Starmer says he ‘felt sick’ watching video of Henry Nowak’s arrest – UK politics live

The prime minister said: ‘I have seen the body cam footage, it’s harrowing, and I have to say, as a father of a 17-year-old boy, I felt sick watching it.’

BBC Scotland has more details of the Peter Murrell hearing this morning on its live blog. And, on its live blog, Sky News has pictures of some of the items purchased by Murrell with stolen SNP funds.

Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes prime minister after the Makerfield byelection, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester mayor has said.

Sabrina Carpenter granted restraining order against alleged stalker: ‘disturbing violation of safety’

Pop star says the man, 31, tried to force his way into her LA home last month and insisted she was expecting him

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Sabrina Carpenter has been granted a temporary restraining order against a man she says has been stalking her and tried to get into her California home.

On Monday, the Los Angeles county court issued an order to prohibit William Applegate, 31, from being within 100 yards of the Hollywood Hills home that she shares with her sister and the latter’s partner.

Zverev swats aside teenager Jódar as elusive grand slam title inches closer

• World No 2 wins quarter-final 7-6 (3), 6-1, 6-3

• Zverev will face Mensik or Fonseca in semi-final

Alexander Zverev took another step towards winning his elusive grand slam title as he held off a rapid start from the breakout teenage star Rafael Jódar to return to the semi-finals of the French Open with a 7-6 (3), 6-1, 6-3.

The past few weeks have had little precedent in the recent history of men’s tennis, with so many of the top players suffering early upsets in Paris. As the dust has begun to settle on the early losses to Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, the second seed Zverev has emerged as the player most likely to win the title.

This report will update later

Masters of the Universe review – Amazon’s He-Man adventure is a weak big-budget misfire

A laboured attempt to resurrect toy IP very few people still care about is a $200m-budgeted waste of everyone’s time

It’s not just that He-Man himself is from the 80s that gives 2026’s Masters of the Universe such an aggressive throwback vibe. It’s that trying to assemble a film around the haphazard mythology of a toy and dusting off IP that precious few still care about feels like something Hollywood has slowly been doing a bit less of, especially on a scale such as this.

This year, hits have relied on either properties that audiences do have passion for (Scream, Michael Jackson, Mario, The Devil Wears Prada) or, radically, original ideas (Obsession, Backrooms, Goat, Hoppers). We haven’t endured an Underworld sequel or a Tarzan reboot since 2016, a Terminator film since 2019, a Dolittle reboot since 2020 or a GI Joe spin-off since 2021. Mattel might then have struck gold with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie in 2023, but that was both an unconventional, auteur-led one-off and based on a product millions were still buying on the regular (the year before release, the brand made more than $1.4bn). Various directors, from John Woo to Jon M Chu, have been loosely attached to a He-Man movie over the years and various studios, from Sony to Netflix, have tried (the latter streamer having spent a reported $30m on a failed attempt) but, as with many long-gestating projects in Hollywood, those involved forgot to remember Jeff Goldblum’s evergreen Jurassic Park line: “So preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Trump names controversial housing official Bill Pulte as acting intel chief

President Trump on Tuesday announced he's tapping housing official Bill Pulte to serve as the acting director of national intelligence to replace Tulsi Gabbard.

Millions vote in high-stakes US primaries including California governor, LA mayor and Iowa Senate – live

California voters must decide top two candidates to advance in governor’s race; Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico also hold primaries

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• California elections: governor, LA mayor and Congress at stake

In six months, Adam Hamawy has gone from a political nobody to, deemed by most measures, the frontrunner in a crowded race, endorsed by prominent progressive and Democratic figures including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Tammy Duckworth.

His work history has driven him to call for Medicare for All, advocating for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel, and the abolition of ICE – and to say openly he cannot support the Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.

CALIFORNIA: Vote today for Steve Hilton for Governor. He will work with me and the Federal Government, the money will flow because I have confidence in him (but not any of the others!), and we will MAKE CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN. Steve Hilton will NEVER let you down. VOTE NOW!

What are Freedom 250 and America250? Behind the 2 groups planning celebrations

A musical concert series has become a point of political contention, with performers dropping out of the series.

5 ways to reduce everyday exposure to 'forever chemicals' 

Mara Hoplamazian has spent years reporting on 'forever chemicals,' or PFAS. Here's what they've learned about what may help limit everyday exposure to the contaminant.

Fulham confirm Marco Silva is leaving as head coach amid Benfica interest

• Silva had been in charge at Fulham for five years

• Benfica poised to lose José Mourinho for Madrid job

Fulham have announced that Marco Silva is leaving after five years as their head coach. The Portuguese is wanted by Benfica, who are poised to lose José Mourinho to Real Madrid.

“Fulham and Marco were an excellent fit for five seasons, but change is inevitable in this game, and we’ve accordingly prepared for this moment,” Fulham’s owner, Shahid Khan, said.

Job openings in April surged to 7.6 million, the highest in nearly two years

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that available employment hit 7.6 million for the month, a surge of 731,000 from the prior month.

Pope Leo appoints first lay woman to a top position in Vatican

Maria Montserrat Alvarado will lead communications department, overseeing news site, radio station, press office and more

Pope Leo has appointed the first lay woman to a top position in the governance of the Roman Catholic church.

Maria Montserrat Alvarado, who is now president of the US-based Catholic media outlet, EWTN News, will lead the Vatican’s powerful communications department, which was set up by the late Pope Francis in 2015 and oversees the Vatican’s news site as well as its radio station, newspaper, press office, publishing house and film library.

Trump ‘shouted and cursed Netanyahu over threat to resume Beirut bombing’

Angry phone call took place after Iran said it would suspend talks with US over Israel’s Lebanon campaign, Axios reports

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump angrily confronted Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s threats to resume airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to a report.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the US president shouted at the Israeli prime minister during the phone call on Monday, according to Axios, a US website that has frequently published reports on high-level conversations between the two leaders.

Fugitive who stole identity of college grad pleads guilty to fraud

A fugitive who lived for more than 40 years under the stolen identity of a University of Arkansas graduate has pleaded guilty to fraud, among other charges.

A roof with a view and a hiker’s reward – readers’ best photographs

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

Female dolphins remember who is aggressive when choosing a mating partner, research shows

Researchers observed unavailable female dolphins – those that were older, or with calves – did not show the same avoidant behaviour

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Female dolphins identify males by their unique calls and keep track of their past behaviour, choosing to avoid the most aggressive males during mating season, new research suggests.

Bottlenose dolphin society is complex, and male and female dolphins often know each other for decades, said Prof Stephanie King, an expert in animal behaviour at the University of Bristol.

Japan World Cup 2026 team guide

Impressive results have fuelled belief that Hajime Moriyasu’s side can not just survive against the best but beat them too

This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June.

The Misfits: Marilyn Monroe’s final film showed her capacity for playing painfully knotty characters

Written for Monroe by then husband Arthur Miller, the role of Roslyn is contradictory and complex. It signalled a potential new phase in her career

What else can you call it but star quality? It was that – that ineffable, incalculable thing that makes certain actors on film seem almost holy – which made Marilyn Monroe one of the icons of cinema, perhaps the icon. That, coupled with her untimely death, which meant Monroe never grew any older on screen, is surely why she endures even now, 100 years after her birth. Whether performing Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, vamping in Niagara or throwing off sparkling dialogue in Some Like It Hot, Monroe seems to belong up there on the big screen – so much so that you might believe she never actually existed down here with us.

It’s Monroe’s last picture, 1961’s The Misfits, that shows the star was mortal after all. It begins in Reno, where Monroe’s out-of-towner Roslyn gets a quickie divorce from her absentee husband (Kevin McCarthy) before falling in with a group of local oddballs, among them ageing cowpoke Gay Langland (Clark Gable) and buck-drunk bronco rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift).

Trump appoints housing official as acting director of national intelligence

Bill Pulte has shown a willingness to go after the president's perceived enemies.

‘We don’t have another country to run to’: Kenyans fear US plan for Ebola quarantine site

People from town of potential site for US citizens with Ebola symptoms say it puts them at risk in country with no known cases

People from a town in central Kenya where the US wants to set up an Ebola quarantine facility for its citizens have strongly criticised the plan, saying they fear it will expose them to the virus and that it is indicative of double standards on the part of the US.

“Everybody should be quarantined in their home country. We shouldn’t allow foreigners to bring us diseases,” said Charles Mathenge, a taxi driver who lives near Laikipia Air Base, the proposed site in Nanyuki, 120 miles from the capital, Nairobi. “Kenya is our country, and we should be careful with it.”

Doctors checked Biden just after Trump debate as Jill Biden feared he had a stroke

The Biden administration previously said doctors examined the president "days" following the debate, not in the moments after. The former first lady revealed more details in her new book.

Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day review – dreamy adaptation reaches for the stars

SXSW London
Wolf’s novel about a headstrong young Edwardian woman takes flight under Tina Gharavi’s direction, with Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders among the ensemble cast

Here is an adaptation, written by Justine Waddell, of Virginia Woolf’s peculiar and tonally elusive work that is all about the quarterlife crisis of a headstrong, well-born young woman in Edwardian London faced with the necessity of getting married. What emerges is a wayward, unworldly fantasia, a four-leaf clover of a film – or even five-leaf; rather beautifully designed and photographed, flavoured with a wistful, unexpectedly Germanic kind of romanticism.

Waddell and Iranian-born director and Bafta nominee Tina Gharavi have creatively gone against the grain of the novel, amplifying Woolf’s single glancing reference to astronomy and making that the centre of the heroine’s yearning, perhaps playfully implanting a subconscious memory of Cole Porter’s lyrics to the song of the same title: “You are the one, only you beneath the moon, under the sun ….” And – thankfully, in my view – the film removes Woolf’s supercilious condescension towards the self-betterment of newly educated lower and middle classes, and instead focuses on a sweet-natured story, performed with conviction by its all-star ensemble cast, interspersed with dreamlike set pieces. The result is not precisely Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day; maybe more EM Forster’s Night and Day or even Ronald Firbank’s Night and Day.

Six US states sue Trump administration over deal to kill windfarm project

State attorneys general argue $1bn deal to terminate major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York is unlawful

Six states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its decision to cancel of a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York.

In March, federal officials announced they would pay nearly $1bn in taxpayer dollars to French energy firm TotalEnergies in exchange for the company killing plans to erect two offshore windfarms off New York and North Carolina. TotalEnergies agreed to terminate the projects and pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States, while investing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects.

Ligue 1 season awards: the big hits, misses, shocks and flops of 2025-26

It was a season to remember for Vitinha, Pierre Sage and Florian Thauvin but one to forget for Paul Pogba and Nice

By Get French Football News

“I like feeling the match go through me,” said Vitinha at the end of December. It’s an apt way for the 26-year-old to interpret his role at PSG, given that everything the team produces on the pitch involves him in some way or another.

Blue Origin launchpad damaged in rocket explosion may not be restored until 2028, NASA's Isaacman says

NASA has tapped Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin for several contracts in the agency's Artemis return-to-the-moon program.

Michelle Obama: white men do not have to worry about impostor syndrome

Former US first lady says she has sat ‘at every powerful table’ and not met a single white man with such doubts

White men do not have to worry about impostor syndrome, according to Michelle Obama, who said she had sat “at every powerful table there is” and not found one who admitted feeling such self-doubt.

The former US first lady told SXSW London that she wanted to “demystify” what it was like to sit in elite meetings, which she said were often populated by people from diverse backgrounds who felt like outsiders.

Behind the decline of summer jobs for teens

A new report finds summer hiring for teens is expected to fall to its lowest level in nearly 80 years. Harvard economist and CBS News contributor Roland Fryer explains what's driving the decline.

Crystal Palace switch focus from Iraola and Lampard to Lens manager Pierre Sage

• Frenchman first choice now Iraola is in Liverpool talks

• Palace put off by compensation fee for Frank Lampard

Crystal Palace are in talks with Pierre Sage with a view to making him their head coach after he led Lens to second in Ligue 1 this season. Andoni Iraola was the preferred option to replace Oliver Glasner but the former Bournemouth manager is in discussions with Liverpool over succeeding Arne Slot.

Sage inherited a Lens side last June who had finished eighth and made them title contenders, finishing six points adrift of Paris Saint-Germain, and won the Coupe de France. He was in charge of Lyon for just over a year before being sacked in January 2025. Sage is understood to be keen to join Palace so the expectation is that a deal will be struck.

New ways to remove CO2 from atmosphere must grow much faster, report says

Novel forms of CO₂ removal must expand at ‘highly ambitious rates’ if world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, says study

Humanity must suck carbon out of the atmosphere with new technologies even faster than the breakneck speed with which it has deployed solar panels if it is to limit global heating to 1.5C, a report has found.

Novel forms of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) must grow at “highly ambitious rates” to bridge the gap between what governments have pledged to clean up and what is needed to comply with the Paris climate agreement, according to researchers. They said the next five years were critical to establishing the technologies’ role in limiting climate damages.

Patriot missile shortage has created ‘window of vulnerability’ Russia is exploiting in Ukraine

Countries that rely on US-made air defence system feel increasingly exposed as interceptor supplies dwindle

Russia is exploiting a critical global shortage of air defence interceptor missiles as it ramps up its airstrikes against Ukraine, amid warnings that a shortfall for the Patriot system in particular is creating a “window of vulnerability” for the countries that rely on them.

The MIM-104 Patriot manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin is the primary surface-to-air system of the US military to shoot down ballistic missiles, and has been widely relied on by US allies – not least in the Gulf, as well as by Ukraine.

UK Athletics fined £350,000 over ‘wholly avoidable’ death of Paralympian

• Abdullah Hayayei, 36, died in London accident in 2017

• Practice throwing cage fell on and killed UAE athlete

UK Athletics has been fined £350,000 for the “wholly avoidable” death of a Paralympian who was killed during a training session in east London.

Abdullah Hayayei, 36, a father of five, was preparing to represent the United Arab Emirates at the World Para Athletics Championships when a 440lb practice throwing cage toppled on to him at Newham Leisure Centre in July 2017.

Exams in Gaza and an Ebola protest arrest: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Solo-maxxing: gen Z is embracing single life – for a very sad reason

While many young people are struggling to get work, an average date night costs north of $200. No wonder so many are resigning themselves to being alone

Name: Solo-maxxing.

Age: Newish.

Sabrina Carpenter granted temporary restraining order against alleged stalker

A man tried to force his way into pop star Sabrina Carpenter's home in Los Angeles after weeks of watching the property, officials say. On Monday, the singer was granted a temporary restraining order against the man.

My father, the German refugee who fought the Nazis as a ‘secret listener’

As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a vital role in a top-secret military intelligence unit

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Fritz Lustig, my father, was a 13-year-old schoolboy growing up in Berlin. He was a budding musician with dreams of becoming a professional cellist but, by the time he left school four years later, it was clear that under the Nazis, even though his family had largely cast aside their Jewish heritage, his options were going to be extremely limited.

Neither he, nor any of his anxious relatives, could possibly imagine the scale of the horrors that lay in store – but after the anti-Jewish pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938, it was impossible to ignore the gathering storm clouds.

Florida sues OpenAI over alleged harms caused by ChatGPT

Florida has become the first state to sue OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

Why Florida is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman

Florida has filed a civil suit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of deceiving users. Jo Ling Kent explains.

How Ebola kills -- and what it takes to stop it

It's a virus that can strike with unrelenting force. The kind of care need to knock it out is often not fully available in a lower resource country like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Google owner Alphabet to sell $80bn in stock to fund AI spending spree

Markets take note as world’s biggest equity fundraiser bids to garner more money than three biggest-ever IPOs combined

• Business live – latest updates

• Kenneth Rogoff: will AI create a permanent underclass?

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has said it plans to raise up to $80bn (£59bn) in equity to fund its vast artificial intelligence infrastructure investments, raising further questions over the economics of the AI boom.

The move, the largest equity fundraising ever according to analysts, includes a $10bn share sale to the US investment group Berkshire Hathaway, which was led until last year by Warren Buffett.

Will the AI economy create a permanent underclass?

From India and Africa to Europe, countries not yet in the AI supply chain risk mass job losses, losing the tax revenue needed to deal with the tech’s fallout

• Business live – AI to drive up UK youth unemployment

The San Francisco Bay Area is in the midst of an AI frenzy that makes the California gold rush of the mid-19th century look like a scavenger hunt. Top programmers and developers are being offered compensation packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars to switch firms, while young engineers lucky enough to have joined leading AI startups early are contemplating retirement before age 35.

Driving up the Bayshore Freeway from San Francisco International airport into the city, you pass hyper-specific billboards advertising obscure AI applications seemingly aimed at absurdly niche audiences. How can that possibly be profitable? The answer is that in a city crawling with startups, getting the right software product in front of a founder whose company could soon be worth billions of dollars is far more lucrative than using billboard space to sell burgers or laundry detergent.

Has the World Cup arrived yet? In the US, it depends on who you ask

Just days away from the opener, the tournament has yet to feel fully real for fans and even some players

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Organizationally speaking, the 2026 World Cup began on 13 June 2018, when then-Fifa general secretary Fatma Samoura sternly instructed the delegates to cast their vote in a cavernous conference hall in Moscow.

Yet mere days away from the tournament’s kickoff in Mexico City, it doesn’t really feel like the thing is here yet. At least, not in the United States. And not in New York, the host city for the final.

Weight-loss drugs can cut breast cancer risk by up to 30%, studies suggest

Three studies add to evidence that jabs could be part of cancer-fighting toolkit to cut risk of developing or dying from disease

Weight-loss drugs can cut the risk of developing or dying from cancer by 30%, doctors have said.

Millions of people already use the drugs to treat obesity. Now a series of studies presented at the world’s largest oncology conference suggest the drugs could play a role in preventing and treating cancer.

Wanted: surefire recipes for barbecue marinades and sauces | Kitchen aide

Whether you’re grilling meat or veg, our panel agrees that the best accompaniments involve a balance of acid, fat, salt, aromatics and sweeteners

What are the best marinades and sauces for a barbecue?
Josie, by email
“Good, well-farmed meat needs none of that nonsense,” insists Richard Turner, co-founder of butcher Turner & George in London. “I want to taste the meat and, if necessary, it should be tenderised by your chosen cooking technique.”

For Josie, though, he’ll go with the flow. First things first, all good marinades have a few things in common: “You need a tenderiser, so citrus juice, vinegar, yoghurt, buttermilk, wine or enzymes [pineapple, papaya],” he says. “These acids work by breaking down the surface collagen and protein in the meat, which tenderises the exterior and lets other flavours penetrate more deeply, while enzymes break down connective tissue.” You’ll then want fat – olive oil, coconut milk, yoghurt – and seasoning – sea salt, fish sauce, soy sauce, miso. “Salt penetrates deep into the meat, breaking down muscle fibres and drawing in liquids, so increasing both moisture and flavour.” You’ve then got garlic, ginger, shallots, herbs, chilli and sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, treacle) to play with.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email [email protected]

Peace fails if it is not defended. The UN’s peacekeepers cannot do this alone | Jean-Pierre Lacroix

Cuts in international support threaten the work of the women and men bringing hope to the world’s most vulnerable people

• Jean-Pierre Lacroix is UN under-secretary general for peace operations

At a time when conflicts spill across borders, Am-Dafock – a town built on marshy ground in the far north of Central African Republic – offers a powerful example of why UN peacekeeping matters, even if such successes rarely make international news.

In response to the growing impact of the war in neighbouring Sudan in 2024, the UN peacekeeping mission – known as Minusca – established a temporary base at the border town near Birao to protect displaced and refugee communities and create stability for the delivery of life-saving aid.

Nvidia's new PC chips represent CEO Huang's bid to win at every layer of AI stack

Nvidia's announced entry into the PC chip market sent shares of AMD, Intel and Qualcomm lower as Wall Street recognized the threat.

EU accused of creating ICE-style immigration enforcement system

Officials say law will improve migration management by allowing more deportations of undocumented people

EU politicians have promised to increase deportations of undocumented migrants, under a new law that critics say mimics elements of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.

Finalising a key element of an overhauled EU asylum and migration system, politicians have agreed a regulation that will enable national authorities to raid people’s homes to enforce deportation orders.

Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish reveals he is receiving treatment for cancer

• Scotland great, 75, mistakenly posted on social media

• ‘Treatment is going well,’ says former player and manager

Sir Kenny Dalglish has revealed he is receiving treatment for cancer. The Liverpool legend, who is 75, confirmed the diagnosis on Tuesday having mistakenly posted about his treatment earlier in the day.

Liverpool have said: “The support, best wishes and love of everyone at Liverpool FC are, and will be, with Sir Kenny and his family.”

Alphabet plans to raise $80 billion from stock sales to fund AI build-out

Alphabet said it plans to sell $80 billion in stock, including through a $10 billion investment by Berkshire Hathaway.

The Jilly Cooper blowdry is back! Twelve other big 80s hairstyles to try now

Series two of Rivals has brought big, bouncy locks into vogue. From Slash to Grace Jones to Bono’s mullet, here are other looks to copy if you dare …

***

One thing that has come raging back in vogue upon the release of Rivals, season two, is Jilly Cooper’s hair. That’s no surprise – Rivals has revived a lot of things we thought we’d seen the back of: smoking; dinner parties with an aperitif segment; braces (the trouser variant); a haughty expression. Give it a couple of episodes and we’ll have made our peace with naked tennis in time for Wimbledon.

The return of the bridal suit: will Dua Lipa’s look change the face of weddings?

In 1971, Bianca Jagger entranced the fashion world with the skirt suit she wore to marry Mick Jagger. Now, in a nod to that style, Lipa is ushering in a new era of nonconformity

Fifty five years after Bianca Jagger shocked onlookers when she wore a Yves Saint Laurent skirt-suit to marry Mick Jagger, her alternative wedding look has become a firm favourite among a new generation of brides.

On Sunday, pop star Dua Lipa became the latest celebrity to endorse the trend when she married actor Callum Turner during an intimate ceremony in London. Photos of the couple on the steps of Old Marylebone town hall showed them grinning under a flurry of confetti, Turner in a navy suit, Lipa in an ivory skirt suit ripped straight from the pages of the Jagger stylebook complete with a wide-brimmed hat.

AI won’t decimate the arts. We must interrogate it, but we can collaborate with it

Opera makers have always engaged with the latest inventions while also preserving historic crafts. I believe it’s possible to look both forwards and backwards in this fast-evolving landscape

The disquiet and distrust surrounding artificial intelligence among artists and creatives remain real and consequential, and the language used by leading arts commentators is often apocalyptic: AI will decimate the arts, it is evil, it is the devil. Like many emerging technologies, AI has been driven by the corporations at the forefront of its creation. Introduced to the public at a rapid rate and continuously evolving, machine learning has become closely entwined with fear, antipathy and foreboding. At the same time, its powers and possibilities are expanding exponentially, becoming embedded in almost every aspect of human activity.

The upcoming RBO/SHIFT festival at the Royal Opera House aims to interrogate all sides of this fast-evolving landscape to enable artists, performers, creatives and audiences to think deeply and widely about where we are now, and where we may be tomorrow. Machine learning represents a seismic shift, both in society and in the arts, and we need storytellers, artists, teachers and thinkers in this space to help determine the direction of that shift and help us navigate this unfamiliar territory.

How will AI sycophancy change us? Early signs are not encouraging | Arwa Mahdawi

Constant validation and flattery from AI chatbots poses a serious risk to society and our shared grasp of reality

Do you ever get the feeling that the people running the world are delulu? That the 1% are living in a completely different universe from the rest of us? You’re not the only one. Even some tech elites are starting to worry about their peers’ grasp on reality. “CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis,” Aaron Levie, a co-founder of the enterprise cloud company Box, declared on X last month. His reasoning for this? “They’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with AI. So when they play with AI, they see the happy path results, often not considering the next 10 or 20 things that have to happen to get sustainable results from agents.”

In other words: CEOs are so high up the food chain that they don’t understand the human labour that goes into turning an error-riddled AI creation into something that functions properly in a business context. They are desperate to replace their annoying and expensive human labour with compliant AI models, but grossly overestimate what the technology can do. Meanwhile, the industry is rushing out overhyped AI solutions without properly stress-testing them.

DOJ will pause $1.8 billion fund, per court order. And, key primaries to watch today

The DOJ says it will abide by a federal court order pausing its anti-weaponization fund. And, six states are holding primaries today. Here are the races to watch.

‘Why the hell would anyone want to watch the Knicks?’ Because they saved my life | Lee Escobedo

For 25 years, the Knicks have given just enough hope to keep me from walking away. Four wins from watching an NBA title with my father, I know why I stayed

The New York Knicks are four wins from hallelujah. I’ve been waiting for this since 2002. I was baptized in blown leads. Never, not once, considered leaving. This type of immolation requires explanation.

The Knicks have not won an NBA championship since 1973. Maybe I’m bad luck, or maybe losing is what shaped me.

‘The face doesn’t move’: Hollywood’s obsession with cosmetic surgeries has led to stiffer looks – and performances

With procedures like filler and Botox becoming commonplace, audiences are lamenting the smoothed-out, uncanny faces now rampant in major pictures

A few years ago, New York dermatologist Dr David A Colbert received an unexpected call from a Hollywood director. The director was shooting a film starring a high-profile actor who had plumped his face with so much filler it wouldn’t move.

The director proceeded to berate Colbert, whose practice has treated famous faces such as Sienna Miller, Naomi Watts and Robin Wright, for stilting his star’s ability to emote. “He was kind of rude,” Colbert said. “He was like, ‘Hey, can you stop doing what you’re doing [to his face]?’”

Aipac affiliate has funded lavish trips to Israel for dozens of Congress members since 7 October, filings reveal

Revealed: AIEF, a charitable affiliate of pro-Israel lobby Aipac, has spent millions on travel for lawmakers from both parties, even as voters’ support for Israel plummets

Dozens of members of Congress and Capitol Hill staffers have enjoyed lavish gifted travel to Israel funded by an Aipac affiliate since 7 October 2023, amid Israel’s expanding wars on its neighbors and despite plummeting levels of support among Americans for the country’s policies, a Guardian analysis has found.

Congressional ethics filings and other public records show the trips, led by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), revolved around one-sided briefings on Middle East politics and Israeli domestic and foreign policy. Lawmakers and their staffers from both parties met Israeli officials, military contractors and civil society figures, including Benjamin Netanyahu and advocates for the annexation of the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in May

Madeleine Thien, Sufiyaan Salam and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Lately I have loved Dorothy Tse’s City Like Water, translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce. It is an unclassifiable, sharp, ingenious, passionate novel in which the city that is dissolving is also one’s only home. I have been telling everyone to read Karen Hao’s Empire of AI so that we can understand the cost of the tools we’ve been told that we need. I re-read Hsiao-Hung Pai’s Scattered Sand: The Story of China’s Rural Migrants because it has stayed with me for more than a decade now. And I am reading Hannah Lillith Assadi’s moving novel, Paradiso 17, written in the weeks before and the year after her father, who was born in Palestine, passed away. Finally, Michael Ondaatje’s selected poems, The Distance of a Shout. This is a life’s work and a book to hold close.

Police in Iowa say they think man shot and killed 6 relatives, then himself

Authorities in Iowa are investigating the fatal shootings of six people they believe were killed by a relative who took his own life when confronted by police.

Zelenskyy asks Trump to send missiles after Russian strikes across Ukraine

At least 18 killed, dozens injured and others trapped under collapsed buildings after attacks on five Ukrainian cities

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Donald Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine after a devastating Russian attack killed at least 18 people and injured dozens more.

Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukraine overnight, according to the air force, including eight hypersonic Tsirkon missiles. The main targets were Kyiv, the central cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, and the eastern cities of Poltava and Kharkiv.

David Squires on … Arsenal staying positive after penalty pain against PSG

Our cartoonist on the Champions League final, some joy in Europe for English teams and Arne Slot’s sacking

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

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

From barren shores to green oases: how a surfer looking for shade ended up transforming Costa Rica’s coastline

A grassroots project has turned deforested beaches into thriving ecosystems by planting 100,000 native trees

Pointing to a photograph of dry brown long grass hugging the shoreline, Gerardo Bolaños stands in front of a green oasis of seedlings and trees potted in black plastic bags. “This is what Playa Guiones looked like when we started in 2011,” says the executive director of Costas Verdes, a Costa Rican nonprofit.

As howler monkeys growl in the background, Bolaños points to the picture next to it – an image of the same patch of land but with scores of flourishing, lush green trees. Today, he says, this is how the beach looks.

Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military, appeals court rules

A divided panel of appeals court judges has ruled that a Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service.

‘Pure, unyielding torture pornography’: is Half Man too unpleasant to be good TV?

Richard Gadd’s follow-up to Baby Reindeer is a relentlessly punishing look at characters being crushed by the unending horror of their lives. At times, it feels like it was made by emo teens

If you look up Baby Reindeer on Netflix, you’ll find it categorised as a comedy series. This may come as news to anyone who has actually seen it, because they might have been labouring under the delusion that it was a terror-filled rolling panic attack of a show, sitting somewhere between psychological thriller and all-out horror.

But the initial labelling makes some level of sense. Richard Gadd was a comedian and Baby Reindeer was based on his Edinburgh show of the same name. Plus, what could be cuter than a baby reindeer? It would be very simple to infer some level of comedy from the description.

EU strikes migration deal for more deportations and detention centers abroad

The European Union has moved forward with an overhaul of its migration policy, aiming to ramp up deportations and build detention centers abroad. Critics compared the regulation to the immigration strategy of the Trump administration.

Trump calls me ‘crooked as hell’. That’s rich coming from him | Representative Ilhan Omar

Trump and Republicans are not interested in combating fraud and corruption. They are interested in ransacking the public good for their own profit

Donald Trump called me “crooked as hell” as he spread lies about the fraud that occurred in Minnesota. Any keen observer will recognize the pattern of inciting hostility against me and the Somali community whenever his own failures and corruption catches up to him. He routinely reaches for the same tired playbook of lies, racism and deflection.

This is not a new strategy. Lyndon B Johnson once said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” This is exactly what Trump’s doing: demonizing Black and brown people so that we pay less attention to him picking our pockets in broad daylight. He uses fraud as a political cudgel while protecting his donor base and enriching himself.

Save the balti! Can Birmingham’s best dish come back from the brink?

In the 1990s, there were hundreds of authentic balti restaurants in the English city. Now, there are about 20. Will a big campaign bring back the boom times?

‘Curry might have come from India, but balti was born in Birmingham,” says Zaf Hussain. The 40-year-old’s family business, Shababs, has been on this site on the bustling Ladypool Road in south-east Birmingham since his father opened it in 1987. Settled in between the Indian sweet shops and south Asian bridal boutiques, Shababs is one of the last remaining restaurants in the city that still makes an authentic balti curry – a dish that, if Hussain and other campaigners have their way, could be officially certified as an element of Britain’s living heritage inventory, a preservation scheme established in 2025 by Unesco and the British government.

The problem, says Hussain, is that “people don’t know what the real thing is any more”. True balti, he says, is all about “the bowl in which it’s cooked and served”. The dish is cooked in a steel bowl on a high heat and served straight away, sizzling on the table for the customer. “Lots of people say they do balti, but they actually cook it in a frying pan before dumping it into a bowl,” says Hussain. “The proper thing is fast and it’s very flavoursome.” Balti has become a catch-all term for anything vaguely resembling curry flavour, from curry-flavoured snacks to mass-produced bottled sauces.

For veterans, a place where peace can take root

Iraq war veteran John Follmer leads vet volunteers who are rehabbing a neglected Japanese garden on the West LA Veterans Affairs Campus.

Trump vowed to revoke hundreds of citizenships. It's proving harder to do

President Trump's vow to revoke citizenship worries immigrant advocates, legal scholars and naturalized Americans — but so far it's proving harder to do than the rhetoric suggests.

My Only Boy by Rosa Rankin-Gee review – a darkly funny near-future dystopia

A surprising romance is set against a backdrop of climate crisis, political instability and corporate corruption in this bleak but witty novel

Rosa Rankin-Gee follows her 2021 near-future climate-crisis dystopia, Dreamland, with a similar but more politically focused work. As I read My Only Boy, I kept having to remind myself that the nation it describes is not (yet) real, because, for a reader living abroad, the novel’s England seems unnervingly close to what might come next. Any political dystopia risks being overtaken by reality, but in this case the gap between truth and fiction feels claustrophobic.

At the beginning of the novel, Elle is at a party held to mourn that day’s election of a far-right populist government. She’s the communications director for the almost too brilliantly named Gigr, a company connecting people seeking immediate shift work with businesses offering it. Elle is freshly upset by witnessing and immediately containing the reputational damage of a worker’s jump from a balcony. She knows how to do this, because “we’d had a death every four weeks, then every three weeks, then every two”: exhausted, starving people taking underpaid shifts from Gigr after finishing public sector jobs that no longer pay enough for survival. Almost everyone, in this slightly more desperate, divided and unfair nation, ends up doing some work for Gigr sooner or later, to buy faster access to emergency healthcare or food for crisis-stricken family, and Gigr has algorithms to ensure that each person is paid the least their particular circumstances oblige them to accept.

Musket balls and a burnt hull: evidence of real pirates of the Caribbean found in Bahamas

Exclusive: First shipwrecks found in Nassau harbour on New Providence, once the hideout of Blackbeard and Calico Jack

The first shipwrecks linked to the real pirates of the Caribbean in the Bahamas have been discovered by an international team co-directed by a British marine archaeologist.

Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham were among pirates who, between the 1690s and 1720s, turned Nassau on the island of New Providence into a hideout where they plotted their next heists on the high seas and divided up their plunder.

Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult review – wildly juicy TV about the guru possessed by an alien

This tale of the Studio 54 stunner-turned-extraterrestrial who lured models to his Manhattan apartment for sex, money – or to give them mint face masks – is fascinating … yet fails to explain quite why so many believed his baloney

Documentaries about cults all have the same task, at which they nearly all fail: explaining exactly how so many people fell under the spell of a man (it’s always a man) who was, to outside observers, so obviously a damaged charlatan. None of it makes sense; it wouldn’t count as a cult if it did.

Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult does a messy job of telling the story of Frederick von Mierers, who spent the 1980s luring models into his spiritual enlightenment society, Eternal Values. Von Mierers’ life was all lies, chaos and mystery and it would be hard to set it out coherently, however diligently you tried. But this is like trying to keep up with an erratic bar-room raconteur who keeps glossing over the important bits so they can skip on to the next bit of gossip. Admittedly, each new piece of info is wildly juicy.

Prepare for imminent return of El Niño, UN warns

UN agency predicts phenomenon that supercharges weather extremes has 80% chance of forming before September

The world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the supercharged weather extremes it brings, the UN has warned.

The powerful natural weather pattern, which raises global temperatures and worsens some rainfall, has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

Germany World Cup 2026 team guide

Julian Nagelsmann will rely on a Bayern-based core, but individual class is in worryingly short supply

This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June.

Tonight the Music Seems So Loud by Sathnam Sanghera review – a heartbreaking portrait of George Michael

This affecting exploration of the troubled genius’s impact is packed with anecdote, sharp analysis and social context

In 1998, George Michael was arrested for public lewdness in an LA lavatory, an incident that finally led the singer to publicly come out. The following day, Sathnam Sanghera found himself unable to leave his room at university: the doorway had been mockingly plastered with tabloid newspaper headlines – “ZIP ME UP BEFORE YOU GO-GO!” – by fellow students aware of his longstanding fandom. As a writer, Sanghera is best known for a series of award-winning books on the British empire, which he calls his “specialist subject”. Judging by Tonight the Music Seems So Loud – not a biography so much as a miscellany, a set of themed essays that tend to digress in all kinds of intriguing directions – the life and work of one Georgios Panayiotou runs imperialism and its legacy a very close second.

It is an unashamedly partisan book, although not an uncritical one. Sanghera is as alive to Michael’s personal and professional failings (whether the naffness of some of his early work as one half of Wham! or his high-handed treatment of the duo’s other half, Andrew Ridgeley) as he is in love with his artistic triumphs. These, of course, range from Careless Whisper and Wham!’s annually inescapable Last Christmas to the 1996 solo masterpiece Older, a peculiar and peculiarly effective cocktail of raw grief at the Aids-related death of his lover Anselmo Feleppa and unrepentant horniness.

Somerset detectorist strikes gold with ‘spectacular’ Roman ring find

Kevin Minto’s discovery near Ilminster, showing goddess Victoria, has been acquired with coin hoard for £78,000

When Kevin Minto, a lorry driver, former soldier and keen metal detectorist, came upon something glinting in a Somerset field, he thought at first it was a coin – potentially quite interesting, probably not amazing.

But the object turned out to be extraordinary: a gold Roman ring, unusually large and exquisitely crafted, set with a finely engraved gemstone depicting the goddess Victoria driving a two-horse chariot.

Amazon's four-day Prime Day event starts June 23, as shoppers battle inflation

Amazon's four-day shopping fest comes after U.S. consumer sentiment dropped in May to a record low.

‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library

Towering over a low-income area of Chicago, and wrapped in a speech that’s hard to decipher, this controversial monolith feels like a menacing sci-fi HQ. Is it a monument – or a mausoleum?

The Egyptians had their pyramids. The Anglo-Saxons had their barrows. And the Americans have their presidential libraries – the chief difference being that the leaders the US venerates are usually still alive at the opening.

Lacking a royal family or a state religion, the US presidency has swelled to fill the void, transforming over the decades into a national personality cult, complete with its own secular temples to these powerful men. The latest pharaonic edifice is about to open on Chicago’s south side, where it looms on the skyline as a towering totem to the 44th president, Barack Obama. He might have seemed humble in office, but in his post-presidential, Netflix-producing afterlife, Obama has erected the largest, costliest and most audacious complex of them all. Behold the $850m Obamalisk – or, as it sometimes feels morbidly like, the Obamausoleum.

Thomasina Miers’ Thai-style recipes for grilled pork skewers with mango, cucumber and mint salad

Pork is an underrated barbecue meat, and this taste of Thailand pairs perfectly with a fiery mango salad

I tend to start grilling food the second I catch a glimpse of the sun. After all, even if the temperature drops or the clouds threaten, I can always resort to my griddle pan indoors. Pork is an underrated meat for the barbecue, and a slow-cooked shoulder or loin is a wonderful thing. When I’m short on time, however, I often go for mince: it’s reasonably priced and has enough fat for a deliciously juicy skewer. Here, I’ve infused it with Thai seasonings that take me back to the heady experience of eating grilled street food in Bangkok. A feisty mango salad and some rice on the side are all you need for a feast.

I will never forget the teacher who negotiated to be gang-raped instead of her daughter. These war crimes against women must be addressed | Hala Alkarib

Since April 2023, Sudan’s women and girls have been subjected to systematic rape and sexual torture. Specialised support and justice for them is key to the country’s recovery and future

In a village in South Darfur, I met a young girl about my daughter’s age – six or seven years old – who touched my hand and said: “I was taken by the Janjaweed.” This was more than 20 years ago, during the first Darfur crisis, and at the time, that was the term women and girls used as we struggled to articulate the scale of violence against civilians, especially sexual violence.

I saw my daughter in that little girl, and I saw myself in her mother. It was my first encounter with conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Sudan.

Trump administration proposes 25% tariff on Brazilian goods over unfair trade practices

U.S Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the investigation under Section 301 was launched at the direction of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Country diary: Why are orchids so mysterious and coveted? It all starts underground | Mark Cocker

Hogshaw, Derbyshire: We’re up to 27 spotted orchids in our garden, and every one is a miracle

When we moved to this house, we didn’t need the encouragement of No Mow May – the ecological campaign advocating restraint in the garden. Our old lawnmower was designed to tackle your average handkerchief and leaving nine-tenths of the new place uncut was a matter of necessity as much as self-control.

The highlight of last year’s non-labouring efforts addressed directly the whole meaning of no-mow gardening. Who knows what lies hidden in a uniform shorn expanse, unless it is allowed to express itself? A slender pink flower among the green swathe turned out to be a spotted orchid, the commonest, most widespread of our 54 UK species. With this as a search image, I eventually climbed to 16 spikes last year. That alone felt like a triumph.

I devoured classic novels as a teenager. In a world of distractions, can I relearn how to read them?

In less than a decade, surrounded by screens, I lost my ability to read some of the best books ever written. But, inspired by the Guardian’s 100 best novels list, I was determined to get it back

It is a privilege to be surrounded by books. My parents hail from the literary working class, a subsection of society that believes great works lead to a richer life. Reading for them was an inverted form of class snobbery. My dad could read as well as anyone. He’d prove it on package holidays, sitting on the balcony the entire time, head bowed, cigarette in hand, flicking through the pages of Jane Austen or Herman Melville. The only difference between my old man and an old Etonian was the drudgery of employment. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: work is the bane of the reading class.

As for my own reading life, my mum wore me down, shouting “Read a book!” any time I dared say I was bored. I soon capitulated. I was nudged towards the classics, defined by Italo Calvino as books people say they should “reread” because they’ve either read them or do not want to admit they have not. In my late teens and 20s, I worked my way through the greats. I fell in love with a woman called George and thought Middlemarch was magic. I was a smart lad, prone to bad decisions, unsure of my place in the world. It is perhaps no surprise that I identified with Dorothea.

‘They took everything’: arson attack destroyed a mother’s memories of her dead son

Karen Holmes lost a son to cancer, then her home in Yorkshire to a fire; the house is now refurbished but its meaning has gone

Karen Holmes is sitting in her newly renovated lounge in a house she has lived in for 28 years, but she cannot live here now. She cannot leave, either.

The house looks good. Better than good, people tell her. There are new walls, new floors, new windows. French doors where there used to be a window.

Weapons are one thing, but if war breaks out, Europe’s best resource is its people | Elisabeth Braw

In Scandinavia and the Baltic region, citizens are signing up to do their bit as non-combatants. Other Nato allies should take heed

Wars, these days, target digital infrastructure as well as military installations. The very fact that large chunks of daily life can be knocked out without a single shot being fired is the reason Russia seems interested in doing exactly that. It is, for example, already dangerously interfering with aviation and shipping around the Baltic Sea.

Imagine the impact of larger, more successful cyber-attacks on our modern lives. Ordinary citizens would have to survive without texting, banking apps, public transportation and most modern office work. The government, though, would need to keep operating. In an offline world, the logistics of running a country would require many people. Some of these people, Sweden suggests, could ride motorcycles.

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

Vanilla Ice says he'd perform for anybody, including Putin and Iran

"It's not anything to do with politics. I don't know why they're turning it into politics," Vanilla Ice said of the Freedom 250 concerts planned in Washington, D.C.

Trump reportedly mulling retreat from $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

Democrats decry president’s ‘most brazen act of self-dealing yet’ and vow to challenge fund in Congress

Donald Trump may be reconsidering whether to keep pressing for a $1.8bn fund to compensate his allies, multiple news outlets reported on Monday. Other reports indicated only that the justice department paused the program to comply with a court order.

Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund has faced legal setbacks since it was announced two weeks ago. The idea has also faced a mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a lack of oversight and the possibility of payouts to participants in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

South Carolina store owner acquitted of murder in 2023 killing of Black teen

Chikei Rick Chow, 61, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after chasing him from his convenience store in Columbia. He maintained he acted to defend his son.

Playground no more: Thais sick of badly behaved tourists hail stricter visas

Government cites crime and drunken antics of foreigners as it shortens their stays – with ordinary Thais welcoming the crackdown

It’s late afternoon at Bangkok’s Khaosan road, the city’s backpacker strip. Bar staff are calling after passersby, enticing them inside with drinks promotions. The smell of cannabis, widely sold in the city, wafts into the street, where vendors sell anything from fake tattoos, flip-flops and icy fruit shakes.

This street, and its famously noisy nightlife, has attracted visitors from around the world for decades. But increasingly, some in Thailand are growing tired of the country’s party-loving visitors.

6/1: The Takeout with Major Garrett

Trump says Iran talks are continuing, Iran says otherwise; Graham Platner's wife addresses sexting scandal.

Platner's wife told campaign about sexually explicit texts he sent other women

The wife of Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner told his campaign in 2025 about sexual messages he had sent to other women.

Sexting scandal latest controversy for Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner

The likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, is under fire after he sent sexually explicit text messages to at least half a dozen women after he got married in 2023. Caitlin Huey-Burns reports.

DOJ says it will stop work on $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund"

The Justice Department said it will stop work on the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund following a district judge's decision temporarily blocking the program.

North Carolina officer fired over video of violent arrest turns himself in

Former Shelby County police officer Karson Hyder has been charged with one count of assault inflicting serious injury after video appeared to show him repeatedly punching a woman.

Wholesalers and restaurant owners say they can't keep eating rising prices

Wholesalers and restaurant-owners explain to Jason Allen how they're trying to absorb rising costs, rather than pass them on to customers.

Fired North Carolina cop arrested after video shows him beating woman

A North Carolina police officer, seen in doorbell video repeatedly punching a woman, has been fired for the conduct and charged with assault. Jericka Duncan reports.

What led to the DOJ stopping work on Trump's "anti-weaponization" fund

President Trump, in a rare retreat, is putting his controversial $1.7+ billion "anti-weaponization" fund on ice. Ed O'Keefe reports.

Marilyn Monroe lookalikes flock to Palm Springs for star’s 100th birthday – in pictures

Fans of the Hollywood icon set a new world record as 1,034 people descended on the California desert town to celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday. It was the largest ever gathering of people dressed as Marilyn Monroe

Trump administration plans to drop DOJ's $1.8B 'lawfare' fund, reports say

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he was launching an effort to kill "slush fund" by forcing Republicans to vote on it.

Ecuador World Cup 2026 team guide

Sebastián Beccacece has established a miserly defence and Moisés Caicedo’s ability in midfield could help team take the next step

This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June.

6/1: CBS Evening News

DOJ stopping work on President Trump's "anti-weaponization" fund; fired North Carolina cop arrested after video shows him beating woman.

Bus driver in Virginia crash that killed 5 facing more charges

Jing Sheng Dong, a 48-year-old tour bus driver from Staten Island, New York, faces three additional felony counts in connection with the deaths.