forget daffs – it’s edible alliums like wild garlic that spell spring in the garden for me

You can pep up your cooking by growing wild garlic, crow garlic and three-cornered leek

Unlike most gardeners, I’m not especially captivated by spring bulbs. I do love that they symbolise the return of fairer weather, but I only have the tulips and narcissi that I adopted when we moved here and, every autumn, I fail to consider planting more to replenish their dwindling numbers. Lucky for me, I also adopted the kind of spring bulb that I’m more inclined towards – because they’re edible. Wild alliums are what I’m really looking for to herald the arrival of spring.

Too many edible wild plants are only edible in theory, in my opinion. I’m mostly of the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” school of foraging. But that’s not the case when it comes to the most well-known member of this wild allium group. The strongly flavoured leaves of wild garlic (Allium ursinum) cover the woodland floor wherever they are resident, producing clusters of white, star-shaped flowers that are edible too – but leave most of them for the pollinators please! I’m a big fan of this delectable plant and am fortunate enough that it has made a home in my front garden. As with all foraging endeavours, make sure you’re 100% certain you have identified the plant correctly, pick where you are allowed, and always leave plenty behind. Fortunately, when it comes to this group of plants, it’s fairly easy to know if you have gone wrong as all the leaves should smell strongly of and taste like garlic or onions.

Florida homeowners insurance company accused of siphoning profits

As Florida moves homeowners' policies out of its state-run insurer of last resort, insiders question one new company's finances.

Madagascar’s military ruler decrees that ministers must pass lie detector tests

Michael Randrianirina, who sacked PM and cabinet without explanation, claims measure is to root out corruption

Madagascar’s military president has said new ministers will have to pass lie detector tests to root out corrupt candidates, after he dismissed the prime minister and cabinet without explanation earlier this month.

Michael Randrianirina came to power in a coup in October after weeks of youth-led protests under the banner “Gen Z Madagascar”. However, young people were quickly disenchanted by his choice of government officials, which they saw as being part of the old, corrupt elite.

Israel launches more strikes on Tehran as Iran continues attacks on Gulf oil facilities

The latest strikes come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel would "hold off on future attacks" on Iran's energy infrastructure, following Trump's request.

Hungary officials ‘gave Ukrainian forced injection’ after raid on bank vehicles

Kyiv sources say they think injection contained relaxant meant to make people more talkative in interrogations

Hungarian security operatives administered a “forced injection” to one of the Ukrainians detained earlier this month during a dramatic raid on bank vehicles carrying gold bars and tens of millions of dollars and euros in cash, sources have told the Guardian.

Hungary’s TEK anti-terrorism police detained seven Ukrainians from the state savings bank, Oschadbank, on 5 March. They were accompanying a convoy of two armoured cars from Vienna to Ukraine, as it transited Hungary in what Kyiv claims was a regular transfer of state funds. Hungarian officials have claimed it was money for the “Ukrainian war mafia”, without giving details.

Resident Evil at 30: how Capcom’s horror opus has survived and thrived

From owing a debt to obscure Japanese horror Sweet Home to the influence of Aliens and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the franchise continues to petrify players three decades on

To many of us playing and writing about video games in the 1990s, Resident Evil seemed to come out of nowhere. The emerging PlayStation and Saturn consoles were all about slick, bright arcade conversions – the shiny thrills of Daytona and Tekken – and Japanese publisher Capcom was in a rut of coin-op conversions and endless sequels to Street Fighter and Mega Man. Scary games were rare at the time and mostly confined to the PC. So when the news of a horror title named Biohazard (the Japanese name for the series) started to emerge in 1995, it caught the attention of games journalists as it seemed radically out of step with prevailing trends. Games were about power, but as early demos quickly revealed, Resident Evil was about vulnerability.

Thirty years later, it’s still here. The series has sold more than 180m copies worldwide, with 11 core titles and dozens of spinoffs and remakes, as well as film, television and anime tie-ins. Its characters and monsters are icons, its tropes now embedded in game design practice. What has allowed it to not only survive but flourish in such a rapidly changing industry? Why do we still let it scare us?

The Names author Florence Knapp: ‘I’d love to write with Maya Angelou’s warmth’

The debut author on the brilliance of Charlotte Brontë, coming late to Harper Lee, and aspiring to write like Claire Keegan

My earliest reading memory
The summer I was four, my mum read EB White’s Charlotte’s Web to me and my older sister. I don’t recall much of the story, only that my mum was unable to go on reading through her tears. And when a relative took over, after just a few pages, she too had to pass the book on, this time to my father to try and finish dry-eyed. That afternoon, at a subconscious, cellular level, I absorbed something about the emotional impact a well-told story can have on both children and adults, and how it can gather everyone to the same imagined space.

My favourite book growing up
I loved Shirley Hughes’s books, for the pictures as much as the words. Her illustrations of unmade beds and busy kitchen tables invite you right into the heart of family life and were a reassuringly cosy backdrop to whatever drama might unfold. Moving Molly was a favourite, and stoked a lifelong nostalgia for the details that make a place home.

‘Hybrid organ’: how a union of trees and fungi could revolutionise forest management

A US startup supplies spray for fast-growing loblolly pines with the hope of increasing biodiversity – and reducing the need for artificial fertiliser

At a commercial tree nursery near Evans, western Louisiana, 5m pine seedlings are packed on to 12 vast circular irrigation tables, each as wide as a football field. Last September, many of these young trees were sprayed with what looked like muddy water.

The substance was in fact a liquid extract teeming with hundreds of species of wild soil fungi. Brad Ouseman, the nursery manager, is confident he will see results from this fungal inoculation, which is intended to improve yields and reduce the need for artificial fertilisers.

Reheated rivalry: why I’m the champion of leftovers

Bringing food back to life is a great kitchen skill. No, you can’t just microwave it

There is nothing lovelier than seeing a cook do their thing. By “doing their thing”, I do not mean just going about kitchen work – that is often excruciating to watch (why are they cutting onions like that?) I mean doing their thing: their culinary equivalent of a Mastermind subject, that one dish or process that they do so well, and with such evident pride, that the most crotchety backseat cook is forced to shut up.

Take my partner’s method for making fish-finger sandwiches, which involves frying the fish fingers in butter, then creating an in-pan sweatbox to melt artisanal cheese on to them and custom blending condiments. It creates, on average, as much washing up as a full cooked dinner. Others have a special pancake hack or carrot cake recipe, and people tend not to let these things go unnoticed – it’s always my salad dressing, possessive, but we forgive their hubris, because each of us has “A Thing” of our own.

Grace Ives: Girlfriend review – bedroom-pop auteur goes widescreen for a gorgeous sobriety epic

(True Panther/Capitol)
The New Yorker’s third album leaves behind her DIY origins to channel cult pop classics by Lorde and Sky Ferreira

New Yorker Grace Ives broke out as a bedroom pop artist, self-producing 2nd, her 2019 debut, on her Roland MC-505 and carefully expanding her sound for 2022’s appealingly messy Janky Star. Her third album abandons caution in windswept, hyperdetailed songs that streak by like big city streetlights and shimmer with cosmic awe.

Ives escaped her bedroom in more than one sense. Janky Star reflected her development of a healthier relationship to substances, yet she hit new lows after its release, making sobriety non-negotiable. She went to write in California, finding safety in a fresh context rather than trying to change alone at home. Her determination and vulnerability fuel Girlfriend, which shares the conspiratorial sweetness and broken-mirror glitter of cult pop classics by Lorde (Melodrama) and Sky Ferreira (Night Time, My Time).

From mall to torture site: Venezuela debates El Helicoide prison's future

Once a futuristic shopping mall, El Helicoide became one of Venezuela's most feared prisons. Now, as the country changes, so does its fate — erase it, rebuild it, or remember what happened inside.

Nasa returns moon rocket to pad and targets 1 April launch

After series of delays, US space agency hopes to carry out first crewed flyby of the moon in more than half a century

Nasa has begun returning its towering SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to its Florida launch pad before a planned flyby of the moon, after completing necessary repairs.

Artemis engineers began the manoeuvre, which can take up to 12 hours, at 8pm local time. The US space agency will then begin the final preparations before its next launch window opens on 1 April.

Delcy Rodríguez replaces Venezuela’s top military commanders

Interim president announces changes after firing defence minister, who was close to Maduro, the leader ousted by US

Venezuela’s interim president has said she has replaced all her senior military commanders, the latest in a flurry of changes since the US ousted Nicolás Maduro.

Delcy Rodríguez announced the changes in a social media post a day after firing the long-serving defence minister, who had been close to Maduro, and replacing him with a former intelligence chief.

'They are brainwashed': Iranian diaspora clash over Middle East war | The View From

As the war between Iran, the US, and Israel escalates, another battle is playing out on the streets of London where the Iranian diaspora is divided over the future of their homeland. Some condemn the strikes on Iran as imperial overreach; others see them as a chance to end decades of authoritarian and theocratic rule. Over the last two weeks, The Guardian has filmed with protestors from both communities, capturing their anger and their hopes as Iran’s fate hangs in the balance.

Ronnie O’Sullivan makes snooker history with 153 break at World Open

• O’Sullivan snookered Ryan Day at start of first frame

• Seven-time world champion won 5-0 to reach semi-finals

Ronnie O’Sullivan has made the highest break in professional snooker by hitting a 153 at the World Open in Yushan, China.

The 50-year-old achieved the feat after leaving Ryan Day in a snooker to begin the opening frame of their quarter-final and the Welshman’s failed escape attempt gave O’Sullivan a free ball.

‘Weirdness, paranoia and extremity’: why HBO’s Neighbors is TV’s most fascinating show

The Josh Safdie-produced docuseries draws us into a bizarre variety of alternately relatable and scarily alienating neighbor disputes

Once upon a time, I worked as a local reporter in small-town Montana. The job, in which I had to make actual cold calls and regularly attend local council meetings, was extremely instructive; nothing teaches you about the idiosyncrasies of people like showing up at their door and hearing their community concerns. During my time there, we ran several extremely in-the-weeds stories about a rancher’s proposed water bottling plant, which was vehemently opposed by neighbors for its offensive sight and sound (and, secondarily, potential pollution). The details of the fight – and it was a very contentious fight – are hazy now, but the lesson is not: if there is one thing I learned from local reporting, it’s that nothing, absolutely nothing, turns people into the most ghoulish versions of themselves like threats, real or perceived, to one’s property.

I recalled this water bottling brouhaha a lot while watching Neighbors, a brilliant new docuseries on HBO which captures this lesson in its most contemporary, cancerous American iteration better than perhaps anything I’ve ever seen. (Taylor Sheridan’s mega-popular drama Yellowstone, essentially a property rights soap for dads, doesn’t come close.) Over five riveting episodes – the sixth and final premieres tonight – Neighbors takes a hyper-stylized, fish-eye lens to disputes of proximity and the fuzzy limits of personal space. The issues at hand are at once mundane and completely unhinged: a gay couple in Kokomo, Indiana, are furious that their neighbor has built a farm, with its attendant goat smell, in their cul-de-sac; a retired state senator in Texas resents the woman across the street for building a nine-foot-tall concrete “cartel” wall around her house; two tanned, blond women in Florida viciously fight – physically, emotionally, via competing surveillance systems – over a cumulative 35 sq ft strip of grass between their two driveways. It is extravagantly petty, extremely stressful (naturally – executive producers include A24 and Marty Supreme team Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein) and often completely unhinged. It is easily the best TV I’ve watched this year.

What president had the lowest approval rating of the 20th century? The quiz knows

What could be more delightful than cannibal invertebrates and food-related weather events? A lot of things!

Sixteen international games and a franchise overseas: is the NFL’s global ambition good or greed?

Having lapped its rivals in the US landscape, the most powerful American sports league is pushing for supersonic expansion of its calendar and its geography

“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy.” When Mark Cuban, then owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, fired that line at the NFL in 2014, he was partly goading and partly gloating.

It felt directionally true. The NFL looked bloated, arrogant and vulnerable. Decades-long skeletons were tumbling out of the closet. Crisis followed crisis: concussions, Colin Kaepernick, sinister owners, cheating scandals and an almost Nixonian attempt to institute law and order. Youth participation declined. Football felt, if not dying, then at least dated, creaking under the weight of its own mythology.

Why it's so hard for world leaders to bring down oil and gasoline prices

From waiving the Jones Act to rerouting oil through the Red Sea, governments are doing their best to make up for the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, but prices are still rising.

An immigration court few have heard of is quietly shaping policy behind the scenes

President Trump has slashed the number of people on the Board of Immigration Appeals and stacked it with his appointees, tightening the due process available for immigrants, an NPR analysis shows.

Historian talks about how Trump is forging a new world order

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with historian Daniel Immerwahr about how President Trump is forging a new world order through his foreign policy.

Huw Marc Bennett: Heol Las review – exhilarating Welsh folk injected with synths, sitars and surf rock

(Albert’s Favourites)
The multi-instrumentalist puts his magical spin on traditional Glamorgan tunes, fusing the past, present and future in a momentous third album

The traditional music of south Wales has rarely sounded as cosmic as it does in the hands of Huw Marc Bennett. The producer and multi-instrumentalist’s third album, Heol Las (Blue Street) takes traditional tunes from Glamorgan – known for its production of coal and steel, as well as its hills and rugged coastline – and submerges them in languid arrangements, touched by global influences and woozy doses of surf rock and sitar.

As Bennett’s album drifts from the industrial valleys to the Gower peninsula, it thrums with a fitting beauty and energy, Carol Haf (Summer Carol) opens proceedings with pastoral fingerpicking, before a drumbeat breaks the tune into a guitar solo like a meditative raga. Cân y Saer Maen (Stonemason’s Song) builds up a similar heavy magic in the interplay of fuzzy organ, acoustic and electric guitars. When a doomy bass note drops, Seth Bye’s fiddles add contrapuntal layers and the heady air thickens.

This is a key moment in the war on Iran – and Starmer must resist the UK being dragged into it any further | Simon Jenkins

This is not Britain’s war, it’s Trump’s and Netanyahu’s. The prime minister should be wary of becoming ensnared like Blair was with Iraq

Is this the turning point? A deranged US president and an Israeli prime minister facing prosecution are seeking to entice the armies of the world into the stupidest war of the 21st century. Israel’s strike this week on Iran’s South Pars gas field was clearly meant to provoke an Iranian retaliation so massive as to ensure a ferocious response from Donald Trump. Thus escalation beckons. This is how small wars become big.

There is only one way of calling a halt. It is for Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to stop bombing Iran. Yet both leaders clearly see themselves as trapped. Trump, having already claimed to have won the war, now feels lonely. Though he has amassed the largest aggressive force of modern times, he pleads with his one-time allies to come and give him moral support. But Trump started this war. He must face the wound to his pride that may go with stopping it. He must then complete the harder task of getting Israel also to stop.

Breakfast with Gosling, grilled by Spielberg, burned by Star Wars: Lord and Miller are cinema’s hottest duo

From directing The Lego Movie to becoming a single entity, Phil Lord and Chris Miller have had quite the ascent. Now, sending one of the globe’s best actors to his cosmic doom in Project Hail Mary, they’re aiming for the stars

When Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were starting out in Hollywood – long before they became a popcorn-flick industry unto themselves with The Lego Movie, the Jump Street films, the Spider-Verse franchise and their latest, Project Hail Mary – the duo found themselves summoned before a panel at the formidable Directors Guild of America (DGA). Lord and Miller wanted to be credited, as they would be for the rest of their career, as co-directors, and that was something the DGA – which, as Miller puts it, prefers “one set of hands on the steering wheel” – was uneasy about. In order to get approval, the pair would have to plead their case to some very famous peers.

“It was like a Senate hearing,” says Miller, his eyes widening at the memory. “Steven Spielberg and Jon Favreau and all these people asking questions like: ‘All right, but what happens if one of you gets sick? What are you gonna do?’ It was … interesting.”

Teen sensations are meant to be one in a million so why does it feel as if prodigies are taking over? | Emma John

From Max Dowman to Kimi Antonelli, Sky Brown and Luke Littler, peak performance can be attained ever earlier thanks to support and science

Des Ryan lives on the west coast of Ireland and gets over to watch Arsenal only about three times a season. It was pure fluke that the director of sports and physical wellbeing at the University of Galway was at the Emirates Stadium last weekend, when Max Dowman became the youngest ever scorer in the Premier League. He admits to getting “quite emotional” – just a few years ago he was looking after Dowman in the under-12s.

“If you’re an academy specialist, then seeing the young people get their debuts, that’s your trophy,” says Ryan, who headed the Arsenal academy’s athletic development for nine years. He knows well that while Dowman’s abilities are uniquely precocious, his situation isn’t. Marli Salmon became Arsenal’s youngest defender when he made his senior debut at 16 in December, while Brando Bailey-Joseph replaced Gabriel Martinelli on the wing in a Champions League match in January, aged 17. As Ryan notes: “These older teenagers are playing adult sport, and excelling at it.”

Heatwave scorching US west ‘virtually impossible’ without climate crisis, say scientists

Unseasonably warm and even dangerous temperatures this week were up to 30F above average for the time of year

The record-breaking heatwave scorching the US west this week would have been “virtually impossible” if not for the climate crisis, a team of scientists has determined.

Millions of Americans from the Pacific coast to the Rockies baked under unseasonably warm and even dangerous temperatures this week, with temperatures up to 30F (17C) above average for the time of year.

Chain of Ideas by Ibram X Kendi review – anatomy of a conspiracy theory

This careful analysis of so-called ‘great replacement theory’ offers a lens through which to view our broken politics

Informationsüberflutung? Weltschmerz? I’ve been searching and I don’t think even the Germans have a word that fully captures just how overwhelming the news cycle is right now. The zone has been well and truly flooded; just as you start trying to process one shocking event, something new hits the headlines.

Chain of Ideas, a new book by professor Ibram X Kendi, doesn’t provide a one-world encapsulation of our modern woes. But, in a meticulously researched 500 pages, it lays out an essential framework for parsing current events.

Homes for sale with uplifting views in England and Wales – in pictures

From a real get-away-from-it-all isolated ‘off-grid’ cottage by the sea to a 42nd-floor three-bedroom flat in a London tower block

From black rain to marine pollution, the war in Iran is an environmental disaster

In this week’s newsletter: with US-Israeli strikes hitting oil refineries, military bases and nuclear facilities, monitors are warning that the conflict will have devastating effects

• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

If the first casualty of war is the truth, the environment can’t come far behind.

The black rain that fell across Tehran two weekends ago was perhaps the most symbolic symptom of a litany of environmental devastation being wrought on Iran by the US-Israeli war machine since the start of the month. As I reported last week, we already know the conflict will have major long-term environmental repercussions.

Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating

‘Drinking from a fetid pond’: superbug-creating genes found in UK’s largest lake

Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations

We need to be honest about Iran – and how our rampant greed for oil is causing mayhem | George Monbiot

‘Very damaging’: how the Iran war is hitting energy-intensive industries

Democrats urge windfall tax as big oil set to make billions from Iran war

It’s always been a fight to get children the early years care they deserve. It’s time to fight again | Polly Toynbee

Labour recognises how crucial education is at the start of life, but still the poorest children are missing out

The news is very good (mostly). The cost of full-time childcare in England for children under the age of two has dropped by a phenomenal 39% since last year, thanks to government funding. This stat, from the 25th annual survey of nurseries by the children’s charity Coram, provides a good opportunity to stop and consider how far the country has come in that quarter-century.

In 1995, there were nursery vouchers for a few, but only 4% of children under five in England were in nursery: the right argued young children were the responsibility of families, not the state, and that mothers should stay at home. Labour’s strong cohort of women arriving in the Commons in 1997, led by the veteran Harriet Harman with her childcare strategy, fought hard to finally add the missing cradle to the “cradle to grave” welfare state. In 2003, the Treasury introduced childcare tax credits, although more as a way to get women into work. Then, in 2004, the government extended free part-time nursery places to all three- and four-year-olds in England. That was a giant step – but every step of the way was a fight, and still is.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader.

Helen Goh’s recipe for peanut and blackcurrant thumbprint cookies | The sweet spot

Crumbly, buttery biscuits encrusted with nuts and topped with a spoonful of jam

Niki Segnit writes in The Flavour Thesaurus that, while grape jelly is the familiar partner to peanut butter in the classic PBJ, she thinks blackcurrant, with its sharper, more complex character, would be a far better match for the fatty and salty peanuts. I couldn’t agree more, though I’ll admit I’m not entirely impartial: blackcurrant is my favourite jam. Here, it’s spooned into the centre of a tender, peanut-crusted shortbread, where it bakes into a glossy, slightly chewy jewel that sits in perfect contrast to the crumbly, buttery biscuit. It’s the sort of small pleasure I find myself returning to again and again.

People in North Yorkshire town found to have ‘alarming’ levels of toxic Pfas chemicals in blood

Exclusive: Testing in Bentham, home to UK’s highest recorded Pfas levels, finds one in four have blood levels in greatest risk category

Alarming levels of toxic forever chemicals have been found in the blood of people living in a town previously revealed to be contaminated with the UK’s highest recorded level of Pfas.

Pfas, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and commonly known as forever chemicals because of their persistence in the environment, have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including some cancers. They are used in a variety of consumer products but one of their most prolific uses is in firefighting foam.

The Oscars red carpet was in a skip. Then a woman took it home for her flat. What else could be repurposed?

A dumpster-diving TikToker struck gold the morning after the Academy Awards. But why are they binning carpets after one brief use? And where can we find the uneaten chocolate Oscars?

The Oscars are over, and the world has moved on. No longer are we debating the merits of any particular film, or the validity of any given win. Now there are only two sets of people who care about the Oscars; the agents of the winners, who are all busy renegotiating their clients’ contracts, and amateur Los Angeles-based carpet fitter Paige Thalia.

Thalia found a small amount of viral fame this week, after she discovered the Oscars red carpet languishing in a skip the morning after the ceremony, and decided to kit out her home with it.

‘Validation was an insatiable monster’: Dave Grohl on Foo Fighters’ punk-rock return – and life after his infidelity

In his first newspaper interview after fathering a child outside his marriage, Grohl discusses his changed outlook, his grief for Taylor Hawkins, and the 430 therapy sessions he’s had

‘I’m just going to recline.” Weighing up the seating options in a luxury London hotel suite, Dave Grohl opts for the sofa. He lays his head and swings his legs round until his black leather boots are resting on the upholstery, and clasps his hands across his stomach. Punk-rock disregard for shoe etiquette aside, it’s the classic pose of the psychoanalysed. “I’ve been in therapy six days a week for 70 weeks,” he says. “I did the math the other day: over 430 sessions.”

Even by US standards, that is a lot – but if anyone needed to work out who they are and why they were doing what they were doing, it was Grohl. Nirvana ended traumatically after the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, but their drummer Grohl quickly formed a new band, Foo Fighters, stepping up to frontman and turning them into the definitive stadium rockers of the new century with hits such as Everlong, Best of You and The Pretender. Grohl was often described as “the nicest man in rock”, a label his team tells me he dislikes, but he was certainly genial and seemed to be settling into middle age with hobbyist projects – documentary series, memoir, horror-comedy film – between a series of world tours and middle-ranking Foo Fighters albums. He had married second wife Jordyn Blum in 2003 and they’d had three daughters together. Bassist Nate Mendel tells me: “When we were first rehearsing in the mid-90s, Dave said: I just want this band to be low-drama, and for it to be fun.”

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat review – the episode with the sex toy is stomach turning

A corporate getaway is the new setting for this hoax reality show in which all but one person is an actor. Luckily, that person has a real ‘captain fun’ attitude – even when faced with icky situations

In 2023, Freevee (owned by Amazon) aired Jury Duty, a hoax reality show starring an unsuspecting member of the American public who was unaware that everyone else deciding the outcome of a trial in an LA courthouse alongside him was in fact an actor. It was frequently ridiculous – not least when X-Men actor James Marsden was parachuted in as a member of the jury. It did, however, have a lot of heart, and a lovable mark in the form of Ronald Gladden, a sweet man who blindly followed the “hero’s journey” he was unaware was being meticulously plotted by producers, and who took the eventual reveal very well. Some questioned the ethics of this Truman Show-esque premise, although Gladden seemed fairly undamaged by his accidental fame. Certainly, you imagine that his prize – $100,000 and a two-year deal with Amazon – would have helped to soften any initial feelings of “WTF”.

And so to season two, which retains the Jury Duty brand name but takes place at an annual retreat for Rockin’ Grandma’s hot sauce, a company that – spoiler alert – doesn’t exist. Taking the starring role this time is twentysomething Anthony Norman, an office temp who quickly becomes the company’s most beloved employee. It is, we learn, the final Rockin’ Grandma’s retreat for CEO Doug Womack, who is set to retire and hand over the company to his son, the lackadaisical, cod-Jamaican-accented Dougie, a former ska band member who is somewhere between Chet Hanks and the Dude from The Big Lebowski. Like Gladden before him, Norman is kind and obliging to a fault, and a big fan of organised fun – the perfect candidate to take over the running of the retreat when HR boss Kevin taps out after a humiliating social faux pas. One minute Norman’s the new guy – the next he’s running around in a yachting cap, declaring himself the new “captain fun”. For somebody who thought he was merely taking on a short-term job – and being filmed for a documentary about the corporate world – his seemingly unending reserves of enthusiasm and commitment to the dysfunctional world of Rockin’ Grandma’s are commendable.

Experience: I’ve been on more than 2,000 hot-air balloon flights in 124 countries

I loved Tanzania – we flew over hungry lions in a national park

I can still remember my first flight, in 2002. It was magical. I was working as a tour guide in Myanmar. I met a British balloon pilot called Phil, who had a spare place on a flight. He offered to take me, too.

I don’t particularly enjoy flying in planes, but this was different. We floated gently with the wind, out in the open air. There was no turbulence. It was so serene and picturesque as we flew over temples. I immediately fell in love with ballooning.

Repaired moon rocket heads back to launch pad for April 1 blastoff

After a trip back out to the launch pad, NASA's Artemis II rocket will be readied for a historic flight to the moon.

Three flight attendants taken to hospital after Delta flight hits severe turbulence on descent into Sydney

Flight 41 from Los Angeles encountered patch of rough air shortly before landing in Sydney, leaving four crew injured

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Three flight attendants were taken to hospital from Sydney airport on Friday morning after their plane hit a bad patch of turbulence just before landing.

Delta Air Lines flight 41 from Los Angeles encountered the turbulence during its descent into Sydney, with four crew members injured, a Delta spokesperson confirmed.

Iran war-induced fertilizer shortage threatens Republicans in farm states ahead of midterms

Democrats are vying for competitive seats across farm country in 2026, and fertilizer shortages spurred by the Iran war give them a new affordability angle.

Federal commission made up of Trump appointees approves design of his gold coin

The vote by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members are supporters of the president and were appointed by him earlier this year, was without objection.

FCC approves Nexstar's purchase of Tegna hours after lawsuits sought to block deal

The FCC announced Thursday that it had approved the $6.2 billion merger of major broadcast station owners Nexstar and Tegna.

Photo of Michigan synagogue attacker shows him with AR-style rifle

The man who attacked a synagogue in Michigan last week sent a photo of himself with the AR-style rifle he had during the attack to a family member in Lebanon, according to a U.S. official.

"The Bachelorette" season with Taylor Frankie Paul canceled, ABC says

ABC has canceled its already filmed season of "The Bachelorette" starring Taylor Frankie Paul after video surfaced of a 2023 incident in which she was charged with assault.

3/19: The Takeout with Major Garrett

Israel strikes a key Iranian natural gas field; Pentagon asking for an additional $200 billion for the Iran war, the Washington Post reports.

Public relations firm picks bar fight with Polymarket

Polymarket is running a bar pop up in Washington that it's dubbed the "The Situation Room."

Calls grow to fund TSA as travelers' frustration grows

Fliers were greeted with another day of long lines as TSA officers continue to work without receiving their pay. Skyler Henry speaks to travelers in Atlanta.

In voting process, photo ID gets wide support, CBS News poll finds

Few Americans feel they know a lot of the specifics about the SAVE Act.

3/19: CBS Evening News

Iran war escalates; Trump downplays war's impact on energy prices.

Body of missing student James Gracey found in Barcelona, police say

The body James Gracey, the University of Alabama student who disappeared in Barcelona, has been found, Spanish police said Thursday.

Amazon acquires startup Rivr to test robots for 'doorstep delivery'

The company expects to test ways it can use Rivr's robots to help with "doorstep delivery" and to "improve safety outcomes" for delivery drivers.

Body of missing Illinois student found in waters off beach of Barcelona

James ‘Jimmy’ Gracey was at nightclub in Spanish city for spring break when he separated from friends at about 3am

The body of James “Jimmy” Gracey, a 20-year-old college student from Illinois, was found Thursday in the water off a Barcelona beach, police in Spain said.

Gracey’s body was found by police divers and positively identified, the press office for Catalonia’s regional police in Barcelona told the Associated Press.

Surging U.S. gas prices could erase bigger tax refunds, analysis finds

Stanford economists estimate that the typical U.S. household will spend an additional $740 on gas this year because of the jump in global oil prices.

Mortgage rates rise as Iran war heightens U.S. inflation fears

Mortgage rates, though still well below their level a year ago, have edged up since the Iran war erupted. Here's why.

Over a third of TSA officers call out at 3 major U.S. airports in single day

"The morale is getting worse by the day because no one knows when this is gonna end," said Cameron Cochems, a lead TSA officer in Boise, Idaho.

Francesca Jones defeats Venus Williams in Miami for WTA 1000 breakthrough

• Brit overcomes seven-time grand slam champion 7-5, 7-5

• 25-year-old secures first victory since January

In her first training session at the ATX Open in Austin last month, weeks after injury put an end to her Australian Open, Francesca Jones found herself in an unusual, delightful situation. Her training partner across the net was none other than Venus Williams, the most successful active female tennis player.

Being able to train with such a legendary player was a dream itself, but Jones can now say that she has also defeated her, as she closed out a 7-5, 7-5 win over the 45-year-old seven-time grand slam champion in the first round of the Miami Open. The victory marks Jones’s first WTA 1000 match win in her career, breaking a four-match losing streak.

ABC pulls new season of The Bachelorette over domestic violence footage

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of hit dating show won’t air as scheduled after newly leaked video

ABC has decided to pull the new season of hit dating franchise The Bachelorette after footage of its central star physically assaulting her former partner was leaked.

Taylor Frankie Paul, who gained fame on reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, had been cast as the central Bachelorette for the 22nd season, which was due to start on Sunday.

Trump brings up Pearl Harbor while meeting with Japan's prime minister

Asked why the U.S. didn't inform allies ahead of the Iran strikes, President Trump said, "Who knows better about surprise than Japan?"

Analysts warn oil prices could keep climbing as Iran war intensifies

Every 1-cent increase in gasoline prices reduces consumer spending by $1.5 billion annually, one economist says.

Netanyahu says Iran is being 'decimated' but revolution requires 'ground component'

Netanyahu's comments came after President Donald Trump, speaking in the Oval Office, said earlier that he would not send U.S. troops to the Middle East.