Rachel Reeves warns fuel retailers not to make ‘excess profits’ from oil crisis; G7 ‘stands ready’ to release crude reserves – business live

Finance ministers from G7 countries resist pressure to release emergency oil stocks at video call today

• Iran war drives oil prices above $100 a barrel for first time since 2022

• UK interest rate cuts unlikely this year amid Iran war – and a rise could be ahead

Research show that poorer people are hit hardest by surging oil prices.

As our economics editor Heather Stewart wrote yesterday:

Recent research published by economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified energy, along with food and agriculture as among the commodities that had “a disproportionate capacity to increase inequality when their prices rise”.

Where there are benefits, these are narrowly shared. Another striking recent paper showed that after the 2022 oil price surge in the US, 50% of the windfall benefit from higher prices in the sector went to the wealthiest 1% of individuals, via the stock market. The bottom 50% of people received only 1%.

Anthropic sues Trump administration over "supply chain risk" order

Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies on Monday over the government's move to designate it a risk to the supply chain.

NTSB member fired by White House over workplace allegations that he denies

National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman called the allegations against him false and a "political hit job."

Middle East crisis live: Iranian missiles intercepted over Turkey and Qatar as Israel resumes strikes across Tehran and Beirut

Turkey, Qatar and UAE intercept missiles from Iran; Israeli military announces strikes against infrastructure across Iran and a Hezbollah-linked group

• Full report: Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba chosen as Iran’s new supreme leader

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

Donald Trump has said a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one he’ll make together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel has reported.

It said Trump also claimed in a brief telephone interview on Sunday that Iran would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. The US president said:

Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it … We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.

I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.

Seventh U.S. service member killed in Iran war ID'd as Sgt. Benjamin Pennington

Pennington, 26, from Glendale, Kentucky, was wounded on March 1 during an Iranian strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. He died on Sunday.

Dolphins to take $99m hit on Tagovailoa as Chiefs close in on Super Bowl MVP Walker

• QB agreed $212.4m extension with team in 2024

• Falcons reportedly interested in taking on QB

• Kansas City set to beef up running game

• Travis Kelce set to return for 14th season with Chiefs

The Miami Dolphins are moving on from Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback they drafted with the fifth overall pick in 2020 in hopes of turning the franchise’s fortunes around.

The move will cost the Dolphins an NFL record $99m in dead money against the salary cap. ESPN reported that the move will be designated after 1 June, meaning the Dolphins will spread the hit to their salary cap across two years ($67.4m in 2026, $31.8m in 2027). ESPN also reported that the Atlanta Falcons are interested in signing Tagovailoa. Atlanta are set to release Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr is recovering from injury.

Five Iranian women footballers granted asylum by Australia, Donald Trump says

US president says Australian PM Anthony Albanese has given police proitection to the players amid fears they could be punished on their return home

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Five members of the Iranian women’s football team have been granted asylum in Australia after reportedly escaping their government minders following a tournament, according to US president Donald Trump who announced the news on social media on Monday.

The US president said he had spoken to Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese who had told him that five members of the team had been “taken care of” amid fears they could be punished if they returned home.

Why do we need International Women’s Day? Apart from misogyny and Christian nationalism, you mean? | Zoe Williams

I should probably be fuming about the way that companies try to cash in on IWD. But there are so many vile opinions to worry about instead

Sunday was International Women’s Day, which you’ll know because every company you’ve ever shopped with will have emailed you, taking this fine opportunity to suggest things women might like to buy. Plants, clothes, spices … all are particularly female-friendly at this time of year, or maybe I’m revealing nothing but my algorithms. Is any of it emancipating? Would you have to balance the freedom of the woman wearing the midi-dress against the servitude of the woman who had to sew it? I don’t really want to set myself up as the arbiter of the spirit of IWD, being unable to remember a time before it meant mass-marketing mail-out.

On Women’s Day Eve, though – yes, that is a thing – I was attending evensong at a university college, maybe for the first time ever, and it was definitely the first time I’d heard an IWD sermon. The Rev Marcus Green had set himself the challenge of feministly reading a book, the Bible, in which almost none of the women have a name. There are a bunch called Mary, but so few other names that “Mary” was basically Bible-speak for “Karen”. There’s one who is the mother of the sons of Zebedee, but even though she has actual lines and he has none, he still gets this cracking name, while you have to piece her identity together by triangulating other accounts, like an investigator at a crime scene.

This historian dug up the hidden history of 'amateur' blackface in America

In her new book, Darkology, historian Rhae Lynn Barnes writes about how blackface and minstrel shows became one of the most popular forms of entertainment in 19th- and 20th-century America.

Live Nation to open Ticketmaster to other sellers in U.S. antitrust deal

Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, has reached a deal with the Department of Justice as part of a high-stakes antitrust trial.

Oil tankers transiting Strait of Hormuz 'must be very careful,' Iran foreign ministry warns

The price of crude oil has sharply spiked as the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed as the United States and Israel wage war on Iran.

Prolonged Strait of Hormuz closure would cause oil prices to surge, experts warn

The Iran war is renewing concerns about the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. A prolonged closure could sharply drive up oil prices, experts said.

AI firm Anthropic sues US defense department over blacklisting

Lawsuits come after Pentagon labeled Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’, a decision the company says is unlawful

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Anthropic filed two lawsuits against the Department of Defense on Monday, alleging that the government’s decision to label the artificial intelligence firm a “supply chain risk” was unlawful and violated its first amendment rights. The two sides have been locked in a monthslong heated feud over the company’s attempt to implement safeguards against the military’s potential use of its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

The lawsuits, which Anthropic filed in the northern district court of California and the US court of appeals for the Washington DC Circuit, come after the Pentagon formally issued the supply chain risk designation last Thursday, the first time the blacklisting tool has been used against a US company. The AI firm previously vowed to challenge the designation and its demand that any company that does business with the government cut all ties with Anthropic, a serious threat to its business model.

Syrian who fled to UK charged with crimes against humanity over violent crackdown

Former intelligence officer charged with murder and torture in first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales

A former Syrian intelligence officer who fled to the UK has been charged with murder and torture as crimes against humanity, in the first prosecution of its kind in England and Wales.

The 58-year-old man, who has not been named for legal reasons, is alleged to have played a leading role in the violent crackdown on protesters in Syria at the start of uprising against the regime of former leader Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

Here's how much Americans are paying for gas as oil tops $100

The U.S. average gas price has jumped 48 cents since last week, with experts predicting that higher fuel costs could persist for months.

Taking multivitamin daily could help to slow biological ageing, study suggests

Researchers working to unpick whether daily multivitamin results in people staying healthier as they age

Taking a multivitamin every day for two years appears to slow some markers of biological ageing – albeit to a small degree, research suggests.

While chronological age is based on how long a person has lived, biological age reflects the state of the body. Estimates of the latter are often based on changes in patterns of DNA methylation – modifications to DNA that accumulate with age and affect how genes function.

Trump threatens not to sign any bills until Congress approves strict voter ID act

Save Act would limit voting access in the US and centers on Trump’s unfounded claims of noncitizens stealing elections

Donald Trump threatened not to sign any bills until Congress approves the Save America Act, a curtailment of voting access.

The president, fixated on unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are stealing US elections ahead of midterm elections that are expected to be bruising for Republicans, said on Truth Social Sunday that the Save America Act “must be done immediately” and “supersedes everything else”.

To my Palestinian sister in ICE detention – I will carry you until you are free | Mahmoud Khalil

One year ago, ICE arrested me for protesting for Palestine. Leqaa Kordia is still caged – for also daring to speak the truth

Sunday marked one year since Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate, was arrested last year for his political advocacy. Below, he writes to Leqaa Kordia, a fellow Palestinian currently in ICE detention in Texas. Khalil was released after more than three months but the Trump administration continues to seek his deportation; Kordia has been detained for nearly a year. Read more about her case here.

Dear Leqaa,

‘Sky is the limit’: Analysts warn oil prices could surge further

Energy analysts warned that oil prices could continue to rise in response to the war in the Middle East.

Attempted attack with explosives in New York City investigated as "ISIS-inspired terrorism"

New York City INYPD Commissioner: "Explosive devices that could have caused serious injury or death."

Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims

A new lawsuit accuses the administration of violating the First Amendment by threatening the visas of researchers for work on disinformation and content moderation of social media.

First minister pledges help with costs of ‘horrific’ fire next to Glasgow Central station

John Swinney expresses ‘huge relief’ that no one was hurt in blaze believed to have started in vape shop

Scotland’s first minister has pledged to help deal with the costs of the “horrific” fire that has closed Glasgow Central station for at least two days and gutted a Victorian office block.

John Swinney said it was a huge relief there had been no injuries, but that there would be significant financial costs from the fire, which caused chaos for the city’s commuters and the cancellation of west coast main line services to Glasgow.

Why young girls are disguised as boys in Afghanistan

The Taliban has released a video of an interrogation of a girl who passed as a boy. It's an age-old practice in this patriarchal society but now appears to be happening with some frequency.

Verdict on the start of F1’s new era: five talking points from the Australian GP

Mercedes’ flying start lives up to promise, but new regulations receive scathing reviews

The pre-season favourites had done their level best to play down their expected advantage in the buildup to the Australian Grand Prix, but it was impossible to hide. A dominant one-two by the best part of a second for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in qualifying was followed by a similarly assured one-two finish in the race.

Roman Abramovich ready to fight UK government over proceeds from £2.5bn Chelsea sale

Russian oligarch says money is his to allocate despite international sanctions imposed on his assets

The Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has stepped up his row with the British government over the £2.5bn proceeds of his sale of Chelsea FC, insisting that the money is his to allocate despite the international sanctions imposed on his assets.

The UK and EU imposed sanctions on Abramovich in 2022, freezing his assets in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing his ties to Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Throwing of explosive devices outside Mamdani residence was ‘act of Isis-inspired terrorism’, officials say

Incident took place during anti-Islam protest by rightwing agitators outside Gracie Mansion, where the New York City mayor lives

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The throwing of two improvised explosive devices – allegedly by counter-protesters during an anti-Islam demonstration – outside the residence of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday was an act of “terrorism” inspired by the Islamic State terror group, officials said on Monday.

Jessica Tisch, the New York police department (NYPD) commissioner, told reporters at a press conference in Manhattan that two men from Pennsylvania were arrested at the scene – and that a federal criminal complaint against them would be filed later on Monday.

Istanbul’s mayor in court for mass trial decried as politically motivated

Critics say sprawling corruption case against Ekrem İmamoğlu aims to stop him challenging Erdoğan

A mass trial of 400 people including the jailed mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, has opened in Turkey in a sprawling corruption case critics say is a politically motivated attempt to thwart his chances of challenging Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the presidency.

İmamoğlu entered the courtroom in Istanbul to cheers and whistles from members of his opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), and there were reports that a group of lawyers chanted: “We want a fair trial.”

Congressional Democrats demand reversal of Russian oil sales into India as energy prices soar

Russia is reportedly helping Iran target U.S. forces in the Middle East and could now benefit from a windfall of new oil and gas sales.

What we know about U.S. service members killed in Iran war

Seven American service members have been killed since the war with Iran started in February.

Live Nation reaches surprise settlement with justice department in antitrust case

Live Nation will pay $200m to states in lawsuit, and Ticketmaster will open parts of platform to rival companies

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Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has reached a surprise settlement with the Department of Justice in its antitrust case just one week after the trial began.

The settlement was announced during a court hearing Monday morning. Under the agreement, Live Nation will pay roughly $200m in damages to states that participated in the lawsuit, and Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, reported Politico.

‘A lot of comedians don’t have a sense of humour’: Jack Dee on his loser Lead Balloon creation Rick Spleen

‘Rick’s basically a what-if version of me. Had I not found success, that’s how I would have been – deluding myself into thinking success will come, or believing it’s not my fault that it hasn’t’

I was doing a lot of standup, working with other comedy writers. I was interested in the relationship between writer and performer. I wondered: “What if the writer is funnier than the performer?” I approached Pete Sinclair, who I’d written with for a long time, and said: “What do you reckon?” BBC4 commissioned a pilot.

Face the Nation: Fitzpatrick, Suozzi, Hill

Missed the second half of the show? The latest on...Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is one of the bipartisan co-chairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that he will be voting against the continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown because there has been "no outreach on a bipartisan basis." His GOP counterpart, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, says he is undecided, and it "remains to be seen" if his party has the votes, and Fiona Hill, who served as a top National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that the White House's decision to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine has "emboldened Russia to really step up the attacks".

These 10 jobs are most exposed to AI, Anthropic finds

The maker of the Claude chatbot says its research could help identify economic disruptions by measuring how AI is currently reshaping work.

Et tutu, Timothée? Backlash mounts over Chalamet snipes at opera and ballet

Jamie Lee Curtis is among a number of prominent figures to take exception to the Oscar nominee for disparaging artforms ‘no one cares about any more’

The Oscar-winning actor Jamie Lee Curtis has added her disapproval to the chorus protesting against Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet’s comments about the relevance of opera and ballet.

The star of Marty Supreme has attracted considerable backlash for his remarks during a CNN/Variety video conversation with Matthew McConaughey, which was recorded on 24 February.

Why do so many people want Arsenal to fail in the Premier League title race? | Jonathan Wilson

The leaders haven’t won the title in more than 20 years. Yet very few neutrals are excited about seeing them as new champions

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

What was striking after Arsenal’s grim 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday was less Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler’s attack on the Gunners’ style than the way his criticism seemed to resonate. In England, it feels as though almost nobody, other than Arsenal supporters or anyone-but-City fans, wants them to win the title.

“If I would ask everyone in the room: ‘Did you really enjoy this football game?’ I’m sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan but, besides that, no chance,” Hürzeler said.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email [email protected], and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

TSA staff shortages lead to hourslong security lines for travelers at some airports

Travelers are facing hourslong waits at some airport security lines amid TSA staffing shortages.

Rosanna Arquette says Quentin Tarantino’s use of N-word in Pulp Fiction is ‘racist and creepy’

Arquette says 1994 film is ‘great on may levels’ but she ‘cannot stand that [the director] has been given a hall pass’

Pulp Fiction and Desperately Seeking Susan star Rosanna Arquette has said she found Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in Pulp Fiction to be “racist and creepy”.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Arquette said of the film, in which she plays the tattooed and pierced wife to Eric Stoltz’s syringe-wielding drug dealer: “It’s iconic, a great film on a lot of levels. But personally I am over the use of the N-word – I hate it. I cannot stand that [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass.”

Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’

Exclusive: Rented datacentres and ‘supercomputer’ site that’s still a scaffolding yard raise questions for Starmer’s push to ‘mainline AI into veins of economy’

• From press release … to scrap metal site: the Essex supercomputer that’s still a scaffolding yard

A multibillion-pound drive to “mainline AI into the veins” of the British economy is riddled with “phantom investments” and shaky accounting, a Guardian investigation has found.

Since 2024, successive Conservative and Labour governments have proclaimed massive deals to build new datacentres, create thousands of jobs and construct a supercomputer.

Trump tariffs: Customs and Border Protection tells judge it can't comply with refund order

CBP told Judge Richard Eaton that the technology upgrades it plans would save more than 4 million man-hours in processing refunds for Trump's tariffs.

Resurgent Monaco beat PSG to reignite title race in Ligue 1 | Luke Entwistle

Monaco are flying but PSG are in bad shape before their Champions League last-16 tie against Chelsea

By Get French Football News

Sébastien Pocognoli doesn’t like to talk about “foundational matches” but there are moments that can shape a season for better or for worse – and they do not necessarily come on the pitch. Sometimes they come in restaurants.

Monaco hit a low at the Bernabéu at the end of January. Their 6-1 defeat to Real Madrid was their heaviest in European competition and followed a run of seven defeats in eight games in Ligue 1, the worst record in the club’s history. After their humbling defeat in Madrid, the squad remained in the city until the afternoon of the following day to come to terms with the deepening crisis. The club’s coaches and staff held a meeting to talk things through. The players also gathered to thrash things out. “We thought it was important to have one as players, to be open, to try to find solutions,” said Folarin Balogun. “It was positive.”

Long security lines at U.S. airports as DHS funding affects TSA staffing

Wait times to get through security hit two hours in New Orleans and over three hours in Houston as TSA staffing took a hit amid the partial government shutdown.

Estupiñán delivers derby delight for Milan and gives fans reason to dream | Nicky Bandini

Full-back has struggled since his move but fierce strike took his side seven points off neighbours who could wobble

Pervis Estupiñán called it “the most important goal of my career”. He does, admittedly, have only 12 to choose from, but to score the winner in a Milan derby is something few players ever experience. It could only feel better for having done it towards the end of a difficult first season in Italian football.

The Ecuadorian was billed as a replacement for Theo Hernández when he joined Milan from Brighton last summer, lumbered with unreasonable comparison from the start. Hernández, at his best, was one of the most effective attacking full-backs in the world. Estupiñán, at 28, is yet to put himself in that conversation, but the hope was that he could offer some of the same directness and ability to get up and down the left flank.

Stocks slump as Iran war sends oil prices above $100 a barrel

Stocks in the U.S. renewed their slide on Monday after global oil prices topped $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022.

Trump says he's "not happy" about Iran's new supreme leader

Mojtaba Khamenei was named Iran's new supreme leader following the death of his father in the U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Aerial athletes and unsung hunters by night, tawny frogmouths are more than just their Muppet looks | Debbie Lustig

Watching one nocturnal family through all of spring, I experienced the exhilarating thrills of their nightly routine – and learned the call of the frogmouths

What’s not to love about a Muppet in a long coat with spooky eyes like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon? Posing as tree stumps on a branch, tawny frogmouths almost parody themselves.

But there’s much more to them than that. Frogmouths have another life that few people see: like vampires, they wake at sunset and night-hunt until dawn. These stolid creatures turn into zephyrs that silently swoop, catching prey on the ground and in the air.

She was arrested for holding a protest sign in small-town California: ‘This is a testing ground’

Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was put under house arrest, and her husband, Benjamin, lost his job after they protested at board of supervisors meetings

Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was ready to go to jail.

She had been prepared to spend six months in the custody of the Shasta county sheriff’s office. One of the top prosecutors in this part of far northern California had presented the evidence against her in a weeklong trial, and a jury had delivered a guilty verdict. A judge offered probation, but O’Connell-Nowain did not agree to the terms.

A Mississippi mother couldn’t find accurate sex ed for her kids. So she started a class at church

As states scale back requirements for comprehensive sex ed, some parents and faith communities are stepping in to teach what schools won’t

When Wendy Pfrenger’s children started high school in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, she had the choice to enroll them in abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex ed.

Although the abstinence-plus option would include instruction on contraception, neither curriculum was required to provide medically accurate information. As a parent, she felt like the lessons her teens were receiving fell short of their reality.

FBI launches terrorism probe into IED attack outside Mamdani's residence

Videos, verified by the CBS News Confirmed team, show a man apparently yelling "Allahu Akbar" just as a protester throws an "ignited device" during an anti-Islam demonstration

‘Bitter result’ for Friedrich Merz as Greens win in German car heartland

Cem Özdemir gains 30.2% of vote in Baden-Württemberg, ahead of CDU, with far-right AfD in third

Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have stumbled into a busy election year with a defeat to the Greens in a key state poll, as his embattled party struggles to fend off a challenge in other pivotal races from the far right.

The German chancellor’s conservative CDU had enjoyed a double-digit lead in the south-western car production region of Baden-Württemberg just weeks ago but the Greens and their charismatic candidate Cem Özdemir eked out a half-point-margin win in Sunday’s poll with 30.2%.

Grime rapper and producer Dot Rotten dies aged 37

Musician created numerous volumes of beats that were acclaimed across the grime scene, before crossing over with solo chart success

British rapper and producer Dot Rotten, who flourished in the grime scene before crossing over to mainstream success, has died aged 37.

The musician, real name Joseph Ellis-Stevenson, reportedly died in the Gambia. His family confirmed the death to the BBC.

GOP Whip Tom Emmer predicts oil prices will drop after Iran war

Oil prices spiked amid the ongoing U.S.-Israel war with Iran, stoking affordability fears ahead of the November midterm elections.

New 3D images show wreck of iconic Civil War ship that sank in 1862

Three-dimensional images and digital illustrations offer a detailed new look at the USS Monitor, an important Civil War ship that sank more than 160 years ago and has since become a reef.

Donna Gottschalk and Hélène Giannecchini / Deutsche Börse prize review – images to enrage, bamboozle and deeply move you

★★★★★ / ★★★★★
Photographers’ Gallery, London
Gottschalk documents lesbian life in the 60s and 70s, while this year’s Deutsche Börse prize ranges from appalling scenes from women’s prisons to an exploration of invented facts

When Donna Gottschalk came out as gay to her mother, she replied: “You’ve chosen a rough path.” It was New York in the 1960s, homosexuality was illegal and, as the photographer reflects in a video piece included in her new exhibition We Others: “There were no happy gay people.” A photograph of Gottschalk’s mother in the beauty salon she ran in the notoriously crime-ridden Alphabet City appears at the start of the show, in which the images are accompanied by texts by the French writer Hélène Giannecchini, recording the photographer’s memories of the people and events depicted.

Gottschalk picked up a camera at 17, so these pictures also constitute her own awakening, as she accepted her identity and became involved with the Gay Liberation Front. It starts with family. Here is a painfully poignant image of Gottschalk’s sister, Myla, aged 11, the picture of innocence and peace, asleep in bed in the family’s apartment in a tenement building.

Hecking returns to try to halt Die Wölfe blowing their own house down | Andy Brassell

Bundesliga survival looks an uphill struggle for Wolfsburg as a lack of leadership off the pitch has led to drift on it

Edin Dzeko, understandably, erred on the side of caution. Dieter Hecking has not. Wolfsburg are indisputably in crisis and have gone back to the future to stop themselves teetering over the ledge into the abyss, with a coach who left – or was invited to leave – nearly 10 years ago returning to the club to prevent the worst coming to pass. It had felt for a while as if change was coming at the Volkswagen Arena. The question to which we will find out the answer in the coming weeks is have they already left it too late?

This was a weekend that was a very bad one for Die Wölfe; pivotally so, potentially. It was not just their own 2-1 tumble at home to Hamburg, who were also in serious need of points, which defined the moment. After all, Wolfsburg began the weekend second-bottom of the Bundesliga and ended it in the same place, but things are not the same. That is largely due to results elsewhere. Even outside Lower Saxony little went right for Wolfsburg, whether it was St Pauli and Mainz clawing points from superior opposition in Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart respectively, or Werder Bremen making the most of Union Berlin going down to 10 men seconds after they took the lead, paving the way to a second successive win of unexpectedly comfortable proportions (4-1, in the end, to Werder).

Iran's strategic oil island thrust into the spotlight as Middle East conflict escalates

Kharg Island serves as the centerpiece for Iran's oil industry, accounting for roughly 90% of the country’s crude exports.

Amazon's Zoox expands robotaxi testing to Phoenix and Dallas

Zoox will start by deploying a fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlander SUVs, before rolling out its toaster-shaped robotaxis for testing.

Bad Voodoo review – escaped-convict horror worthy of a theme park ghost train

A fairly original and twisting plot is skewered by cliched dialogue and unforunate cinematography

We meet horror heroine Abigail (Cristina Moody) some years after the loss of both her daughters in a car crash. One fateful night, a police officer visits Abigail to tell her that she might want to lock her doors extra carefully: he has a report of some escaped convicts in the area, and indeed there are no prizes for guessing that the crims will shortly show up at Abigail’s place. What happens thereafter has at least the virtue of being a fairly original plot, with twists and turns as surprising as they are implausible.

It would be too much of a spoiler to say exactly how the “voodoo” of the title is employed, but suffice to say it blends elements drawn from actual Haitian Vodou alongside the voodoo-doll convention popularised by western pop culture. The performances, though, are the film’s real weakness: much of the acting is the kind you might encounter in an escape room or ghost train experience at a theme park. The dialogue is no great shakes either, a mixture of soap opera melodrama (“You don’t always have to take his side!”) and crime procedural cliche (“You gave up on this job a long time ago, didn’t you?”). The shot choices don’t help: one sequence of a woman fleeing for her life as she runs downstairs is filmed in a way that recalls Mrs Doubtfire sprinting to turn the oven off.

Investigators are finally looking into Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch. They may be too late

Federal authorities apparently never searched the property, but now state authorities will reopen a 2019 investigation

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When Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking teenagers, New York federal prosecutors said the ultra-wealthy predator “exploited and abused dozens of underage girls” in Manhattan and Palm Beach “among other locations”.

One of those other locations was the late financier’s sprawling New Mexico property. Epstein’s so-called Zorro Ranch came into sharper relief after his 10 August 2019 death in jail awaiting trial, with criminal and civil proceedings revealing that numerous alleged abuses unfolded there. But Zorro Ranch did not receive the same scrutiny as Epstein’s other properties: an 8 February Guardian investigation revealed that federal authorities apparently never searched the property.

Microsoft adds higher-priced Office tier with Copilot as it tries to juice sales with AI

Microsoft 365 E7 comes with Copilot, as well as identity, management and security features that might make more businesses adopt AI.

Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics 2026: day three – in pictures

We take a look at the best images from day three of the Games, including skiing, ice hockey and curling

Video shows US Tomahawk missile hit base next to bombed Iranian school

Footage of attack on Minab compound adds to evidence indicating it was a US strike that killed scores of children

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A video has shown a US Tomahawk missile hitting the Iranian naval base next to a primary school in Minab where more than 168 people, mostly children, were killed – adding to evidence that indicates the US was responsible for the school strike.

The video, released by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated to the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, shows the missile hitting the Minab compound on the morning of 28 February, when US-Israeli strikes on Iran began.

A giant cat and a Back to the Future reunion: photos of the day - Monday

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

• Warning: Gallery contains sensitive images

Plaque honoring police who defended Capitol on Jan. 6 displayed after 3-year delay

A plaque honoring police officers who responded to the Capitol on Jan. 6 went up over the weekend, three years after a federal law mandated it be displayed. Scott MacFarlane reports on the years of pushback by some of President Trump's supporters.

Russia flag raised and national anthem played after first gold at Winter Paralympics

• Varvara Voronchikhina wins women’s super-G standing

• Russian anthem has not been heard at Games since 2014

The Russian national anthem has been played at the Paralympics for the first time since 2014 as the skier Varvara Voronchikhina claimed gold in the women’s super-G standing.

A tearful Voronchikhina received her medal on Monday afternoon, and the Russian flag was raised, after a dominant performance on the slopes of the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre. A watching crowd of international fans responded only with polite applause, but Voronchikhina’s success has already been celebrated by Russia’s sports minister.

Sky Brown wins second skateboarding world title at rain-hit event in Brazil

• Briton, 17, wins her second park crown in São Paulo

• Event was cut at halfway due to recurrent rainfall

Britain’s Sky Brown celebrated International Women’s Day by becoming a skateboarding world champion for the second time at a rain-curtailed park competition in São Paulo.

The two-time Olympic bronze medallist was leading in Brazil after two runs, the halfway point, at which World Skate deemed “adverse weather conditions and recurrent rainfall” to have called time on proceedings.

Travelers face long waits at some US airports amid DHS shutdown

Wait times at security checkpoints in Houston and New Orleans as long as three hours due to shortage of TSA agents

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Travelers complained of long waits Sunday – lasting hours in some cases – at security checkpoints at airports in Houston and New Orleans, which officials blamed on a government shutdown of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The estimated wait time at the standard security checkpoint at the William P Hobby airport in Houston early Sunday evening was at one point three hours, according to the Houston Airports website. The Hobby airport on social media Friday said it expected more travelers than normal due to spring break.

Sen. Tim Kaine says supporting Kristi Noem as DHS secretary was a "big mistake"

Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, expressed regret on Sunday for supporting Kristi Noem for Department of Homeland Security secretary last year.

‘We all want to know what he was doing in the bedroom’: Kerouac’s unseen archive goes on show in New York

As the original On the Road scroll heads to auction, a new exhibition uncovers the private life of the Beat legend

Among great literary myths, the one of Jack Kerouac is often reduced to a vibe The open road, a cigarette, a postwar rebel leaning on a beat-up car – a masculine archetype of rebellion and hedonism. Kerouac’s 1957 book On the Road was the bible of the beat generation and chronicles, in startlingly unfiltered prose, his travels across the US with fellow writers Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, and his lifelong muse, the dashing Neal Cassady. The book shifted the course of US literature and captured the imagination of a rapidly changing world. Kerouac was crowned king of the beats, a moniker he later despised.

This, at least, is what many students of US literature know. But a new exhibition Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac at New York’s Grolier Club aims to rehumanize the myth, with letters from Kerouac that have never been publicly viewed before.

Somali Americans hounded by ICE and rightwing ‘influencers’ on edge in Ohio: ‘I’m scared to go outside’

ICE launched ‘Operation Buckeye’ and ‘influencers’ claimed Somalis are running fraudulent businesses after Trump repeatedly used racist language against group in December

The men started showing up at around 6am in late December.

In their cars, they circled the 161 Child Care facility in Columbus, before parking at the front of the building. Then they sat in their cars, opening their windows enough to tell the Somali Americans who own the daycare: “We’re exposing all of you. Every single one of you, you’re all going back.”

Pixar chief says LGBTQ+ plot elements cut from Elio as company is ‘not making therapy’

Pete Docter says Pixar will concentrate on more commercially appealing films after staff dissent over deleted scenes that implied lead character was gay

Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter said that the reason why LGBTQ+ plot elements were removed from the company’s 2025 film Elio was that Pixar is “not [making] therapy”.

Docter was speaking to the Wall Street Journal in the wake of the successful release of Pixar’s latest film Hoppers, which opened at No 1 at the North American box office this weekend.

Boston man dies in ICE custody; family says toothache became deadly infection

Lawmakers are demanding an investigation after a man from Haiti who was seeking asylum in Massachusetts died in ICE custody.

Mass brawl leads to 23 red cards for Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro players in Brazil

• Atlético keeper’s reaction to collision sparks melee

• Brawl starts by goal and continues well into other half

A mass brawl led to red cards for 23 players from Cruzeiro and their fierce local rivals Atlético Mineiro after clashes at the Campeonato Mineiro final in Brazil.

The confrontation on Sunday in Belo Horizonte was sparked deep in stoppage time of Cruzeiro’s 1-0 win when Atlético’s goalkeeper Everson rugby-tackled Christian to the ground after the midfielder collided with him when contesting a ball the keeper had spilled.

Iran picks new leader. And, Trump won't sign bills until Congress overhauls voting

Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader. And, President Trump says he will not sign any more bills until Congress overhauls voting.

Countries can rewild borders to deter invasions, says EU environment chief

Jessika Roswall cites Poland and Finland, which have made border areas near Russia or its allies ‘more hostile’ to cross

Countries should look to rewild their land borders as a deterrence to invasion and build up other geographical defences to attack, Europe’s environment chief has said.

Jessika Roswall, the EU’s commissioner for the environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, said nature should be used to improve national security. “Investing in nature and using nature as a natural border control is necessary, and actually increases biodiversity. It’s a win-win,” she said.

McQueen meets difficult moment with fatalistic glamour at Paris show

Seán McGirr inspired by modern identity and ‘London girls’ in one of strongest collections to date, as brand cuts jobs and struggles for momentum

Beneath the Paris fashion week hoopla – Chappell Roan resplendent in the front row, champagne flowing backstage – there were dark undercurrents at Alexander McQueen’s Paris fashion week show. The brand has seen a 60% decline in turnover over the past three years. Workforce cuts were made in the London headquarters last year, and a third of the brand’s 180 employees in Italy are thought to be at risk of losing their jobs. Fifteen years after the death of Lee McQueen, the brand is struggling to maintain momentum.

The founder is a hallowed name in the fashion industry, and one of the few modern designers to whose character and story the wider public feel a connection. But the generation who wore McQueen’s original bumsters have aged out of shock-value fashion, and the name has less power over younger consumers.

Large tortoiseshell butterfly confirmed no longer extinct in UK

Early spring sightings show colourful insect is a resident species for first time in decades, says conservation charity

The large tortoiseshell – an elusive and enigmatic butterfly that became extinct in Britain in the last century – is a UK resident species once again, with a flurry of early spring sightings.

Britain’s list of native butterflies has increased to 60 with the return of the insect after individuals emerged from hibernation in woodlands in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight.

Top US banks weigh suing federal regulator over crypto banking rules

Exclusive: Bank Policy Institute, representing lenders such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, argues that new licenses could harm US consumers and financial system

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Some of the largest US banks are considering suing their financial regulator, arguing that a new raft of licenses for crypto, payment and fintech could put American consumers and the wider financial system at risk.

The Bank Policy Institute (BPI), which represents 40 of the biggest US lenders including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, is understood to be weighing its legal options after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) failed to heed repeated warnings from influential banking groups and state regulators over its reinterpretation of federal licensing rules.

The pet I’ll never forget: Luke, the blind dog whose unconditional love made me live again

He is an Australian shepherd dog who navigates the world with fearless joy. When I had two heart attacks, his unwavering devotion helped save me

Luke, a blind Australian shepherd, came to us seven years ago, after we rescued him from a working horse farm. Even though he can’t see, Luke moves around with a fearlessness that is inspiring.

He compensates with his other senses; Luke can smell and hear at an astonishing level, that’s how he notices things. But he also seems to understand that he’s going to run into things and be confused at times. That does not deter him in the slightest.

In the other US target of regime change, Cuba, I saw real hardship – and resilience | Sara Kozameh

Trump is choking off oil imports to the communist nation, plunging it into a crisis not seen since the fall of USSR

On 29 January this year, after the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro but before the assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, President Trump turned his attention to another country. He issued an executive order declaring a national emergency against the government of Cuba, ruling it an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States and threatening to impose tariffs to stop ships from carrying petroleum to Cuba. It was an evident bid for regime change.

The actions to deny oil to Cuba have severely exacerbated a growing crisis on the island, with even some US congressional representatives denouncing the measures. Cuba produces about one-third of its own oil needs and imports the rest – mostly from Venezuela and Mexico. After the US attack on Venezuela and the tariff threat, both countries completely halted oil exports to Cuba. Since early February, the length of daily power outages has doubled, lasting about 18 hours a day.

Sara Kozameh is assistant professor in history at University of California San Diego

Weather tracker: At least 10 dead in Nairobi after a month’s rain falls in 24 hours

Torrential downpours hit Kenyan capital city which has poor drainage systems

Late last week, torrential rain in Nairobi, Kenya, led to severe flooding. Heavy thunderstorms on Friday, in combination with poor drainage systems in parts of the city, led to at least eight flooding deaths and two deaths linked to electrocution, while more than 70 vehicles became trapped or stranded.

The Kenya meteorological department had issued a moderate to heavy rainfall warning for much of the country from Tuesday 3 March to Monday 9 March, with the heaviest rainfall expected between Wednesday and Saturday.

Proposed law does not protect children born to convicted paedophiles, Lords to hear

Amendment to victims and courts bill in England and Wales aims to remove anomaly in parental responsibility

A proposed law to restrict paedophiles’ parental rights in England and Wales is too weak because it does not protect children of theirs born after their conviction, parliament will hear this week.

Under the victims and courts bill, a parent convicted of serious sexual offences against any child and who is sentenced to four or more years in prison will lose parental responsibility but they could come out of jail and have other children who would not be protected.

Meal-breakers: can any relationship survive food incompatibility?

It’s not the heart, but the stomach that will sometimes define whether a budding romance proves food for the soul, or reaches boiling point …

For Anna Jones, it’s lemons. For Ben Benton, it’s rice. For Gurdeep Loyal, it’s anchovies on pizza and, for me, it’s Yorkshire Tea in the morning. I could – did – date someone who “didn’t drink hot drinks”, but I would never have married a man I couldn’t make tea for when I woke up, or who couldn’t make me tea in turn.

These are what I’ve come to call “meal-breakers” – mouthfuls whose joys we feel our loved one must share, if we’re to share our lives with them. They are foods and drinks we cleave to as much for what they say about us and our values as we do for their smell, texture and taste. For most, it’s not so much the meal as the principle it conveys; not the anchovies on pizza so much as being with “someone who appreciates food as an act of collective joy – that embraces an ethos of all plates being communal,” says Loyal, author of the cookbook Flavour Heroes. The meticulous divvying-up of brown, salty silvers to ensure an even distribution on each pizza slice: that’s the sharing ethos he looks for in a potential soulmate.

‘Peas are criminally overlooked!’ Seven fabulous forgotten superfoods

Yes, we all know blueberries and kale are good for us. But what about some of the other less well-marketed food heroes that have fallen out of favour?

Think of a superfood. What comes to mind? Avocado? Turmeric? Quinoa? Many of us will have a grasp of the most mainstream so-called superfoods. The ones that have become dietary superheroes thanks to savvy marketing. Larger-than-life in the public imagination, they walk among us with a sheen: blueberries with their polyphenols; kale and its vitamin K; goji berries and all their antioxidants.

But what is and isn’t a superfood is actually down to trends – take the current resurgence of a previously shunned, tragically uncool food: cottage cheese. Beloved by Richard Nixon with pineapple (the Watergate tapes weren’t just illuminating in the ways Woodward and Bernstein hoped for) and a diet-culture favourite in the 60s and 70s, the creamy, tangy cheese curd concoction is back. And there are other supposed superfoods that are just as nutrient-rich, but that marketing hasn’t (yet) brought to our attention. Once a regular part of the UK diet, they have fallen, perhaps unfairly, out of favour. So which foods with serious nutritional chops have we forgotten? Which should we reintegrate?

Chimps' taste for fermented fruit hints at the origins of humans' love of alcohol

Scientists analyzed the urine of wild chimpanzees who'd feasted on fallen fruit to see how much alcohol they consumed from the fermented sugars.

The U.S. names its 7th dead soldier and oil prices spike on Day 10 of the Iran war

The Pentagon said a Space Brigade sergeant was killed and the price of oil increased after Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader and then launched new attacks at Israel and Gulf states.

World shares tumble as Iran war pushes crude prices over $110 a barrel

World shares tumbled on Monday, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index plunging more than 5%, after oil prices spiked at nearly $120 a barrel.

More kids are in ERs for tooth pain. Budget cuts and fluoride fights aren't helping.

Dentists, hygienists, and researchers say a shortage of rural dental care professionals and worsening oral hygiene since the COVID-19 pandemic mean more kids are ending up in the emergency room for tooth decay.

Scarlet review – Mamoru Hosoda turns Hamlet into tale of prowling knights and deep ‘nothingness’

The normally great director misses the mark with a wonderfully animated but narratively clunky retelling of the Shakespearean staple

Film versions of Hamlet are the new buses; you wait for ages for one, then three come along all at once: first Hamnet, then Riz Ahmed’s take on the Danish ditherer, and now this anime reinterpretation. But visually ravishing though it is, Scarlet is a hefty disappointment from director Mamoru Hosoda, a leading light from whom we expect more than an incoherent and overbearing fantasy.

Hosoda kicks things off with the exploitation version of the Dane: Claudius (voiced by David Kaye in the English version) and Gertrude (Michelle Wong) bragging about their intent to murder poor old King Amlet (Fred Tatasciore) and snatch the throne. His offspring Scarlet (Erin Yvette) is left, as in the play, to vacillate about payback – but Claudius gets there first by feeding her a vial of poison. She is given a reprieve though, when she wakes up in a wasteland purgatory populated by the usurper and his prowling knights. After being dispatched, these minions dissipate into the deeper “nothingness” that also awaits her if she doesn’t succeed in her quest for vengeance.

‘Cathartic violence’: why Kill Bill: Volume 1 is my feelgood movie

The next in our ongoing series of writers picking their favourite comfort films is an argument that Tarantino’s bloody revenge saga is a feelgood winner

Having older siblings had its upsides. The main one being I had early access to the very best age-inappropriate titles – my brother and sister loved films and our towering DVD collection was a sight to behold. While I can’t remember my exact age when I first watched Kill Bill: Volume 1, I was young, probably too young, and it was awesome.

Unlike most other films I’m fond of that tend to be endlessly quotable, there’s only one line from Kill Bill, emanating from a particularly repugnant character, that I’ve always recalled with clarity (“my name is Buck and I’m here to …” hazard a guess). What is unforgettable is its banging soundtrack and striking imagery – that bright yellow tracksuit splashed in ketchup-red blood – and the dizzying, stylised action that whisks me away from whatever mundane obstacle I’m facing and into a fantastical tale of revenge.

Love Magic Power Danger Bliss by Paul Morley review – Yoko Ono before the Beatles

A vivid celebration of the artist covers her childhood and breakthrough in New York – while sidelining ‘that other business’

John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as “the world’s most famous unknown artist. Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.” Others were more vicious, portraying her as a family wrecker (the family being the Beatles), a cultural vandal, an Asian virus, a shrieking harridan. As ventriloquised by Paul Morley in his appallingly titled Love Magic Power Danger Bliss, they saw her as someone whose “sole reason to be on the planet was to drive them up the wall with her lack of talent and decency”. Or, only slightly more generously, a “disorganised diva channelling the assumed genius of male creators”.

Morley’s book focuses on Ono’s life and art before she ran into Lennon at London’s Indica Gallery in 1966. The Beatles he refers to as “that other business”. His Ono is headstrong, questing. Born in 1933, into a wealthy banking family (her schoolmates included the sons of Emperor Hirohito), she survived the firebombing of Tokyo and took refuge in the country where she and her mother, now virtual beggars, were mocked by locals. Later, she would become the first woman to be accepted into the prestigious Gakushuin University philosophy department. She left early, just as she would also leave Sarah Lawrence College in upstate New York after two terms.

Come along with some geese as they migrate back from their southern winter havens

Geese's iconic "V" formations and trademark squawks can be seen and heard overhead as they go back and forth to the south through the year. But what does it take for such a long trip?

Millions more people are in the path of rising seas than previously thought

Oceans are rising as the climate changes, threatening coastal cities. A new study shows that much more of the world's population is vulnerable than earlier predictions had estimated.

‘Even when the world is collapsing, life continues’: the return of indietronica legends the Notwist

The Bavarian band known for a love of tinkering embraced a fresh ethos, ditching remote collaboration for a collective recording done in a week

‘It all went so fast,” Markus Acher says. “We’ve never been this fast at making a record.” He is sitting at the far end of a sofa in the Notwist’s Munich studio. On the other end is his brother Micha Acher; next to them, Cico Beck, who joined the band in 2014, balances on a stool. For a group known for meticulous studio craft, speed is an unfamiliar sensation. For most of their career, the Notwist have worked slowly, layering, revising, rethinking, as if wary of committing too soon to anything at all.

Formed in 1989 in the Bavarian town of Weilheim, the Notwist began as a heavy metal trio before evolving, over the next decade, into one of Germany’s most distinctive bands. Their breakthrough album, Neon Golden (2002), married indie songwriting to electronic textures, shaped largely by then-member Martin Gretschmann, also known as Console or Acid Pauli, in a way that felt inward-looking and strangely expansive. Its influence travelled far beyond Germany, securing the band a place in the canon of early-2000s indie experimentalism. Pitchfork named Neon Golden one of the best albums of the 2000s.

Why Train Dreams should win the best picture Oscar

With its meditative pace and sincere interest in moral questions, Clint Bentley’s film of a rudderless man cutting down trees in Idaho’s verdant vistas has the air of a Hollywood classic from another era

Train Dreams is arguably the lowest-profile of all the Oscar best film nominees, and could have easily passed me by, destined instead to be lost in the sprawling Netflix library, if it weren’t for a phone call with a friend last year. She had just watched one of last year’s big films – which carried famous names, plenty of hype, and promised to generate lots of debate – and emerged feeling despondent about it as well as the state of cinema. It was a film that, like so many she had recently encountered, contained only empty provocations that amounted to nothing. “I don’t want to sound like a cliche,” she said, “but I believe this was all better in the 1970s!” Train Dreams was one of the few films of the year she had enjoyed.

So I came into Train Dreams, Clint Bentley’s adaptation of the Denis Johnson novella, with that idea in mind: that it was a thing out of step with our time and possibly better for it, too. Immediately, its use of a kindly voiced omniscient narrator recalled Hollywood classics of the late 20th century. Our voice of God drops us into Bonners Ferry, Idaho, in the early 1900s, to the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a man who drifts through his first two decades without much purpose before he falls in love with the free-spirited Gladys (Felicity Jones).

3/8: CBS Weekend News

Iran names new supreme leader; Trump not ruling out ground troops in Iran.

Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester review – a battle between millennials and boomers

There are sharply observed pleasures to be found in this black comedy of infidelity, revenge and intergenerational tension – but the plot is both implausible and predictable

John Lanchester has distinguished between his nonfiction and his novels as the line between “things happening in the world” and “the things that won’t leave you alone”. Over the last decade and a half that gap appears to have narrowed. His 2012 bestseller, Capital, used the global economic crisis (explained with characteristic verve and lucidity in the nonfiction Whoops!) to lend a sharply moral edge to a sprawling Dickensian story about the London property bubble, told through the class cross-section of a newly affluent south London street. His 2019 follow-up, The Wall, was a dystopian near-future tale in which rising sea levels have exacted a catastrophic toll: a heavily guarded sea wall encircles a Britain determined to fortify its vanishing coastline and keep out the refugees desperately seeking asylum. In 2019, global sea levels reached a record high.

Lanchester’s satirical chops are on full display in his latest, Look What You Made Me Do, but this time his focus is more personal than political. Set in a recognisably professional – for which read excruciatingly smug – north London peopled by architects and agents, Lanchester’s sixth novel is billed by its publishers as a black comedy.

How the ‘Galápagos of west Africa’ is plundered by floating fish factories

A Guardian investigation with DeSmog reveals thousands of tonnes of fish are illegally turned into fishmeal and oil off the coast of Guinea-Bissau

The only ice factory on Bubaque, an island in west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, is out of service. Local fishers, such as Pedro Luis Pereira, are forced to source ice from factories on the mainland, about 70km away – a six-hour round trip by boat.

“The machines have been broken for months,” Pereira says, as he pulls in his nets on the shore of the island inside the protected Bijagós archipelago. “We’ve alerted the ministry of fisheries, but so far, no one has come to fix them.”

Foreign industrial vessels anchored near the port of Bissau. Photograph: Davide Mancini

A loving homage to pop culture’s also-rans: best podcasts of the week

Maisie Adam and Scott Bryan talk comically and sensitively to people who found sudden tabloid and early internet fame in the 00s. Plus, Norse myths and history with Iain Glen from Game of Thrones

It’s all too easy to sneer at pop culture’s also-rans. This series from comic Maisie Adam and journalist Scott Bryan does the opposite, embracing people who found sudden fame – mostly in the 90s and 00s – and telling their stories with humour and care. Guests include Liberty X’s Kelli Young, who thinks she and her bandmates were seen as “too R&B” to win ITV’s Popstars – and is surprisingly grateful to the funk band who sued them. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

Terraforma review – unhurried portrait of Ascension Island’s human-made nature

Documentary reflects on how Victorian botanists began to remodel a barren ocean outpost, but omits some crucial environmental and social questions

From the dark belly of the ocean rises Ascension Island, a rocky outpost in the Atlantic Ocean born from volcanic eruptions and sediments accumulated over millions of years. While its formation feels like an act of cosmic creation, much of its landscape is human-made. During the Victorian era, British botanists brought plants to be cultivated locally, transforming a once barren land into a green oasis. Using this example as a starting point, Kevin Brennan and Laurence Durkin’s unhurried documentary contemplates the evolution of “terraforming,” a much-theorised ecological process in which humans alter a hostile environment to their needs.

Visually, this film unfolds in a series of static vignettes, which largely capture the natural topography of Ascension. Cracked lava fields and golden sands give way to lush forests, conjuring a striking colour palette of black, yellow, and green. The images are poetic, showcasing a stunning variety of flora and fauna; people are rarely seen on screen, their absence adding a touch of eeriness to the atmosphere.

10 of the best affordable family adventures in Europe

From packrafting in Luxembourg to cycling in Slovenia and eclipse-spotting in Spain, here are some great ways to get the kids into the wild

Several companies offer affordable multi-activity trips for families in Greece, but if you’re looking for something less frenetic, and a bit more challenging for teenagers, how about Greek island-hopping by sea kayak? Running on regular dates through the summer months, Trekking Hellas’s three-day, two‑night odysseys in the Ionian Sea start in Nidri, on Lefkada, and paddle on past Skorpios to Meganisi, camping out at Lakka before continuing the next day to Mikros Gialos for a second night under the stars before turning for home. There are stops for swimming, resting and barbecues along the way, and some thrilling cave detours, but with about six hours of paddling a day, the minimum age is 14.
From €352pp including kayaking and camping equipment, guiding and meals (trekking.gr)