Israel says it will seize parts of southern Lebanon as ‘defensive buffer’

Hopes of de-escalation dim as Israeli PM also vows to keep striking Iran, even as Trump talks up deal hopes

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel said on Tuesday it would seize parts of southern Lebanon to create what it called a “defensive buffer”, while Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Iran, dimming hopes of de-escalation even as Donald Trump talked up the prospects of a deal to end the conflict.

During a meeting with the military chief of staff, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would “control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani”, a river in Lebanon that meets the Mediterranean about 30km (20 miles) north of Israel’s border.

Nasa to spend $20bn on moon base after cancelling orbiting station

New Nasa chief, Jared Isaacman, has outlined several changes to flagship moon programme Artemis

Nasa is cancelling plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and will instead use its components to construct a $20bn base on the moon’s surface over the next seven years, its new chief, Jared Isaacman, said on Tuesday.

Isaacman, who was sworn in at the agency in December, made the announcement at the opening of a day-long event at Nasa’s Washington headquarters at which he outlinedchanges he is making to the agency’s flagship moon programme Artemis.

Middle East crisis live: US to send thousands more soldiers, reports say; Lebanon faces ‘existential crisis’, official says

Pentagon to send 3,000 more troops from 82nd Airborne Division, media reports say; Lebanese official says destruction from Israeli attacks ‘disastrous’

• Pakistan’s army chief attempts to broker Iran peace talks in call with Trump

In Australia, the number of petrol stations running out of fuel continues to climb as the Middle East war drags on, with at least 184 dry across the country’s three most populous states.

On Tuesday, 51 service stations in the state of New South Wales were out of fuel and 164 out of diesel, compared with 38 and 131 respectively the previous day, premier Chris Minns said.

Danish polls to close shortly as Greenland PM says election is most important in territory’s history – Europe live

Incumbent Mette Frederiksen widely predicted to continue as PM but neither bloc expected to be able to form majority

• Denmark election: far right has slowed under Frederiksen – but at what cost?

in Copenhagen

The far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) is attempting to win over voters by paying for their petrol.

“We would like to contribute to the debate about fuel prices, but we do not really have a desire to be party political.”

Taliban releases detained U.S. citizen Dennis Coyle

The foreign ministry said in a statement it agreed after a letter from his family that Dennis Coyle "would be pardoned and released" for Eid.

Top Democrat says Trump ‘is a complete fraud’ for voting by mail despite calling mail-in voting ‘cheating’ – live

Hakeem Jeffries says voters should not believe Trump’s claims on election integrity after president casts ballot in Palm Beach county election by mail

• Trump calls voting by mail ‘cheating’ just days after voting by mail

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Gregory Bovino, the customs and border protection (CBP) commander who led the agency’s aggressive anti-immigration push in Minneapolis before being sidelined by the White House, has decided to go out with a bang it would seem.

Having announced his forthcoming retirement from the CBP, the publicity-hungry Bovino – known for his florid statements – has given an interview to the New York Times that stresses defiance over contrition.

United ditches more economy seats to make room for bigger premium cabins with new layouts

United will have new cabins on smaller planes with premium seats, including those that convert into a bed, to win more sales from high-spending travelers.

Senate closes in on potential deal to end DHS shutdown

The Senate is closing in on a deal to fund the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security and end the partial government shutdown that has stretched for six weeks.

Ella Baron on Donald Trump’s peace negotiations with Iran – cartoon

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Minnesota state and county officials sue government over Good, Pretti probes

Minnesota state and county officials allege they're being blocked from probing the shootings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis by federal agents.

Pakistan offers to facilitate U.S.-Iran war talks as Trump, Tehran give mixed signals

Trump said top U.S. negotiators and their Iranian counterparts have been engaged in "very, very strong talks," but Tehran has denied that claim.

Congress loses a flying perk as DHS shutdown continues

Delta Airlines is temporarily suspending specialty services to member of Congress due to resource constraints from the ongoing shutdown of DHS.

Antoine Griezmann to leave Atlético Madrid and join MLS’s Orlando City

• French superstar played 10 years for Atlético

• Forward will join Orlando in July on a deal through 2029

• Atlético plays Barcelona in Copa del Rey final in April

Orlando City SC completed the long-anticipated signing of Atlético Madrid superstar Antoine Griezmann on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old French attacker is signed from July 2026 through the 2027-28 season with an option for 2028-29. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Suspect in murder of Loyola student misses court date due to tuberculosis as new details emerge

Prosecutors say Jose Medina, who is accused of killing a Loyola University student, missed his first court appearance Monday because he has been hospitalized and is undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. Medina is facing several charges in the fatal shooting, including first-degree murder. DHS says the alleged shooter is a Venezuelan man living in the U.S. illegally.

North London ambulance arson attack: what we know so far - The Latest

An investigation is under way into an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in north London. Efforts are being made to verify a claim of responsibility by a group known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI). Security sources have cautioned against a rush to tie Iran to arson and it has not so far been designated as a terrorist incident. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to chief reporter Daniel Boffey

Senate, White House start to coalesce around ending DHS shutdown amid TSA delays

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since February over Democratic concerns about its immigration enforcement policies.

Rubio testifying in trial of ex-Rep. accused of illegal lobbying for Venezuela

Former Rep. David Rivera of Florida is accused of secretly lobbying for the Venezuelan government during the first Trump administration.

Getting ready to fly? Here are 3 ways to track TSA wait times.

Security lines are stretching up to 6 hours at some airports amid TSA staffing shortages. Here's how to check wait times before you leave.

Airlines issue travel waivers as airport chaos widens amid shutdown

Some airlines are issuing waivers for travelers eager to avoid hours-long waits for TSA security screening. Here's what to know.

Epic Games lays off 1,000 workers as CEO says the cuts aren't tied to AI

The video game maker is cutting 1,000 workers as it struggles to keep players engaged with Fortnite.

I lost every good acting job to Riz Ahmed – annoyingly, his James Bond comedy is a jaw-dropping hoot

Ahmed superbly tackles race and identity in his hilarious new show Bait, proving the British-Asian actor truly is the best of this country. I’m happy for him, I swear!

Conflicted feelings for me this week, watching Bait, the new comedy created by Riz Ahmed. I started a career in acting shortly after Ahmed, you see. For a decade, I lost every good job going to him. What made it worse was watching all of those projects and realising exactly how good he was. Anyway, I’m going to try to write the rest of this while suppressing Salieri levels of malcontent. Wish me luck.

Bait is the story of an Asian actor, Shah Latif, who finds himself lined up to be the next James Bond. The series covers the internet’s toxic response to the rumours, using it to dive deep into a conversation about racial palatability, Britishness, ambition and authenticity. It’s funny, surreal, provocative and boasts an incredible array of hot young British-Asian actors. Which reminds me, I must rewatch Sliding Doors.

A professional cornhole player and quadruple amputee is arrested for murder

Dayton Webber, 27, is accused of shooting a man in his car during an argument. He has shared his story of becoming a pro athlete after losing his arms and legs to a childhood bacterial infection.

Ben Duckett pulls out of £200,000 IPL deal in bid to save England Test spot

• England opener now faces three-year ban from IPL

• ‘My journey into Test team has come from county cricket’

Ben Duckett has pulled out of the upcoming Indian Premier League and now faces a three-year ban from the tournament after deciding he needs county cricket to shore up his place in England’s Test team.

The opener, 31, was signed by Delhi Capitals at the IPL auction in December in a deal worth £200,000 and, with the competition starting this weekend, was due to miss the first two months of the English season.

Pentagon ban of Anthropic faces judge; Claude AI maker seeks injunction

The Defense Department designated Anthropic as a risk to U.S. national security, the first time an American company had been hit with that designation.

As airport delays continue, can enrolling in TSA PreCheck save you time?

"TSA PreCheck will likely help you, even now with the long lines we're seeing at checkpoints," said one travel expert.

Trump voted by mail in Florida despite calling mail-in voting "cheating"

President Trump has long railed against mail-in voting, but used the method this month in a Florida election, public records indicate.

What it's like to stand in TSA line during DHS funding fight

Overhead announcements at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport periodically advised those in line with departures within four hours to consider rebooking now.

Anthropic says Claude can now use your computer to finish tasks for you in AI agent push

Anthropic and its rivals are trying to ramp up capabilities of AI agents after OpenClaw went viral earlier this year.

Shoplifting, sex shows and sheepdog-breeding: great artists and the side-hustles they did to get by

John Cage appeared on an Italian quizshow. Jean Genet stole rare books. Emily Carr reared bobtails. And Kathy Acker did X-rated acts with her boyfriend … we explore the unlikely sidelines of struggling artists

Before he pioneered a new genre of semi-autobiographical writing, the great French novelist and playwright Jean Genet pioneered something very different indeed: a special briefcase for stealing valuable books that he would later resell – after reading them first, of course. “I perfected a trick briefcase,” he later recalled, “and I became so handy in these thefts that I could push politeness to the point of pulling them off under the very nose of the bookseller.”

For as long as young people have dreamed of careers in the arts – as novelists, painters, poets, musicians and other species – they have had to measure their dreams against their economic circumstances. Often they have found a yawning gap between what they hope to do and what they have the means to pay for.

Colourful cathedral and breaking waves – readers’ best photographs

Click here to submit a picture for publication in these online galleries and/or on the Guardian letters page

Ipswich fans ‘disgusted and ashamed’ after Nigel Farage photo opportunity at Portman Road

• Reform leader’s posts on social media spark criticism

• ‘It’s a slap in the face to supporters and players’

Ipswich fans have said they are “disgusted and ashamed” after the Reform Party leader, Nigel Farage, was able to stage a photo opportunity at Portman Road on Monday.

Many some supporters criticised the club on social media with one describing it as “PR suicide for a family club”. Another fan, Alex, told the Press Association he was disgusted and ashamed at what had happened, adding: “It is a slap in the face to supporters and players, past and present.”

Does your business English let you down? Turn it into pure corporate gibberish with LinkedIn Speak

Struggling to find the right buzzwords to adorn your CV, or to put a gloss on a series of professional setbacks? There’s a translation app for that

Name: LinkedIn Speak.

Age: One month old.

Football Daily | Welcome to the Fifa Series – football’s random friendly fixture generator

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It’s the international break but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun. There are, of course, crunch playoffs for the Geopolitics World Cup – if anyone actually wants to be there – in Europe and over in Mexico. But for the rest, this is a chance to rip up the rulebook and play whoever the hell they like. Those heading to North America in the summer have to keep things semi-serious. England have got Wembley friendlies against Uruguay and Japan. Fine. Brazil are in the USA USA USA to play France and Croatia. Check. The defending champions, Argentina, had their Finalissima against Spain in Qatar cancelled because of the threat of rogue missiles and have scheduled friendlies against anyone that was available, namely Mauritania (115th in the world) and Zambia (a lofty 91st). Spain clearly had a better agent and have booked Serbia and Egypt. But these are a mere sideshow to the Fifa Series 2026, a set of village fetes dotted across the globe, pitting nations from different continents against each other in four-team tournaments.

After reading Peter Harris’s letter about his walk home from the football (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), I was inspired to find out more. I phoned up my local rambling society … but the guy just went on and on” – James Vortkamp-Tong.

I take it Peter has not enjoyed the pedestrian pathway from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to Seven Sisters underground. Two hours of woe followed by a race walk/jog down to closest tube station. Stunning” – Chris Brown.

Re: football’s capacity for generating Shakespearean quotes (yesterday’s letters). Presumably more than one striker, when bearing down on the Liverpool defence back in the late-2000s/early-2010s, would ask himself: ‘Is this a D Agger which I see before me?’” – Andy Korman.

In King Lear Act 1 Scene 4, the Bard remarks: ‘Nor tripped neither, you base football player.’ Clear proof that diving took place as early as 1605” – Max Maxwell.

Whale stranded in Baltic will die unless helped to move soon, say experts

German rescue teams have been trying to ease the humpback’s path back into deeper waters without success

A 10-metre-long humpback whale stranded on a sandbar in the Baltic Sea is in danger of dying if rescue workers do not manage to help it move into deeper waters soon, experts have said.

Believed to be a young male, the mammal was spotted by guests of a hotel in Niendorf in Lübeck Bay, northern Germany, on Monday after they heard its deep moans and alerted police.

Will President Trump act on his threat to take Cuba?

New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson describes conditions in Cuba, why it's vulnerable now — and what regime change would mean — considering the Castro family's entrenchment in the Cuban government.

‘What a fascinating challenge for an artist’: how Monet captured Venice in his twilight years

de Young Museum, San Francisco
New exhibition brings together the artist’s many Venetian paintings, a perfect match of artist and location that almost didn’t happen

Claude Monet was 68 years old before he ever set foot in Venice, surprisingly keeping his distance from a city that for hundreds of years has attracted many of Europe’s best painters. When Monet finally did get there, he created dozens of paintings and the French impressionist’s Venetian works are now the subject of a show at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, simply titled Monet and Venice.

“It might have been insecurity, because Venice had been painted so famously and by so many major names in western history,” said Melissa Buron, who co-curated the show with Lisa Small. As she explained, given Venice’s artistic pedigree, even a master such as Monet would have reason to feel intimidated by the location.

Iran’s parliament speaker: the outsider seen by White House as possible partner

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has threatened the US, is being weighed up as potential interlocutor to help end war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Just as in 1967 when a rank outsider won the Grand National due to a massive pile-up of other horses at one of the final fences, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and Donald Trump’s putative interlocutor, appears to have come to the front as the field around him rapidly thinned.

In the pantheon of Iran’s leaders, ruthlessly reduced by targeted assassinations, Ghalibaf stands out as a survivor, but if the US president hopes he has finally located the Delcy Rodríguez of Iran – a pragmatic leader from within the regime willing to do business with America – he may need to think again.

CBS News joins TSA lines at 2 major airports to track wait times

CBS News correspondents Skyler Henry and Nicole Sganga stood in line with flyers at TSA checkpoints in Atlanta and Houston airports to track how long it takes to go through security as the partial shutdown drags on.

TSA workers try to survive second shutdown and ICE influx: ‘We need to be paid’

Workers are ‘in the middle of chaos from political games’ as Senate Republicans try to negotiate with Democrats to reopen DHS

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Workers with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are reeling from the White House’s deployment of immigration law enforcement into airports as TSA workers enter their sixth week without pay as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown continues.

More than 400 TSA workers have quit since the shutdown began in February, with major US airports reporting high call-out rates among workers, leading to longer security wait times. On Sunday, more than, 3,450 TSA officers called out of work, with as many as 40% of officers at some airports calling out that day, according to DHS data.

Jay-Z on refusing to settle sexual assault lawsuit: ‘I can’t do it, I would die’

The rapper discussed his 2024 sexual assault lawsuit and the Kendrick-Drake beef in a new GQ cover story

Jay-Z has spoken out about his recent sexual assault lawsuit in a new interview.

The suit alleged that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped a a 13-year-old girl at a party in 2000. Combs and Jay-Z denied all allegations after the lawsuit was filed in late 2024, and the case was voluntarily dismissed in February 2025.

‘Was that an earthquake?’ Italy’s great psycho-geographer tackles the Vesuvius-haunted Naples tourists seldom see

His films about Rome’s ringroad and the islanders and refugees of Lampedusa have won awards. Now Gianfranco Rosi is completing his trilogy, capturing a Naples ‘that is not immediately there’

A uniform grey nimbostratus has blocked the rays of the London sun the day I speak to Gianfranco Rosi, but this consummately Italian film-maker is feeling right at home. “When Jean Cocteau visited Naples, he wrote a letter to his mother in which he said, ‘Vesuvius makes all the clouds in the world.’ And I think that’s a beautiful image.” He gives a gracious nod to the blanket of grey outside the window. “I am sure there is one cloud over London today that has come straight from southern Italy.”

Rosi, 62, has earned his reputation as one of Europe’s most important documentary-makers with highly original and poetic portraits of Italian places. His 2013 film Sacro GRA – the first documentary to win the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival – followed a motley cast of characters who live or work on the ringroad that circles Rome. Fire at Sea, which scooped the Golden Bear at the Berlinale three years later, was a study of the inhabitants of the island of Lampedusa and the people who arrived there on perilously crowded boats at the height of the refugee crisis. It elevated Rosi to an elite circle of directors to have won the top prize at two of Europe’s three main film festivals.

Moody's cuts rating on private credit fund run by KKR and Future Standard to junk as bad loans grow

The move by Moody's is the latest sign of distress in private credit; retail investors have been rushing to withdraw funds, from Blackstone to Apollo.

Mikaela Shiffrin on verge of overall World Cup title after record slalom win

• Shiffrin wins slalom to move 85 points clear overall

• Aicher must win Wednesday’s giant slalom finale

• American star eyes record-tying sixth overall crown

Mikaela Shiffrin v Emma Aicher for the most prestigious title in women’s skiing will go to the season-ending final race on Wednesday.

Shiffrin won yet another slalom on Tuesday – her ninth in 10 World Cup starts this season – by a massive margin of 1.32sec ahead of Wendy Holdener.

Why is the US so expensive? Everything comes in a ‘premium’ version, from doctors’ appointments to movies | Arwa Mahdawi

Want a good view of the cinema screen? You’ll need to sign up to the VIP scheme. A quick chat with your doctor? An extra $50,000 will let you jump the queue

‘What’s great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest,” Andy Warhol wrote in 1975. “You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke [and] you can drink Coke, too … The idea of America is so wonderful because the more equal something is, the more American it is.”

Fifty years later, it’s still true that the Diet Coke Donald Trump is chugging by the caseload in the Oval Office is exactly the same stuff his public can buy in a local shop. But the idea that mass consumerism is characterised by equality is about as dead as Warhol is. There are precious few products or experiences that haven’t been segmented into multiple tiers, from “embarrassing pauper” to “ultra-VIP”, in order to extract as much money from the consumer as possible.

Oklahoma governor taps energy executive to fill Mullin's Senate seat

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed energy executive Alan Armstrong on Tuesday to replace newly confirmed​ DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the Senate.

Do we really need eight hours sleep a night – and what happens if we don’t get it?

We’re told that sleep is a superpower, making us smarter, healthier and happier. But how much is enough? And is insomnia as bad for us as we think?

‘Once, after I did a presentation, someone came up to me and said, ‘I don’t get eight hours of sleep a night. Am I going to die?’” says Prof Russell Foster, head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford. “And I said, ‘Well, yes, you’re going to die. But, you know, we all die eventually.’”

This exchange is, hopefully, comforting, but it also shouldn’t be too surprising. Over the past decade or so, we’ve been repeatedly told that sleep is everything from a legal performance-enhancer to an actual superpower – and, conversely, that if we don’t get enough shuteye we’re risking an early start to our eternal slumber. But how bad is a lack of sleep, really? And if we seem to be coping fine on six hours a night, is there a chance we’re still setting ourselves up for problems further down the line?

Airstrikes, rockets and fields of mustard: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Career myths and tips for landing your dream job

Nearly 2 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months. LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher joins "CBS Mornings" to break down some popular career advice and separate fact from fiction to help you land your dream job.

Russia launches fresh wave of strikes on civilian areas across Ukraine

Moscow appears to step up spring offensive amid concerns international focus on Iran war leaves Kyiv more vulnerable

Russia has launched a fresh wave of missile and drone strikes on civilian areas across Ukraine, killing at least five people, as Moscow appears to be stepping up a spring offensive intended to break Ukrainian resistance along the front.

Moscow fired nearly 400 long-range drones and 23 cruise missiles overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, one of the largest attacks in weeks after a relative lull.

Before running for Congress, Bobby Pulido was a Tejano music icon

Pulido has been a mainstay of Tejano music —a genre blending traditional regional Mexican elements with country, pop and conjunto influences — for more than three decades.

LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

Nasa reports show repeated warnings of close calls before crash that killed two pilots and injured 41 others

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Pilot safety concerns about New York’s LaGuardia airport were filed to aviation officials months before Sunday’s collision between an airplane and a firetruck left two pilots dead and 41 other people hospitalized.

According to the aviation safety reporting system administered by the US space agency Nasa, a pilot using the airport in the summer wrote, “Please do something,” after air traffic controllers failed to provide appropriate guidance about multiple nearby aircraft.

TSA wait times up to 6 hours as ICE, other agents deployed to 14 airports

Nearly 12% of all TSA officers who were scheduled to work on Sunday called out — the most since the start of the partial government shutdown.

Bill Cosby found liable for sexual assault and ordered to pay $59.25m in damages

Donna Motsinger wins civil case after accusing Cosby of drugging and raping her in California in 1972

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A California jury found Bill Cosby liable for sexual assault in a civil trial on Monday, awarding Donna Motsinger $59.25m in damages. Motsinger alleged in the case that while working as a restaurant server in 1972, she was drugged and raped by Cosby after he gave her a glass of wine in his limousine.

Motsinger sued Cosby after California amended its laws to change the statute of limitations on when accusers can file sexual assault cases. In remarks after the jury’s verdict, she described the trial as a five-decade-long effort to get justice.

The headline and text of this article were amended on 24 March 2026 to reflect the terminology of the civil legal proceedings.

Amazon's Zoox to debut robotaxis in Austin, Miami later this year as it awaits paid ride approval

It marks the latest expansion for Amazon's Zoox self-driving unit, which opened rides to the public in some parts of Las Vegas and San Francisco last year.

Databricks enters cybersecurity market with Lakewatch launch, bulking up ahead of IPO

Databricks wants to draw on AI to help organizations respond to a higher speed of attacks, based on newly disclosed vulnerabilities.

Married At First Sight star Mel Schilling dies aged 54

Tributes paid to Australian dating expert who contributed to ‘phenomenal’ TV success story

Married At First Sight relationship coach Mel Schilling has died aged 54, weeks after announcing that doctors could no longer treat her cancer.

Schilling – known for offering relationship advice on the hit Channel 4 reality dating show – died on Tuesday “surrounded by love”, according to a family statement.

Polymarket buckles down on insider trading after suspiciously timed bets

Polymarket tightened its rules after questions surfaced over whether some prediction market customers engaged in insider trading.

What’s the best material for a chopping board, and how to avoid mould?

Our roster of experts explain what makes the best chopping board, and give tips on how to care for them

I saw an influencer advocating for titanium chopping boards. Are they really the way to go? If not, which material is best? My wooden one has some black mould.
Lenka, by email
“From the off, no!” says Itamar Srulovich, whose latest cookbook, Honey & Co Daily, co-authored by Sarit Packer, is published later this spring. “The technology of chopping boards works, it’s bulletproof – this is criminal!” Sam Clark, co-founder of London’s Moro and Morito, couldn’t agree more: “The idea of chopping on a titanium board, with metal against metal, sends shivers down my spine,” he says.

Of course, the surface on which you choose to chop will impact your knife, and for Milli Taylor, who is behind the When in Rome Substack, she “couldn’t imagine anything worse than titanium”. As Hugh Worsley, founder of knife brand Allday Goods, puts it: “Every time you cut, the very fine edge of your knife, which is microscopically thin, meets the chopping surface. If that surface is too hard, it damages the edge, causing it to dull faster.” A titanium board, which has no give, is just going to slowly destroy your knives: “I can see the benefit of it from a cleanliness point of view,” Worsley concedes, but, other than that, “it just makes no sense”.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email [email protected]

Ford recalls more than 254,000 vehicles due to software issue

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the issue can reduce the driver's ability to detect hazards and increase the risk of a crash.

EV battery startup pivots to defense industry amid Iran war, weak electric vehicle market

Former GM executive CEO Pamela Fletcher told CNBC "the faster path, and frankly, a big need, is out there in this defense space."

A first-hand look at TSA lines

CBS News correspondents Skyler Henry, in Atlanta, and Nicole Sganga, in Houston, join travelers in TSA wait lines to give a first-hand look at the security checkpoints amid the partial government shutdown.

Some travelers navigate TSA wait times as long as 6 hours as ICE agents are sent to airports

In Houston, some travelers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport dealt with wait times as long as six hours amid TSA staffing shortages. Meanwhile, security lines at Atlanta's airport extended all the way outside of the terminal. The Trump administration has deployed ICE and other DHS agents to 14 U.S. airports.

Senate confirms Markwayne Mullin as next DHS secretary

President Donald Trump tapped Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., earlier this month to replace embattled DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Quadruple amputee cornhole player accused of murder in Maryland

Dayton James Webber, a quadruple amputee and professional cornhole player, was arrested and charged with murder in Maryland.

Teenage kicks: Camden’s Museum of Youth Culture – in pictures

Newly opened museum in north London has archive of more than 100,000 items telling story of British youth subcultures

• Punk masks, Walkmans and Choppers: Museum of Youth Culture to open in London

US-Israel war on Iran: how football in the region is struggling to deal with the fallout

From World Cup preparations to Champions League complications, the issues facing football in the region

It has been a little over three weeks since the United States and Israel attacked Iran and plunged the Middle East into war. Football there is struggling to deal with the fallout from the conflict. Here are the issues.

Spring’s bounty: what to sow, plant, prune, harvest and eat

From tender broad beans and cheek-puckering rhubarb to nutty new potatoes, make the most of the season’s best

Elderflower
Pick on the sunniest May days, when their scent is heady and sweet, to infuse for cordial. For a truly special tipple, pour a litre of gin into a large, shallow dish, and stand as many elderflower heads, florets down, as fit for two hours. Drain, bottle, and enjoy with tonic and ice on a warm evening.

West Ham stadium stance could block London’s World Athletics Championships bid, warns Coe

• Club refusing to vacate stadium for three weeks in 2029

• Coe: ‘I do ask cities to try to accommodate us’

Sebastian Coe has warned that London’s bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships could be scuppered by West Ham’s refusal to allow their stadium to be used in September.

World Athletics has made it clear to bidding cities, which the Guardian understands also includes Rome, Munich and Nairobi as well as a mooted Indian city, that the world championships should be the grand finale to the athletics season.

Large blast at Valero oil refinery in Texas sends smoke, flames into the air

A large explosion at a Valero oil refinery near the Texas Gulf coast shot plumes of smoke into the air and forced some nearby residents to shelter in place.

Amazon faces further AWS disruption in the Middle East from Iran conflict

AWS is facing more service disruptions in Bahrain as a result of the ongoing conflict ‌in the Middle East, marking the second such disruptions this month.

DCCC launches geotargeted digital ad campaign hitting GOP for gas prices

Democrats have seized on the economic disruption of the Iran war to hammer Republicans over high costs ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

David Squires on … big calls and cheeky Cherki at the Carabao Cup final

Our cartoonist on the master beating the apprentice as Manchester City got one over Arsenal at Wembley

• Buy a cartoon | David’s favourite works of 2025

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

Senate confirms Sen. Mullin as DHS secretary. And, Iran denies U.S. talks to end war

The Senate has confirmed Markwayne Mullin as the next Department of Homeland Security secretary. And, Iran has denied that it's in talks with the U.S. to end the war, which is now in its fourth week.

Pakistan is poised to host the U.S. and Iran for talks to end the war

The Pakistani prime minister said his country stands ready to host negotiations toward a settlement as the war with Iran nears the one-month mark.

Kim vows to 'irreversibly' cement North Korea's nuclear status

In his speech, Kim expressed pride in the country's rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and missiles in recent years, calling it the "right" choice.

What to understand why Trump is still bombing Iran? Look to Nixon and Vietnam | Kenneth Roth

Richard Nixon’s strategy was about shielding his own reputation. Now Trump needs a face-saving exit of his own

Donald Trump’s struggle to justify continuing his war with Iran reminds me of Richard Nixon’s quest for “peace with honor” in Vietnam. Nixon caused years of death and suffering in pursuit of his elusive goal. How much more devastation will Trump inflict before he cuts his losses and calls off this pointless conflict?

Nixon first called for “an honorable end” to the war in his acceptance speech at the 1968 Republican national convention. It became a centerpiece of his presidential campaign and his presidency. As it became clear that the South Vietnamese government could not survive US withdrawal from the war, Nixon sought to defend Washington’s credibility, cynically understood as a decent interval between America’s departure and Saigon’s collapse.

Epstein victim says Bard president helped legitimize sex offender

Leon Botstein’s communications and relationship with Epstein under review by WilmerHale law firm, while Bard president says he never witnessed anything inappropriate

A victim of Jeffrey Epstein who had previous interactions with Leon Botstein said she believed the Bard College president, whose relationship with the late sex offender is currently under review, was part of a group of influential and accomplished men whose proximity to Epstein helped to rehabilitate his reputation.

Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a former Russian model who worked as a “staffer” for Epstein, told the Guardian in an interview that she saw Botstein with Epstein together “quite frequently” – including having flown with him on a trip to Epstein’s island in December 2012 – and that she believed his reputation as a “sophisticated intellectual” helped “legitimize” Epstein.

The ‘self-deportee’ hounded out of the US to Mexico: ‘There are days when I feel literally insane’

Abel Ortiz lived in LA since he was a newborn. The Guardian filmed him as he left after 38 years. Now, we catch up with him in Mexico City, fired up and grieving in his new life

• Watch: Abel leaves LA is an original Guardian Documentary that follows Abel’s last week in the United States

A couple of weekends ago, as dusk was falling over the Escandón neighbourhood of Mexico City, Abel Ortiz was startled by the sound of two American women yelling at each other on the street outside his apartment.

They were nose to nose, screaming in English while bemused Mexicans looked on.

Surrender to It review – insufferable bunch of actors reconnect for hiking weekend of pain and comedy

There are echoes here of 1992’s Peter’s Friends, and given this thriller’s preposterous script and amateurish production it is likely to generate similar levels of disdain

Writer-director Tim Bryn Smith clearly never got the memo, drafted immediately after the waves of derision that greeted luvvie-fest Peter’s Friends back in 1992, that any film revolving around a bunch of friends who are or were formerly actors having a reunion is fair game for sneering, sniping and all kinds of eye-rolling disdain. Because no one really likes watching actors playing actors, despite the recent Oscar win for Sentimental Value. But Bryn Smith and his chums apparently haven’t read the room, so here’s the damn near insufferable Surrender to It, which revolves around a motley collection of ageing would-be thespians who all met at a drama workshop back in the day reuniting for a hiking weekend.

The script, credited to Bryn Smith and Chris Wetton, feels like it rose out of a bunch of improv exercises and random suggestions fished out of a hat. One strand involves bereaved couple Dani (Daemian Greaves, the best of a very average lot in terms of performances here) and Celena (Melissa May Smith) who are mourning their dead son. While this is handled with some sensitivity, the maudlin tone doesn’t mix at all well with the supposedly comic subplots that occupy the rest of the running time. These focus on the other (highly unlikely) former best buds that include Ram (Fletcher Graham) who’s gone on to become a big-time movie star recovering from a recent scandal in the manner of Johnny Depp who has one hanger-on with him (Alexander Rose). Hugo (Bryn Smith) is meant to be the talent that never flourished who harbours deep feelings for another member of the group, but not the one you might think. There’s influencer Evie (Chantelle Lee) who has her own secret feelings for one of the cohort, and her pal Chrissy (Clare Alexandra Isabelle McGill) who is being courted by a gigolo with a ridiculous Latin accent whom we never meet. Dopey Timmy (Ben Grace) wants everyone to help him find treasure hidden by his recently deceased father.

Asia boosts coal use as Iran war squeezes global LNG supplies

Analysts say coal may stabilize supplies for now but they warn that continued reliance on the polluting fuel will worsen air pollution.

‘I’d smoke Biscoff if I could’: how a little Belgian biscuit became a social media sensation

Biscoff-based recipes are breaking the internet – everything from cheesecakes and milkshakes to prawn dishes and salads. A few traditionalists are even enjoying the biscuits on their own. What’s behind this sweet success story?

Around 15 years ago, Ashley Markle was admitted into a secret world, introduced to the treasures of an exclusive supply chain. She was staying at her aunt’s house and, one morning, when her aunt made her a coffee, she placed a little plastic-wrapped biscuit on the side. “I’d never seen them before,” says Markle. She bit into it: “It was a warm flavour that I’d never really had in a cookie. I’m like, what is this?”

Her aunt had discovered the small, gently spiced Biscoff biscuits as an airline snack. She loved them so much that she contacted the maker, Belgian company Lotus, and asked them to ship a box to her in the US. At that time, says Markle, “I think she was the only person who actually had them in her home.” But, as we all know, the world changes rapidly. Last year, Biscoff was the fastest-growing biscuit brand in the US.

Trump’s sanctions against a UN human rights expert show free speech is dying |

Francesca Albanese recommended ICC arrests and investigations over Gaza. Who will be the administration’s next target?

We are North American university professors and human rights lawyers who teach, write, and speak about the human rights of people around the world, including Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. In a country that purports to value democracy and human rights, we never imagined that we could face civil penalties or imprisonment for our work. That sense of security has evaporated after the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders and memoranda that aim to stifle speech and demonize dissent – particularly when it comes to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians living in Gaza.

Let us be clear: the evidence that Israel has committed war crimes is overwhelming. Israel killed an estimated 20,000 children – including more than 1,000 babies – in two years of war. Israel used starvation and thirst as a war tactic, leading to widespread famine that indiscriminately targeted the civilian population. It kept civilians from accessing cancer treatment, neonatal and maternal care, and basic antibiotics and painkillers by blockading the delivery of medical equipment and medications. Israel destroyed Gaza’s entire healthcare system, including reproductive healthcare facilities and Gaza’s largest fertility clinic. Israel’s systematic attack on Gaza’s civilian population was accompanied by dehumanizing language by authorities at the highest levels of government comparing Palestinians to “‘human animals” and “children of darkness”.

Sandra L Babcock is a clinical professor and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School. Susan M Akram is clinical professor and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law. Asli Bali is a Professor at Yale Law School and is the past President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. Thomas Becker is the Legal and Policy Director at the University Network for Human Rights and teaches human rights at Columbia Law School. James Cavallaro is the Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights and a visiting professor at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs

Houseplant hacks: are repotting mats a waste of money?

I think they are worth the spend – they make plant care a more relaxing experience

The problem
Repotting indoors is always so much messier than we imagine. Weeks later, you’ll find compost on the floor and grit in the skirting boards, and one rogue perlite bead will impale itself in your bare foot. Newspapers slip, bin bags tear, and if you rent or have carpet, the fear of a spilt bag of soil is real. Meet the humble repotting mat. It looks simple, but is it effective?

The hack
A repotting mat is a foldable sheet of waterproof fabric with poppers at the corners. Snap them together, and you get a plant care station.

U.S. Park Police officer ambushed, shot by 2 men in Washington, officials say

A U.S. Park Police officer was seriously wounded in an ambush shooting in Washington, law enforcement officials said. The officer was targeted, they said.

Airbnb in firing line as Cape Town’s housing crisis catches up with middle class

Social media full of complaints about digital nomads, while waiting list for social housing gets longer

Earlier this month, graffiti appeared on the promenade in Sea Point, on Cape Town’s wealthy Atlantic Seaboard: “Digital nomads go home! Now!”

Social media is full of complaints about the abundance of American and German accents, foreign property buyers, and properties being listed on Airbnb, all of which are being blamed for soaring housing costs.

No Ordinary Heist review – Eddie Marsan stars in Belfast true-crime thriller about massive bank robbery

Marsan is an odd choice for the role of an uptight bank manager compelled to cooperate with robbers in this underpowered take on a real-life bank raid in 2004

Given that this Belfast-set true-crime thriller is based on real-life events from 2004, it sounds like something that might have made a gripping, splashy top-tier feature. But instead this feels underpowered and apologetic, clumsily assembled and blandly directed by Colin McIvor, whose filmography of TV and low-budget comedies doesn’t indicate a particular aptitude for the area. The two main male headliners, Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke, are fine, although you have to wonder why Marsan, character actor of renown as he may be, was cast instead of a local actor. Was everyone else busy shooting Game of Thrones spinoffs?

Marsan does a pretty good job nailing the Belfast accent, but still he’s a recessive kind of presence and an odd choice for the role of Richard Murray, an uptight bank manager compelled to cooperate with the robbers when his wife Celine (Eva Birthistle) is kidnapped. Murray has to cooperate with one of the bank’s security guards, Barry (Hardwicke, giving the more dynamic performance), who also has a loved one being held captive, to pack up millions of used bank notes and disguise them as rubbish that’s being collected just before Christmas. The bank robbers themselves are a fairly undifferentiated lot, apart from a deliciously skeevy character (JB Moore) who is guarding Barry’s mother (Andrea Irvine). He’s the kind of scumbag that really puts some welly into cleaning the sink after he uses it in his hostage’s home, and not in the sort of way that suggests he’s only worried about fingerprints.

Molly Miller, ‘pretty privilege’ and women’s basketball’s beauty trap

Arizona State’s head coach has turned around a losing program. Unsurprisingly, much of the discourse on the internet was not based on her leadership skills

In March 2025, the Arizona State women’s basketball team were looking for a coach who could end a drought that had seen them go without a NCAA Tournament appearance – or even a winning season – since 2019-20.

The choice was Molly Miller, a proven and successful head coach at Grand Canyon. Miller had led the Lopes to their first NCAA Tournament appearance and a 32–3 record in her final season with the team – a benchmark for the program and an important accomplishment within the broader scope of college basketball. She soon turned around Arizona State, leading them to a 24-11 record and a first appearance at the NCAA Tournament in six years. (Their season ended in the First Four.)

Robyn: Sexistential review – pop doyenne returns with emotional grenades and a new philosophy

(Young)
After 2018’s meditative Honey, the Swedish star returns to her trademark skin-tingling electro bangers – but this time she’s unpicking her trademark fixation on romantic love

The self-proclaimed Fembot has always pushed people’s buttons. Robyn might be best known for bringing raw emotion to the dancefloor, but her pop bangers about desire and despair are often spiked with commentary on social programming: “Plug me in and flip some switches,” she once quipped, posing as a sexed-up cyborg with a bloody, beating heart. So it’s not a shock to find the Swedish star in a lab coat on Dopamine, her first single in seven years. The song rushes with glittering, arpeggiated synths, but Robyn, now 46, holds it at arm’s length. “I know it’s just dopamine, but it feels so real to me / I’m tripping on our chemistry,” she muses, taking notes as her synapses tingle. “Is love more than chemicals?” she seems to be asking. Does it matter if it’s not? But this time the song is no social critique – it’s a whole new philosophy.

Sexistential, Robyn’s ninth album, unravels the fixation on romantic love that fuelled her biggest songs. Gone are the soft edges and pulsing, sensual house of her previous album Honey, and back are the sharp electronic sounds of 2010’s Body Talk through a new lens. With long-term collaborator Klas Åhlund and a few familiar faces (including Metronomy’s Joe Mount and Swedish pop royalty Max Martin), Sexistential reimagines Robyn’s discography without romance as a vehicle. The title track is a sub-three-minute case study in her new mentality. Over minimal, jerking 80s house Robyn raps about hooking up while undergoing IVF as a solo parent: “Fuck a single mom, I’m not judgmental,” she winks, cleaving sex from reproduction and nuclear family. Its counterpart is Blow My Mind, a revamp of her billowy 2002 single made psychedelic, faster, sharper – no longer a textbook love song, but a song about loving her young son.

Airstrikes may have destroyed Iran's last F-14s, ending a long, strange saga

The F-14 was made famous in Top Gun. The U.S. sold the planes to Iran in the 1970s, only for the two countries to become enemies. Iran kept its F-14s flying for decades in the face of U.S. sanctions.

As parents age, their children face hard choices about when to take the car keys

States have many policies to stop risky older drivers from renewing their licenses. But in practice, it's often adult children who must decide when to take the car keys away from an aging parent.

Extra 11 minutes’ sleep each night can reduce heart attack risk, study finds

Researchers detail ‘surprisingly large’ cardiovascular health benefits of small shifts in behaviour

Sleeping for 11 minutes more each night, doing 4.5 additional minutes of brisk walking and eating an extra 50g or so of vegetables each day can significantly reduce a person’s risk of heart attack, a study has found.

Academics found these small changes could help people avoid major cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, by about 10%. Small behaviour changes were more “achievable and sustainable”, the research team said.

US quadruple amputee cornhole champion arrested on suspicion of murder

Dayton Webber, 27, accused in shooting death of Bradrick Wells in Maryland, reportedly after argument inside car

A Maryland man who made history as the first quadruple amputee to compete in the professional, televised American Cornhole League has been arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing a passenger in his car during an argument.

Dayton Webber – who became a champion cornhole player after losing his limbs and nearly dying from a bacterial infection in his infancy – faces murder charges in connection with the death of Bradrick Wells, authorities said on Monday.

Behind the rise of Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxing’ there are insecure young men who feel they don’t measure up | Jason Okundaye

What is a very private struggle – coming to terms with one’s own appearance – is being reshaped into a site of competition and ridicule

I felt something akin to devastation reading that the actor Barry Keoghan sometimes “doesn’t want to go outside” because of the scale of online abuse about his appearance. It’s not just the viciousness of the abuse, but how difficult I imagine it must have been for him to articulate, as well as what was not said – what parts of his face he’s likely now had to obsess over and scrutinise.

As a man, it is often hard to say out loud that you have been made to feel insecure in yourself, or that there are things that you do not like about your physical appearance. Keoghan’s vulnerability as a grown man is striking, but I have also been thinking about how much harder it is to articulate this as a teenager or boy. I was well versed in the language of bodily dissatisfaction from a young age, though these were thoughts I would keep to myself: that I did not like my thinning hair, how narrow my shoulders were, my large forehead, or the eczema on my right hand that often drew questions like, “Were you in a fire?” I did not like that I was not as tall as my brothers, or even that my voice did not break with a deep manly husk but retained some squeakiness.

Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian

The News from Dublin by Colm Tóibín review – subtle short stories about being far from home

Grief, betrayal and moral complications are explored across nine tales of quiet power that take us from Argentina to County Wexford

The title of Colm Tóibín’s new story collection seems to promise, at first glance, a return to familiar territory: a tour, perhaps, of old stomping grounds; a reconnection with earlier work. But as the pages turn, that suggestion of affinity is revealed to be a subtle bait and switch. The stories in this collection, it turns out, have to do with displacement, not familiarity; their news is not from Dublin, but from the places where Dublin’s news might land. They interrogate what it means, and how it feels, to live at one remove: from home, from loved ones, from the past.

That sense of dislocation is established in the opening story, The Journey to Galway, set during the first world war, in which once again the interaction between title and content proves delicately wrongfooting. This “journey”, we discover, is not about attaining a longed-for destination, nor even really about forward motion; rather, it’s a moment of suspension, between one reality and the next. An unnamed woman remembers the morning on which she received a telegram telling her that her son, a pilot in the British airforce, had been killed in action over Italy. On hearing the news, she knows she must take the train to Galway, to inform her son’s wife, Margaret. “In Margaret’s mind,” the woman realises, as she stares out of the train window, “Robert was still alive. Maybe that meant something; it gave Robert some strange extra time …” And it is this liminal time, untethered and provisional, that is the “journey” of the title – a Schrödinger’s-cat caesura, in which the terrible event both has and hasn’t taken place. “Until she appeared in the doorway of that house, there would not be death,” the woman thinks. “But once she appeared, death would live in that house.”

Group of dogs that went missing in China go viral after walking 17km home

Video shows seven dogs including a golden retriever, Labrador, German shepherd and Pekinese, being led by a corgi

A group of seven dogs that went missing in China have gone viral after a video emerged of them walking more than 17km back home to their village, reuniting with owners who had been searching for them for days.

The video, first posted online on 15 March, shows the dogs – including a golden retriever, labrador, German shepherd and Pekinese – walking along the highway in Changchun, the capital of China’s north-east Jilin province, where temperatures are dropping below 0C overnight.

Mr Motivator urges government to treat ’bed poverty’ as a national crisis

As Iran war threatens to exacerbate living costs, children’s beds have become ‘like a luxury item’, says Barnardo’s

Mr Motivator is lobbying the government to tackle the number of children in the UK who have no bed of their own as Barnardo’s reveals demand for furniture from struggling families has surged by 40% in the last year.

The children’s charity said beds had become“like a luxury item” as the war in Iran threatens to exacerbate cost of living pressures.

What are zettajoules – and what do they tell us about Earth’s energy imbalance?

When James Prescott Joule lent his name to a unit of energy, he could not have foreseen today’s alarming calculations

The primary unit of climate collapse is the zettajoule. If you have never heard of this term, you are not alone. Even scientists who work on a planetary scale struggle to relate the immensity of the change measured by this titanic unit of energy.

Property company denies trying to mass-evict tenants before England’s no-fault evictions ban

Exclusive: Housing minister wrote to Criterion Capital seeking urgent answers after MP said it issued at least 130 section 21 notices

A property company accused of trying to mass-evict tenants in the weeks before no-fault evictions are banned has denied doing so, saying it is simply implementing “routine and lawful tenancy management”.

A statement from Criterion Capital, set up by the billionaire property magnate Asif Aziz, was issued in response to Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, who wrote to the company to seek “urgent” answers about its plans.

Punk masks, Walkmans and Choppers: Museum of Youth Culture to open in London

Opening in May, Camden museum has 100,000-item archive telling story of British youth subcultures, from mods and rockers, to ravers and emo

• Teenage kicks: Camden’s Museum of Youth Culture – in pictures

In the basement of a new-build housing block in Camden, the ventilation system is working flat out. The fans whir like a chainsaw orchestra bouncing around the concrete room as they attempt to deal with a slight damp problem. “This is what it’d sound like if there was a fire!” shouts Jon Swinstead, the driving force behind the Museum of Youth Culture, as he tries to make himself heard above the din.

It’s hard to imagine but in a few weeks this empty, slightly soggy space will be transformed into an institution dedicated to all things teenage – a project Swinstead has been working on in one way or another for almost 30 years.

Dario Fo at 100: a deliriously funny playwright with a deadly serious purpose

The great Italian entertainer’s plays, such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, have not lost their power to make audiences roar with laughter while confronting injustice

In Britain we tend to separate political and popular theatre. The genius of Dario Fo, who was born 100 years ago on Tuesday, is that he brought them together in his multiple roles as dramatist, actor, director and designer. Along with his wife, Franca Rame, he took satire to the people and in plays such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! he achieved a global reach that justly earned him the Nobel prize for literature in 1997.

You could say that protest and performance were in his genes. His father was a stationmaster and part-time actor whom he joined in wartime resistance to the Nazis in northern Italy, helping to smuggle Allied soldiers across the border to Switzerland. He became famous, however, in 1962 when he and his wife fronted a weekly TV variety show that attracted huge audiences: an engagement that was abruptly ended when they refused to accept censors’ cuts.