Solomon Islands election: PM Sogavare retains seat as count continues

Full results are expected in coming days to determine whether Manasseh Sogavare’s Our party can form the next government

Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, has retained his parliamentary seat, results showed on Saturday, but it will be days before vote counting determines whether his Our party can form the next government.

Wednesday’s national election was the first since Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022, drawing the Pacific island country closer to Beijing. The move concerned the US and Australia because of the potential impact on regional security.

Explosion hits base of Iranian-aligned Iraqi army unit

Officials report casualties with some citing air strike on former anti-Isis unit known as Hashed al-Shaabi, which is now part of Iraq’s regular military

An explosion has hit an Iraqi military base housing pro-Iranian paramilitaries, according to security sources.

The explosion on Friday night was at the Calso base, where former pro-Iranian paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi – now integrated into the regular army – is stationed, an interior ministry source and a military official told Agence France-Presse.

Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv claims bomber shot down at 308km range after crash in Russia

US House of Representatives moves closer to passing Ukraine aid; bureaucracy delays £500m in foreign assistance channelled through UK Ministry of Defence. What we know on day 787

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Ukraine said it shot down a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber from a distance of 308km (180 miles) after it took part in a long-range airstrike that killed eight people including two children in Dnipro. “I can only say the plane was hit at a distance of 308km, quite far away,” said Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military spy agency, the GUR.

An intelligence source told Reuters the plane was hit with a modified S-200 Soviet-era long-range surface-to-air missile system. Unconfirmed social media footage showed a warplane with its tail on fire spiralling towards the ground. The Russian defence ministry confirmed the crash in Russia’s southern Stavropol region but claimed it appeared to have been caused by a technical malfunction. Four aircrew ejected with one dead, two rescued and another missing, the Russian regional governor said.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the site of the strike in Dnipro and again called on Ukraine’s allies to rush in more air defences. Zelenskiy said Russian missiles also struck the Black Sea port of Pivdennyi in the southern Odesa region on Friday afternoon, destroying grain storage facilities and the food inside.

In the US, the House of Representatives has pushed ahead through procedural hurdles towards passing a foreign aid package that includes $61bn for Ukraine, Joanna Walters writes. The House is expected to vote on Saturday on the legislation. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic party leader in the Senate, has told senators to be prepared to return this weekend if the package passes the House and goes back to the Senate. If passed by the Senate, it must be signed into law by president Joe Biden – after which the US would ship arms to Ukraine “right away”, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Friday.

More than half of an international £900m military fund for Ukraine run by the British Ministry of Defence has not been used because of bureaucratic delays in handing out contracts, Daniel Boffey reports. Critics claim slow provision of weapons to the frontline by the International Fund for Ukraine, with just £404m spent and ministers admitting some of the equipment is not expected to reach Ukraine until spring next year.

The fund was set up in August 2022 and was designed to be “flexible” and “low-bureaucracy”. Delays are said by MoD officials to have been caused by a need to assess each of the huge number of defence companies that have tendered for contracts. An MoD spokesperson said: “Thousands of responses have been received from industry to International Fund for Ukraine requirements, each of which have had to be individually reviewed. We make no excuses for having made sure this was done properly and in a way that most effectively helps Ukraine.”

‘We’re the main attraction’: when women’s pro wrestling came to Ballarat

Professional wrestling is normally at home in American stadiums, but for one night in regional Victoria, Australia’s female wrestlers took centre stage

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It took until the final match of the evening for the 600-strong crowd at Ballarat’s Selkirk Stadium to erupt in a “this is awesome” chant. The refrain rang out at last weekend’s all-women professional wrestling show, HER, as “Adelaide Powerhouse” Delta fought international superstar “The Juggernaut” Jordynne Grace in a battle that spilled out of the ring and on to the entrance ramp.

HER, a weekend-long pro wrestling convention , was held for the first time outside America last weekend. This kind of wrestling, known for its over-the-top theatrics and portrayal of heroes and villains, is popular in the US but has an Australian fanbase, too.

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California officers charged in killing of man held face-down for five minutes

Three police officers charged with involuntary manslaughter in death of Mario Gonzalez, whom they held down on the ground

Three California police officers have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 killing of a man they restrained in a prone position for five minutes until he lost consciousness.

Pamela Price, Alameda county district attorney, announced the charges on Thursday, three years after the asphyxia death of Mario Gonzalez, 26. The officers, Eric McKinley, James Fisher and Cameron Leahy, face up to four years in prison.

Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher

Nick Bostrom’s Future of Humanity Institute closed this week in what Swedish-born philosopher says was ‘death by bureaucracy’

Oxford University this week shut down an academic institute run by one of Elon Musk’s favorite philosophers. The Future of Humanity Institute, dedicated to the long-termism movement and other Silicon Valley-endorsed ideas such as effective altruism, closed this week after 19 years of operation. Musk had donated £1m to the FIH in 2015 through a sister organization to research the threat of artificial intelligence. He had also boosted the ideas of its leader for nearly a decade on X, formerly Twitter.

The center was run by Nick Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher whose writings about the long-term threat of AI replacing humanity turned him into a celebrity figure among the tech elite and routinely landed him on lists of top global thinkers. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla chief Musk all wrote blurbs for his 2014 bestselling book Superintelligence.

Chris Pratt draws ire for razing historic 1950 LA home for sprawling mansion

Actor and wife Katherine Schwarzenegger dismantle 1950 Zimmerman house designed by architect Craig Ellwood

Chris Pratt has drawn ire from architecture aficionados after news broke that the actor and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, had razed a historic, mid-century modern home to make way for a sprawling 15,000-sq-ft mansion.

Last year, the couple purchased the 1950 Zimmerman house, designed by the architect Craig Ellwood, in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood for $12.5m. The residence, with landscaping by Garrett Eckbo – who has been described as the pioneer of modern landscaping – had previously been featured in Progressive Architecture magazine.

Tributes paid to former Wales, Burnley and Swansea winger Leighton James

• Popular winger has died at the age of 71
• James scored 10 goals in 54 appearances for Wales

The former Wales winger Leighton James has died at the age of 71.

James’s former clubs Burnley and Swansea – where he spent 13 years of a colourful 19-year senior career – were among those to pay tribute to a gifted player who won 54 caps for his country.

‘Decisive player of the season’: Guardiola and City wary of Palmer

• Manager says midfielder asked to leave City two seasons before
• Pochettino confirms Enzo Fernández is playing with a hernia

Pep Guardiola has described Cole Palmer as the “decisive player of the season” and said Manchester City must find a way of negating him in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea. Guardiola also revealed that Palmer asked to leave City for two seasons before making his £42m move to west London in September.

Palmer joined City at under-eight level and made 19 appearances for the club across three years before leaving for Chelsea, and having scored for City in their Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in August, as well as in their European Super Cup victory over Sevilla that followed 10 days later. He will line up against last season’s treble winners as the Premier League joint-top scorer with 20 goals, alongside Erling Haaland, who is a doubt for the semi-final.

Man sets himself on fire outside Trump trial courthouse in New York

Florida resident in critical condition in hospital after images of incident carried live on television

A man was in critical condition in a New York hospital on Friday after setting himself on fire outside the lower Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial in a hush-money case.

Pictures of the incident were carried live on television and spread on X, formerly Twitter.

Trump’s criminal hush-money trial concludes jury selection after difficulties

With the panel selected, Donald Trump’s trial can enter its next stage, with opening arguments expected on Monday

Donald Trump’s hush-money trial gained momentum on Friday afternoon with the conclusion of jury selection.

Five alternate jurors were chosen on Friday, following Thursday’s proceedings when the 12 jurors and one alternate juror were picked.

A guide to Trump’s hush-money trial – so far

The key arguments prosecutors will use against Trump

How will Trump’s trial work?

From Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels: the key players

Rise in pregnant women turned away from US emergency rooms, papers show

Cases listed in federal documents raise alarms around emergency pregnancy care, especially in states with strict abortion laws

One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her to the hospital.

Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound, and the baby later died.

US citizen who fought with pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine reported dead

Russell Bentley, 64, reported killed in Moscow-occupied Donetsk by Russian state media and confirmed by his battalion

A US citizen known to have fought with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine between 2014 and 2017 has been killed in Moscow-occupied Donetsk, according to Russian media reports.

Russia-installed authorities in eastern Ukraine had earlier this month reported the American – 64-year-old Russell Bentley – as missing.

‘I hope she will do it’: Iga Swiatek backs Emma Raducanu to win more titles

• World No 1 beats Raducanu 7-6 (2), 6-3 at Stuttgart Open
• Swiatek will face Elena Rybakina in semi-final

Emma Raducanu’s progress in the Stuttgart Open was halted in straight sets by the world No 1, Iga Swiatek.

The Polish four-time grand slam champion, in her 100th week on top of the world rankings, prevailed 7-6 (2), 6-3 to set up a semi-final with Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina. It was, however, an encouraging quarter-final performance from Raducanu, who has slipped to 303 in the rankings after a torrid 2023.

Garcia badly misses weight for Haney bout, losing title shot and $1.5m bet

• Garcia weighed 143.2lbs on Friday, 3.2lbs above division limit
• Fight at Barclays Center will go forward as non-title bout
• Garcia to honor deal to pay Haney $500k for each pound over
• Garcia’s erratic behavior in spotlight before Haney showdown

Ryan Garcia has spectacularly failed to make weight for his world super lightweight championship fight with Devin Haney, prompting a series of last-minute negotiations between the camps to enable Saturday’s bout at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to be staged as a non-title bout.

Garcia weighed 143.2lbs behind closed doors on Friday morning, an eye-popping 3.2lbs above the division limit, ahead of a ceremonial weigh-in open to the public later in the day.

The week around the world in 20 pictures

War in Gaza, floods in Dubai, the knife attack in Sydney and the Grand National at Aintree: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Sunak rejects offer of youth mobility scheme between EU and UK

Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU

Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years.

The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

Gulf states’ response to Iran-Israel conflict may decide outcome of crisis

Tit-for-tat attacks present Sunni monarchies with complicated choices over region’s future

Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel had, by the end of this week, become one of the most interpreted events in recent modern history. Then, in the early hours of Friday, came reports of Israel’s riposte. As in June 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in a moment that ultimately led to the first world war, these shots were heard around the world, even if few can agree conclusively on what they portend.

By one de minimis account, Tehran was merely sending a performative warning shot with its attack last Saturday, almost taking its ballistic missiles out for a weekend test drive. The maximalist version is that this was a state-on-state assault designed to change the rules of the Middle East. By swarming Israel with so many projectiles, such an assessment goes, Iran was prepared to risk turning Israel into a mini-Dresden of 1945 and was only thwarted by Israeli strategic defences and, crucially, extraordinary cooperation between the US, Israel and Sunni Gulf allies.

Vitesse Arnhem relegated from Eredivisie after 18-point deduction

• Dutch club relegated in wake of Guardian and TBIJ investigation
• Documents appeared to show financial ties to Abramovich

The Dutch football association has deducted 18 points from Vitesse Arnhem, officially confirming the club’s relegation, in the wake of an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) that uncovered apparent financial ties between the club and the Russian oligarch and former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

The KNVB, the governing body of Dutch football, said it had imposed the record sanction because the club, formally known as SBV Vitesse, failed to meet the requirements of its licensing regulations.

World leaders urge calm after Israeli drone strike on Iran ratchets up tension

Tit-for-tat attacks have breached taboo of direct strikes on each other’s territory but Tehran has no ‘immediate’ plans to retaliate

World leaders urged calm on Friday after Israel conducted a pre-dawn drone sortie over Iran following a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that crossed an important red line that has for decades held the Middle East back from a major regional conflict.

There were tentative hopes late on Friday that the apparent strike attempt against an airbase near the city of Isfahan was sufficiently limited to fend off the threat of a bigger Iranian response and an uncontrolled spiral of violence between a nuclear power and a state with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons quickly.

The Guardian view on escalation in the Middle East: calculation does not equate to safety | Editorial

Both Iran and Israel are calibrating their responses. That does not mean the region should breathe easy

The danger facing the Middle East is not from wild or impulsive action, but from the considered decisions of men who believe they know what they are doing and how their opponents will respond. Their confidence is not reassuring when their judgment has previously fallen short.

On Friday, Iran was quick to play down the overnight strike by Israel, suggesting that it was unclear who was responsible and indicating that there would not be immediate retaliation. Israel had chosen to launch a limited attack on Isfahan, the home of a major nuclear site, without targeting the facility itself. The aim was apparently to send a message about what it could do, not to cause significant damage now. If this is the extent of its response to Iran’s weekend attack, it is far from the worst that many had predicted. The optimistic view is that both sides feel, or at least feel they can claim, that they have restored deterrence to some degree. A moment of respite is welcome. But relief would be premature.

Chelsea’s £76.5m hotel deals raise questions over PSR compliance

• Club’s losses reduced by property deal with sister company
• Chelsea would have lost £166.4m without hotel sales

Premier League clubs reacted with exasperation after seeing that ­Chelsea eased their financial ­position with the £76.5m sale of two hotels to a ­sister company in a deal that appears to have helped the club avoid a breach of profitability and ­sustainability rules (PSR).

Chelsea’s accounts, published last weekend, revealed the club made a loss of £89.9m in the last financial year. That figure would have been £166.4m without the hotels sale from Chelsea FC Holdings Ltd to Blueco 22 Properties Ltd. Both companies are subsidiaries of Chelsea’s holding company, Blueco 22 Ltd.

Taylor Swift’s new album is about a reckless kind of freedom. If only it sounded as uninhibited | Laura Snapes

The Tortured Poets Department depicts a spell of post-breakup mania against the perfect backdrop of the Eras tour – a thrillingly immature reality undermined by safe music

As The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) finally sees its official release, the intention behind the title remains as enigmatic as it was when Taylor Swift announced it two months ago. The title track seems to mock one such tortured poet who carts a typewriter around and likens the budding couple to Patti Smith and Dylan Thomas. “We’re modern idiots,” Swift laughs. The album’s aesthetic wallows in anguish and Swift’s liner notes and social media captions are littered with self-consciously poetic proclamations. And the erratic period captured in the lyrics couldn’t be further from a life of cloistered studiousness.

TTPD depicts a manic phase in Swift’s life last year, the reality behind the perfect stagecraft of the Eras tour. Wild-eyed from what sounds like the slow dissolution of a six-year relationship, she lunged at a once-forbidden paramour with a taste for dissolution, a foul mouth and a well-founded bad reputation. The latter, she makes clear as she sings repeatedly about flouting paternalistic and public censure, was a central part of the attraction: “He was chaos, he was revelry,” Swift sings on But Daddy I Love Him (evidently about the 1975’s Matty Healy).

How Israel uses facial recognition systems in Gaza and beyond

Amnesty International researcher Matt Mahmoudi discusses the IDF’s use of the techonology as a tool of mass surveillance

Governments around the world have increasingly turned to facial recognition systems in recent years to target suspected criminals and crack down on dissent. The recent boom in artificial intelligence has accelerated the technology’s capabilities and proliferation, much to the concern of human rights groups and privacy advocates who see it as a tool with immense potential for harm.

Few countries have experimented with the technology as extensively as Israel, which the New York Times recently reported has developed new facial recognition systems and expanded its surveillance of Palestinians since the start of the Gaza war. Israeli authorities deploy the system at checkpoints in Gaza, scanning the faces of Palestinians passing through and detaining anyone with suspected ties to Hamas. The technology has also falsely tagged civilians as militants, one Israeli officer told the Times. The country’s use of facial recognition is one of the new ways that artificial intelligence is being deployed in conflict, with rights groups warning this marks an escalation in Israel’s already pervasive targeting of Palestinians via technology.

Muted Iranian reaction to attack provides short-term wins for Netanyahu

Israeli prime minister’s main concern is his political survival but a multi-front war is still a strong possibility

• Middle East crisis – live updates

In the aftermath of Iran’s unprecedented salvo of missiles and drones fired directly at Israel at the weekend, Benny Gantz, a centrist member of the Israeli war cabinet, said the country would respond “in the place, time and manner it chooses”.

That turned out to be explosions in the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning. Although no Israeli official has claimed responsibility for what seem to have been drone strikes on a military installation, Tehran, which had launched its attack after an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus, has downplayed the incident.

Literary love affair: why Germany fell for a windswept corner of Ireland

Tourists have been descending on Achill ever since Heinrich Böll wrote effusively about its inhabitants’ customs and idiosyncrasies

In 1954, the German writer Heinrich Böll landed in Ireland for the first time, headed west and kept going till he reached the Atlantic Ocean. He was seeking a refuge from the brash materialism of postwar Germany, and found it on Achill Island, where waves crashed against cliffs, sheep foraged in fields and villagers went about their business of fishing, farming and storytelling.

The following year he returned with his family and began to observe and chronicle the customs, idiosyncrasies, sorrows and joys of its inhabitants. So began a literary love affair between Germany and a windswept corner of County Mayo that endures 70 years after the Nobel laureate’s first visit.

UK airline emissions on track to reach record high in 2024

Sector may breach the government’s Jet Zero strategy which pledged not to surpass 2019 CO₂ figures

Emissions from UK flights are rapidly returning to pre-pandemic levels, with CO₂ pollution from aviation on track to reach a record high this year.

The increase means the sector may breach a key plank of the government’s Jet Zero strategy, which pledged to not surpass 2019 figures on the way to reaching net zero emissions from aviation by 2050.

Manchester City face Chelsea with no time to dwell on Madrid heartache

Treble winners turn their focus to becoming the first English men’s club to claim a double-double in FA Cup semi-final

Chelsea beware: at 5.15pm on Saturday Pep Guardiola expects Manchester City to show precisely how little sorrow they feel for themselves after being dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid.

The FA Cup semi-final comes 72 hours after Wednesday’s penalty shootout heartbreak and, maybe, too soon for Mauricio Pochettino’s team as a smarting City aim to forget their lost double-treble and take another step in their bid to become the first English men’s club to claim a double-double.

Swedish police shoot man after three women attacked in Vasteras

Report says man carrying knife at time of arrest after attack left two women seriously injured

Swedish police have shot and arrested a man who allegedly injured three women with a sharp object in Vasteras, a town in central Sweden.

The women, aged between 65 and 80, were taken to hospital, police said on their website.

Bid to secure spot for glacier in Icelandic presidential race heats up

Idea Angela Rawlings had a decade ago for Snæfellsjökull has snowballed into a full-blown campaign with a team of 50 people

Standing in the shadow of Iceland’s Snæfellsjökull, – a 700,000-year-old glacier perched on a volcano and visible to half the country’s population on any given day – in 2010, Angela Rawlings was struck by an unconventional thought.

“It suddenly just came to me. What if the glacier was president?” said Rawlings. It was a seemingly unorthodox way to push forward a movement that was already swiftly advancing; Ecuador had enshrined legal rights for nature while Māori in New Zealand were working to secure legal personhood for the Whanganui River.

French PM accused of recycling far-right ideas in youth violence crackdown

Gabriel Attal says state needs ‘real surge of authority’ in speech in Viry-Châtillon, where 15-year-old killed

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is facing criticism for his proposed crackdown on teenage violence in and around schools, after he said some teenagers in France were “addicted to violence”, just as the government seeks to reclaim ground on security issues from the far right before European elections.

In his speech in Viry-Châtillon, a town south of Paris where a 15-year-old boy was beaten and killed this month by a group of young people, Attal said the state needed “a real surge of authority”.

FBI chief says Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical US infrastructure

Volt Typhoon hacking campaign is waiting ‘for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow’, says Christopher Wray

Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into US critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow”, the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has warned.

An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday.

Eating light: Finnish startup begins making food ‘from air and solar power’

Maker hopes solein, protein grown with CO2 and electricity, will cut environmental impact of farming

Nothing appears remarkable about a dish of fresh ravioli made with solein. It looks and tastes the same as normal pasta.

But the origins of the proteins which give it its full-bodied flavour are extraordinary: they come from Europe’s first factory dedicated to making human food from electricity and air.

‘It’s been a thrill!’ My first time at the mind-boggling Melbourne comedy festival

At the world’s biggest barrel of laughs, Hannah Gadsby, John Kearns and Rose Matafeo rub shoulders with homegrown stars-in-the-making. Our writer has the time of his life

What’s the biggest comedy festival in the world? Parochial Britons would say Edinburgh. Internationalists may consider Montreal’s Just for Laughs. They would all be wrong. Just for Laughs is out of the running: it filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, its future in doubt. And the Edinburgh fringe is a performing arts festival not just comedy. So for now, if only on that technicality, Melbourne has the biggest comedy festival in the world: a three-week carnival of standup, sketch and beyond, dedicated to nothing but the art of making people laugh.

In 20-plus years writing about comedy, I had never been – until now. But I have felt its influence. Twice recently, the winner of its most outstanding show award went on to win the Edinburgh equivalent. One was Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, arguably the most significant standup set of the last decade, which launched in Melbourne before conquering the world. And as recently as 2022, a former Melbourne champ – recent Taskmaster star Sam Campbell – won Edinburgh’s top prize, of which Australia has now provided more winners than any other non-UK country. The festival also played a weathervane role in the “trans debate”, when its main award – for years known as the Barry, after Barry Humphries – was re-named after the Dame Edna star’s divisive comments about transgender people.

In this shadow war between Iran and Israel, the outline of a different future is visible | Jonathan Freedland

Both seem keen to limit hostilities, and key Arab states are ready to resist Tehran. But real change will require new Israeli leadership

When it comes to the Middle East, it’s the pessimists who look smartest. Predict the worst and you’ll rarely be proved wrong. If you are, it’s usually because your forecast was insufficiently bleak.

So put on your gloom-tinted spectacles and assess the events of the last week. You’ll see the dawn of a grim new era, in which the region’s two strongest powers, Israel and Iran, trade blows directly. Last weekend, Iran crossed what had previously been a red line, aiming a barrage of missiles and drones directly at Israeli territory for the first time. In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel responded with a series of drone strikes on targets inside Iran, including Isfahan, site of an airbase and the country’s burgeoning nuclear programme. You don’t have to be Clausewitz to know that two regional powers, one an aspirant nuclear state, the other already there, engaged in a tit-for-tat exchange of fire aimed at each other’s sovereign terrain spells danger.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm BST, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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.

Is violently terrorising a community ‘terrorism’? It’s an uncomfortable debate to have | Karen Middleton

In the aftermath of the Bondi Junction and Wakeley stabbings, targeting one group constituted terrorism while targeting another did not

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As the nation reels from two terrible stabbing incidents in Sydney, two days apart, a question emerges that’s not easy to address.

When is violently terrorising a community “terrorism” and when is it not?

‘I’m just a lawnmower man, I’m no one special’: Nathan Stafford, the Sydney gardener with a following of millions

He has amassed a huge international social media audience for videos of tidying, ASMR and helping out ‘legends’. Now he has a meeting with a housing minister. Who is he?

On a quiet street in Sydney’s Glebe, Nathan Stafford is standing halfway up a ladder balancing his child’s old shoe, with his phone wedged inside, on the ladder’s top rung. He’s trying to angle his phone to get a good shot of the yard of a public housing unit below. The weeds have run wild and the grass is threatening to reclaim the concrete footpath snaking through.

Moments ago the shoe and the phone were atop a yellow bin he’d dragged to the front door of the home to film the resident, Jo Lee, as she answers his loud knock. She’d asked him to come help.

‘No death in Venice’: Israel-Gaza tensions infiltrate biennale

Protests erupt outside Israel pavilion, official Israeli artist pulls out, and Ukraine team puts up posters showing maps of nearest bomb shelter

Billionaires’ yachts and protests; cocktail parties and culture wars; bellinis and boycotts. The Venice Biennale’s opening preview days are always a place of odd clashes and juxtapositions, as artists, curators, critics and wealthy collectors descend on the city to take in often politically radical art.

But this year’s edition vibrates with particular uncertainty and tension – even, perhaps, an end-of-days atmosphere. The biennale, which this year stages exhibitions from 88 national pavilions, has been touched by political currents that originate far beyond the lapping waters of the Venetian lagoon.

Harry Styles stalker jailed for sending him 8,000 cards in a month

Myra Carvalho sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment and banned from seeing singer perform

A woman who stalked Harry Styles has been jailed and banned from seeing him perform.

Myra Carvalho, who appeared at Harrow crown court sitting at Hendon magistrates court in London, was said to have stalked the singer by sending him 8,000 cards in less than a month.

‘Only in Rio’: South Korea’s ambassador to Brazil is an unlikely samba star

Lim Ki-mo first heard Brazilian music 50 years ago in his home town of Busan; now his consular crooning marks a triumph of soft power

Brazil’s latest music sensation grinned from ear to ear as he moseyed down Copacabana beach contemplating his unusual rise to fame.

“Samba brings me joy and makes me happy,” the 59-year-old crooner said in Portuguese, as he paused to pose for photos in the shade of palm trees.

Kremlin spy suspect arrests may be tip of iceberg, says former German agency chief

Gerhard Schindler says Russia has been ‘ramping up’ operations in west, as two men are accused of plotting sabotage at military sites

A former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has warned that the discovery of two men suspected of plotting sabotage attacks on military facilities in the country could be just the “tip of the iceberg”.

After the arrest of the Russian-German citizens Dieter S and Alexander J on Wednesday, who are alleged to have been operating as spies on behalf of the Kremlin, Gerhard Schindler, the former chief of the BND, the equivalent of MI6, said it would be naive to see the incident as an isolated one.

EPA moves to make US polluters pay for cleanup of two forever chemicals

Superfund law requires industries responsible for PFOA and PFOS contamination in water or soil to pay for cleanup

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday designated two forever chemicals that have been used in cookware, carpets and firefighting foams as hazardous substances, an action intended to ensure quicker cleanup of the toxic compounds and require industries and others responsible for contamination to pay for their removal.

Designation as a hazardous substance under the Superfund law does not ban the chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS. But it requires that release of the chemicals into soil or water be reported to federal, state or tribal officials if it meets or exceeds certain levels. The EPA then may require cleanups to protect public health and recover costs that can reach tens of millions of dollars.

Beijing half marathon winner thrown out after trio slowed to let him win

• All four athletes disqualified and forced to return prize money
• Special committee issues apology but steers clear of fix talk

Organisers have revoked He Jie’s first place in the Beijing half marathon last weekend after an investigation confirmed that three other runners had slowed down to let him win the race. All four were disqualified and had to return their medals and prize money.

Online users in China had shared the video from the final moments of Sunday’s race out of suspicion that it had been rigged. The footage showed three African runners letting He, China’s top long-distance runner, move ahead of them shortly before they were about to reach the finish line.

‘I was trying to create the sound of a really warm hug’: the poignant story behind Monument Valley 2’s music

Todd Baker composed the soundtrack for the indie puzzler as he was living through the loss of his mother. On the series’ 10th anniversary, he reflects on the experience

‘The part where the mother and child are separated on a red mountain, in a level quite early on in the game where you have to get back to the mother and find her … I was completing the sound design and music for that in a hospital, right beside my mum when she was sleeping, recovering from open heart surgery.”

Todd Baker pauses for a second. He is recalling the development process of 2017’s Monument Valley 2, an indie puzzler, the highly anticipated follow-up to the one of the biggest success stories in mobile game history. The second game is more experimental than the first; it has more of a story, which in turn changed its feel. Whereas the first title is all optical illusions and impossible objects, the sequel moves away from MC Escher-inspired towers and spires and towards non-Euclidean geometry and brutalism.

Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for mango and Tajín semifreddo | The sweet spot

A creamy mango frozen dessert with a salty-sour chilli kick inspired by a Mexican street-food favourite

I spent two glorious weeks in Mexico City last year, and nearly every day I bought a large cup of the juiciest mango, all chopped up and sprinkled generously with a bright-red powder that I quickly learned was called Tajín. This is a ready-made spicy mix of chilli peppers, lime and salt that transforms mango into a perfectly sweet, spicy, tangy snack with which I soon became obsessed. I’ve channelled those flavours into this semifreddo for a refreshing, no-bake pudding.

Discover Benjamina’s recipes and over 1,000 more from your favourite cooks on the new Guardian Feast app, with smart features to make everyday cooking easier and more fun

My friend ranks his friendships in a league table – and it worries me | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

You need to consider why this bothers you so much and if you should bring it up. Without asking directly, it’s hard to know his motivation
• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a family-related problem sent in by a reader

Over a few drinks, a good friend of mine recently let slip that he keeps a spreadsheet of his friends, which he uses to rank them in tiers. Initially I laughed it off as drunken ramblings, but he then proceeded to show me the actual document, saved on his phone with comments next to people’s names.

I learned that he keeps a running score of his friends based on how often they WhatsApp him, take the time to call him or go to the pub or on a trip abroad together.

Crew of migrant rescue boat acquitted in Italy after seven-year ordeal

Case of the Iuventa became a symbol of what activists say are growing attempts to criminalise refugee aid workers

• Europe live – latest updates

Judges in Sicily have acquitted all crew members of an NGO rescue boat who had been accused of aiding and abetting illegal migration, in a case seen by activists as a symbol of the criminalisation of those who have sought to help at-risk refugees and migrants at sea.

Friday’s verdict, after seven years of proceedings, followed a surprise turn of events in February when prosecutors in Trapani unexpectedly requested the charges be dropped owing to a lack of evidence.

Tequilas and mezcals you will want to savour, not slam | Fiona Beckett on drink

They’re both made of agave, but is that where the similarity ends?

Few spirits are as misunderstood as mezcal. In fact, despite having written about it before, I realised how little I really knew at a recent tasting at the Mezcaleria at Kol, a Mexican restaurant in London run by a chef who used to work at Noma. (In a nutshell, not all mezcal tastes smoky, and almost no bottles contain a worm these days.) Tequila must run it a close second, though, and is still more associated with slamming than with sipping.

Both are made from agave, of which there are many different varieties, but tequila can be made only from blue agave in the state of Jalisco, while mezcal is made in nine other states, most commonly in and around Oaxaca from other types of agave, predominantly espadin. Some agave spirits are not even classified as either, mostly because of where they’re produced, but can also make great drinking.

For more by Fiona Beckett, go to fionabeckett.substack.com

Go Phish and Gold Beach sunrise: photos of the day – Friday

The Guardian’s picture editors select some of the most powerful photos from around the world

Artist evicted by London landlord cuts rent by commuting from Argentina

Andy Leek, creator of Notes to Strangers, made the move after finding himself unable to afford rising rents in UK capital

An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent is so much cheaper that it covers the cost of air fare.

Andy Leek, 38, whose Notes to Strangers works are pasted on to walls and junction boxes across more than 20 British and European cities, has moved to Buenos Aires where the rents are several times cheaper and he travels back to the UK roughly every two months for work. The flight costs less than a monthly train season ticket between Bristol and London.

‘Five-year-old on acid’: Liz Truss’s Ten Years to Save the West, digested by John Crace

Sketchwriter’s take on memoir of PM who screwed up catastrophically and quickly but thinks there’s still work to do

I was impatient to get going. Plans had been made. I picked up my phone. “ChatGPT. Write me a memoir in the style of an excitable five-year-old on acid.”

“We’ve only got 10 years to save the west,” I declared solemnly.

‘Messianic spell’: how Narendra Modi created a cult of personality

Experts say Indian PM is hoping to be ‘bigger than Gandhi’ as he aims to win a third term in office

As the distant rumble of a helicopter drew closer, cheers erupted from the gathered crowds in anticipation. By the time India’s prime minister finally stepped on to the stage, bowing deeply while immaculately dressed in a white kurta and peach waistcoat and with a neatly trimmed beard, the chants had reached a deafening pitch: “Modi, Modi, Modi.”

These scenes, at a campaign rally on the outskirts of the Uttar Pradesh city of Meerut, have been replicated across the country in recent weeks as Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) seek to win a third term in India’s election, which begins on 19 April and goes on for six weeks.

Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer review – a moral vacuum laughing at his own jokes

The comedian is desperate to make out his jokes about rape and domestic abuse will get him cancelled. In reality, this Netflix special is about as edgy as a Jim Davidson set

The darting eyes are new. As a young man, Jimmy Carr never had so much trouble keeping his eyeballs under control. In Natural Born Killer, the comedian’s new Netflix show, his pupils bounce from one side to the other so frequently it is like watching a game of table tennis. Or, as Carr might say in his affected working-class voice: “Watchin’ a game of fuckin’ table tennis.”

Why does Carr think he needs to swaddle his punchlines in frantic eye movement? Well, the man’s material is so edgy that he actually has to scan the room in case the woke police are in. “This next joke might get me cancelled,” he says at one point, like a teenager smelling his farts and chuckling that he could get thrown out of a sleepover. If delivering material that might as well have been cribbed from a Jim Davidson set can get you “cancelled” (“There’s a reason men propose on their knees – they’ve fucking given up”), Carr might well be.

Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer is on Netflix now

How New Zealand’s smoking ban got stubbed out – and what the UK can learn from it

Big tobacco ‘working in the shadows’ blamed for killing off NZ’s pioneering plan to protect future generations

• UK politics – latest updates

When New Zealand announced its world-first law to ban smoking for future generations it was widely hailed as a life-saving plan that would prevent thousands of smoking-related deaths, flatten out inequities in healthcare and save the economy billions of dollars.

The pioneering legislation – enacted in 2022 – introduced a steadily rising smoking age to stop those born after January 2009 from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes, alongside a slew of other measures to make smoking less affordable and accessible.

Claudia Winkleman on swearing, success and secrets: ‘I had to sign a contract promising not to sing’

With three hit shows – Strictly, The Traitors and the returning The Piano – Claudia Winkleman is TV’s hottest presenter. She talks about being tone deaf, being a style icon … and why she’s allergic to praise

Claudia Winkleman is convinced she gave the ick to Mika and Lang Lang, her co-stars on Channel 4 hit The Piano. “They’re so alarmed by my eating habits,” she says. “My mic’s always on and all they can hear is me munching beef-flavoured Hula Hoops.” To illustrate the point, she launches into an uncanny impression of loud crisp-crunching noises echoing down a lapel mic.

Winkleman recently wrapped filming a new run of the ivory-tinkling talent search, which has meant living off train station food. “I look up each one’s eateries in advance,” she admits. “I adore a Greggs and I’ve fallen in love with Upper Crust. They do a cheddar baguette that’s almost erotic. Obviously, I always have a Burger King. A Murder King, I call it. You know you’re in a different class of station if there’s a Leon. In Liverpool, they’ve got Krispy Kreme. I crashed and burned by 9.48am because I made the mistake of scoffing a tray of Original Glazed for breakfast. I was like: ‘Guys, I need a nap.’ The producer went: ‘Can somebody get Claud a coffee? And no more sugar!’ OK, boss, fair enough.”

Ocean spray emits more PFAS than industrial polluters, study finds

Research into release of ‘forever chemicals’ raises concerns about contamination and human exposure along world’s coastlines

Ocean waves crashing on the world’s shores emit more PFAS into the air than the world’s industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

‘No limits’: how the marathon was overtaken in sprint to stretch horizons

Race distance seen as pinnacle of human achievement since time of ancient Greece is no longer the finishing line for what body can endure

The Olympic marathon held 120 years ago saw 32 people start, 14 finish, the winner disqualified for spending most of the race in a car, and another competitor undergo emergency surgery for the damage caused by inhaling dust thrown up by the cars and bicycles that accompanied the athletes around the outskirts of St Louis.

“When the Games are held in 1908 I do not think that the marathon will be included in the program,” said James Sullivan of the Amateur Athletic Union, the event’s organiser. “I personally am opposed to it and it is indefensible on any ground but historic. A 25-mile run is asking too much of human endurance. In sending some 30 men or more into an endurance test as keen and terrible as the marathon run, an awful chance is taken.”

UN livestock emissions report seriously distorted our work, say experts

Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics

A flagship UN report on livestock emissions is facing calls for retraction from two key experts it cited who say that the paper “seriously distorted” their work.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) misused their research to underestimate the potential of reduced meat intake to cut agricultural emissions, according to a letter sent to the FAO by the two academics, which the Guardian has seen.

Meghan’s gone from royal upsetter to tradwife in three short years. Given what’s out there, you’d do the same | Gaby Hinsliff

Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse she’s suffered simply for being a modern black woman

Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliver’s children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussex’s new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.

In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. It’s only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, it’s goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.

The death of the Republican party is not a tragedy to be celebrated | Robert Reich

Richard Nixon infected the modern Republican party with a sickness that would kill it – Donald Trump has finished the job

Last Sunday, on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s Republican governor, about his recent switch from supporting Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting former president Donald Trump.

“Your words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,” Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. “You said that President Trump’s rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.”

‘Why the silence? Why the inaction? It breaks my heart’: Malala and Jennifer Lawrence take on the Taliban

The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril

“Strong women are not easy women,” says Jennifer Lawrence, “and a woman’s life is lonely. So much of our experience cannot be shared or understood by men, and our rights are in their hands. That’s why we need each other.”

The two other people on our video call nod in agreement. One is Malala Yousafzai, who, with Lawrence, has produced a new documentary about the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban after US troops withdrew in 2021. The other is Sahra Mani, who directed it.

Columbia University is colluding with the far-right in its attack on students | Moira Donegan

In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protesters, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

The students sat on the ground and sang as police in riot gear approached them. Eventually, more than 100 of them would be arrested; their tents, protest signs and Palestinian flags were gathered into trash bags by the police and thrown away. One video showed officers and university maintenance workers destroying food that had been donated to the encampment, making sure it would be inedible. According to student journalists reporting from WKCR, Columbia University’s student radio station, one arrested student protester asked the police to be allowed to go to their dorm to collect medication and was denied; as a result, they went into shock. The arrested students were charged with “trespassing” on the campus that they are charged more than $60,000 a year to attend.

The day before her administration asked the New York police department to storm their campus and arrest their students, Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, testified before Congress, saying that she wanted her university to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. But Shafik, who was called to testify after missing a hearing last year where the presidents of Penn and Harvard were each grilled on their insufficient hostility to pro-Palestinian students, appeared eager to please the Republican-controlled committee. The Penn and Harvard presidents who had testified each lost their jobs soon thereafter; Shafik clearly entered the hearing room determined to keep her own.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Experience: I lost my hands after being electrocuted by 14,400 volts

As the scrap metal touched the power line, everything went black

In 2010, I’d been working in Colorado, in one of the world’s most dangerous professions. As a lineman, it was my job to maintain and repair electrical power lines. I knew the risks, and had already witnessed them when my brother, who worked in the same field, lost his right arm in 2008. That same accident saw a colleague lose his life. I began to question whether it was a career I should stay in. I told myself I wasn’t a quitter, but after 13 December 2010, everything changed for me.

On that day, I was standing on a platform, working on a power line. I was cutting a wire to size and wanted to throw some scrap on to the ground. My colleague was down below me, and I didn’t want to hit him in the head, so I spun around to throw the piece elsewhere. The power line above was protected by a plastic insulating cover, I was being very careful, but in that tiny second the wire touched a part that wasn’t wrapped up. Then 14,400 volts charged through my body. Everything went black.

‘It taught me about brainwashing’: how reality show stars fell for a fake Prince Harry

A show in which women competed to date a royal lookalike was panned at the time as ‘fodder for the braindead’. But the contestants had been duped, as a new podcast reveals …

Next month marks a decade since one of the most ridiculous reality shows ever aired on television. I Wanna Marry “Harry” was a dating show in which 12 American women dated Prince Harry, then the world’s most eligible bachelor. Only, obviously, it wasn’t him at all. The “Harry” in question was a lookalike: according to the show, a “99% lookalike” (I will let you be the judge).

Airing on Fox in the US before making its way to ITV2, the reality show consisted of the dozen potential girlfriends being whisked to a secluded mansion in the Berkshire countryside, then going on a series of dates with the fake prince. It was constantly implied by the production team that they were in the presence of royalty: Harry was even referred to as “sir”, when really he was plain old Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant from Exeter who had had his hair dyed ginger. The stunts for the ruse were quite something: from “sir” being whisked away by men in sunglasses after a “security incident”, to fake paparazzi invading a date before being tackled to the ground. Fake Harry was even Photoshopped into an image alongside the real Prince William for a potential date to stumble across while Hicks went to the bathroom.

Kenya’s ‘blood desert’: can walking donor banks and drones help more patients survive?

The national blood deficit is most pressing in places like Turkana, where malaria, anaemia and violence make heavy demands on transfusion services – and doctors are pinning their hopes on innovation

In his small cubicle in Lodwar County referral hospital in north-west Kenya, Edward Mutebi, the technician in charge of the hospital’s blood bank, greets a nurse from the maternity ward. “We want more blood,” the nurse says. “The previous allocation was not enough.”

Mutebi dashes into an adjacent room and hands the nurse a pack of blood from a freezer, leaving the paperwork for later. Back at the maternity ward, it is a race against time as doctors try to stabilise a mother who has lost too much blood during delivery. Her haemoglobin level is dangerously low.

Iran and Israel playing with fire as old rules of confrontation are torn up

Reported Israeli drone strike on Isfahan may signal that this widening conflict has become more dynamic

• Middle East crisis – live updates
• What we know so far about Israel’s strike on Iran

While the details remain vague, and Iranian denials strong, it seems very likely, given past history and strong comments from US officials, that a limited Israeli drone strike was launched against the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning.

Isfahan is significant for its military-industrial facilities, the presence of an important facility in Iran’s nuclear programme and a major airbase hosting the Islamic Republic’s ageing fleet of F-14 “Tomcats”, making the importance of any strike, whether carried out from beyond Iran’s borders or from within but backed by Israel, more than symbolic.

Week in wildlife – in pictures: a hungry jackal, a cat with webbed feet and a cheeky badger

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

You be the judge: should my sister help me challenge our brother’s sexist views?

Mina confronts Tom, but little sister Layla would rather keep the peace. You decide who’s right in this sister act?

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Confronting Tom’s toxic attitudes is good practice for my sister and will boost her confidence

Mina wants to make a stand, but after a row, it’s me who has to deal with the aftershocks at home

Nuclear fields and insect feasts: The Sony World Photography awards – in pictures

Intricate spider’s webs, hornless rhinos and the world of Bavarian finger wrestling all feature in this year’s exhibition of mind-blowing photography

• Juliette Pavy: Sony World Photographer of the Year 2024

What is bitcoin halving – and will it affect the price?

Process has coincided with a rise in price in the past and is due to take place again on Saturday

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, still has an influence on the cryptocurrency nearly 14 years after disappearing.

This week the protocol designed by Nakamoto – an individual or group of individuals who went silent in December 2010 – will trigger what is known as a “bitcoin halving”, a process that has coincided with price increases in the past. The latest halving is expected to take place on Saturday.

‘A water world teeming with wildlife’: readers’ favourite national parks in Europe

From camping beside glacial lakes in Montenegro to birdwatching in Poland, the continent has no shortage of inspiring wilderness adventures

One of the most incredible bird scenes in Europe took place as I hiked through the Bielawa nature reserve in northern Poland, about 40 miles north of Gdansk. I had left the village of Sławoszyno via a dirt track and was heading towards Kłanino, the open countryside and fields disappearing from my sight as the hedgerows grew taller either side of me. As I stepped forward, a gap appeared in the hedge and in front of my eyes a flock of nearly 100 cranes, which had been silent, took off across the field, honking with their red-tinged heads and faces, and feathery wing feathers flapping. I could almost touch them. The 19,000-hectare (47,000-acre) park is a mix of forest, wetland and coast.
Rita

Moving pictures: travelling cinema takes stories of ‘departures and dreams’ to Senegal

Cinemovel is screening Oscar-nominated Io Capitano to packed houses around the country, highlighting the perils migrants face on the journey to Europe

At about 1pm on Monday a 35-seater bus arrived in Pikine, a city east of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. A portable screen, projector, sound system and generator were unpacked to set up a temporary cinema in a lively neighbourhood where the scent of hibiscus and orange blossom fill the air.

Pikine’s cultural centre was the first stop for Cinemovel, a travelling cinema that is showing the Oscar-nominated Italian film Io Capitano in the streets and villages of Senegal. It is part of an initiative run by the Cinemovel Foundation, an Italian group that has been bringing a touring cinema to remote parts of Africa since 2001.

A historic revolt, a forgotten hero, an empty plinth: is there a right way to remember slavery? – podcast

As the author of a book about a pivotal uprising in 18th-century Jamaica, Vincent Brown was enlisted in a campaign to make its leader a national hero. But when he arrived in Jamaica, he started to wonder what he had got himself into

The chilling policy to cut Greenland’s high birth rate – podcast

In the 1960s the birthrate in Greenland was one of the highest in the world. Then it plunged. Decades later, women have finally begun speaking out about what happened

Bula Larsen was 14 when one day she and her friends were told to go to the hospital. Bula lived in Greenland and was Inuit like most of the population of the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark. At the hospital she and her friends lined up, and one-by-one were told to enter a room. Bula recalls how she was asked to sit on a bed with ‘cold metal stirrups’ where, to her shock, she was fitted with an IUD, a contraceptive coil she had never asked for or agreed to have.

Today, more than 100 women are suing the Danish government for a policy of forced contraception. Helen Pidd hears how thousands of Inuit women and girls – some aged just 13 – were fitted with coils. Many say this was done without their or their parents’ consent, and caused lasting damage.

A silent Trump glowers and stares during third day of criminal trial

This was not Donald Trump the business mogul or Donald Trump the 45th president – it was Donald Trump the defendant

With Donald Trump just a few feet away, a potential juror in the criminal case against him summed up the experience in just three words. “This is bizarre,” she said, with just a slight hint of a seasoned New York accent.

Bizarre it was. There was a potential juror who once spent the night at one of Trump’s lawyers’ homes more than a decade ago (Trump’s team used one of its peremptory strikes to remove the juror). The microphones didn’t work. The proceedings had to start over when Judge Juan Merchan realized that a court reporter hadn’t been present first thing. And the temperature in the courthouse was so frigid that Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, asked Merchan if it would be possible to turn up the temperature “just one degree”.

Record-breaking ballet dancers and protesting farmers : photos of the day – Thursday

The Guardian’s picture editors select some of the most powerful photos from around the world

Manchester City and Arsenal crash out of Champions League – Football Weekly Extra

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nicky Bandini, Lars Sivertsen and Sid Lowe as Real Madrid and Bayern account for Manchester City and Arsenal in the Champions League quarter-finals

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: you can never write off Real Madrid. Manchester City dominated them for almost the entire 120 minutes, but they stayed in it and ultimately went through on penalties to exorcise the demons from their collapse at the Etihad last year.

‘We can’t hunt or fish’: the villages in Ecuador’s Amazon surrounded by abandoned explosives

In 2002, high explosives were laid in oil wells across 20 sq km of forest. The firm has gone but the pentolite remains, despite a court ruling, putting lives and the ecosystem at risk

Living on the banks of the Bobonaza River, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Indigenous communities in Sarayaku have always lived in harmony with nature. The rainforest, says Patricia Gualinga, is a sacred, conscious being.

So when an Argentinian company was allowed to place a huge amount of high explosive around the rainforest to prospect for oil, the local Kichwa people fought back and eventually took their case to an international court. More than a decade after winning their legal battle, however, the explosives remain strewn around the community’s territory.

Party with an 8ft pink panther! Ibiza in the 70s and 80s – in pictures

The Spanish photographer Oriol Maspons is known for his reportage, portraiture, fashion and advertising work in the 1950s and 60s. But from the late 1960s to the late 1980s he would holiday in Ibiza, where he took pictures for pleasure. His humorous and playful photographs of the island’s beachgoers and clubbers disclose the new attitudes to nudity, sexuality and freedom of expression in the post-Franco era

• Oriol Maspons’s Ibiza is published by IDEA

Who really wins if the Enhanced Games go ahead? – podcast

Billed as a rival to the Olympic Games, the Enhanced Games, set to take place in 2025, is a sporting event with a difference; athletes will be allowed to dope. Ian Sample talks to chief sports writer Barney Ronay about where the idea came from and how it’s being sold as an anti-establishment underdog, and to Dr Peter Angell about what these usually banned substances are, and what they could do to athletes’ bodies

Clips: Talk TV, News Nation, Inside with Brett Hawke, ESPN

Read Barney Ronay’s opinion piece on the Enhanced Games

‘I was severely stalked and severely abused’: Richard Gadd on the true story behind Baby Reindeer

The chilling, visceral, deeply compelling comedy-drama has caused shock waves worldwide since launching last weekend. But what about the experiences that inspired it?

When Richard Gadd wrote Monkey See Monkey Do for the Edinburgh fringe in 2016, he says, “it was pre-#MeToo; sexual assault wasn’t really in the public consciousness, and male sexual assault particularly wasn’t”. He was 27 and catastrophically anxious, and his flatmates were worried, asking him: “What are you doing? No, like, really what are you doing?”

The show – you’d struggle to call it standup, though it won the Edinburgh comedy award that year – is a personal and harrowing account of being raped by a manipulative older man he met earlier in his career. It’s extremely painful to watch, as Gadd’s nascent professional hopes and fantasies are traded on and exploited, leaving him isolated and hollowed out.

Can Rishi Sunak create a smoke-free generation? - podcast

MPs voted this week to ban anyone aged 15 or younger in 2024 from ever buying cigarettes. If the legislation passes and is enacted, it would be a world first. Ben Quinn reports

Before 2007, going out on the town in the UK involved inhaling secondhand smoke – on trains, in restaurants, in clubs and in pubs. Even non-smokers would find that a stale tobacco scent could linger after an evening out. The ban on smoking indoors in public places changed things almost overnight.

Now with smoking rates among the population plummeting, the government is going a step further: it intends to ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009. To that age cohort onwards, the sale of cigarettes would be prohibited.

PSG and Dortmund thrill in two classic Champions League quarter-finals – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Fadugba and Archie Rhind-Tutt as Borussia Dortmund and PSG book their places in the Champions League last four

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today; Barcelona were 4-2 up on aggregate at home and a Ronald Araujo red card changed the game. What can we make of a worryingly competent and almost likeable PSG side?

Wedding photography: share your experiences

We would like to hear about the ambitious wedding photography you’ve been involved in

With wedding season approaching its peak, wedding photography seems to be getting more ambitious, from a full-scale production to rival Hollywood, involving multiple angles and drone shots, to epic and hard-to-reach locations.

Are you a wedding photographer who has had to manage bigger expectations and still deliver the shots? Have you been a guest where you’ve had to cooperate with the couple’s extreme photography requests?

From the archive: Did Brazil’s evangelical superstar have her husband killed? – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.

This week, from 2021: Flordelis grew up in a Rio favela, but rose to fame after adopting more than 50 children, becoming a hugely successful gospel singer and winning a seat in congress. And now she is on trial for murder. By Tom Phillips

Footage shows people in Gaza fleeing strikes as people try to return to the north – video

Video shared across social media shows alleged IDF strikes and sniper fire targeting groups of people attempting to travel to the north of Gaza, which Israel says is an active 'war zone'. The northern half of the coastal enclave has been sealed off by the Israeli military, but rumours spread over the weekend of civilians passing through, triggering a wave of people trying to return to their homes

Paintings rescued after fire breaks out at Copenhagen's old stock exchange – video

Dramatic footage shows artworks being removed from Copenhagen's 17th-century former stock exchange after the landmark building was engulfed in flames.

Plumes of black smoke were seen rising from the Dutch Renaissance-style building, which was undergoing renovation and clad in scaffolding. People were seen rushing in and out of the building carrying paintings to safety, and Danish media reported an annexe of the parliament and several ministries nearby, including the finance ministry, had been evacuated

• Spire collapses after fire breaks out at Copenhagen’s old stock exchange

Young people in the UK: how do you feel about voting?

We’d like to hear how people under 30 in Britain feel about voting in political elections, and whether they are planning to go to the polls this year

We’re interested to hear from young people in the UK about how they feel about voting.

If you are under 30 and live in the UK, tell us whether you’re planning to vote in upcoming political elections, and if not why not. Are you registered to vote? Do you believe your vote can make a difference? Have you voted in the past or are you a potential first time voter?

'It felt like something surreal': Wakeley community on Sydney church stabbing – video

Australian police conducted investigations outside the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church, a day after an alleged knife attack at the site that has been declared a terrorist act. At least four people were wounded in the incident, including Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, who was allegedly stabbed at the altar of his own church. A live stream of the service on the church’s website showed a person approaching the altar who then appeared to stab toward the bishop's head multiple times. Crowds gathered outside the church after the incident and were moved on after police officers were attacked

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• Sydney church stabbing: police treating the alleged stabbing of bishop as terrorist attack

Who are the six victims of the Bondi Junction mass stabbing? - video

Yixuan Cheng has been confirmed as the sixth person stabbed to death in Bondi Junction on Saturday in what police are now investigating as a murderous rampage possibly targeting women. The Chinese national was a student in her 20s at the University of Sydney. Five women and one man were killed by Queensland man Joel Cauchi on Saturday while 12 others, including an infant, were injured. Eight of the injured were women, according to the NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb.

• Bondi Junction mass stabbing attack: who are the six victims?

• Bondi Junction stabbings: Joel Cauchi's father 'extremely sorry' for victims – video

Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video

Scientists have recorded widespread bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef as global heating creates a fourth planet-wide bleaching event. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch, 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have been experiencing heat stress high enough to cause bleaching

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• Global heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record

They’re fighting polluters destroying historically Black towns – starting with their own

When Joy and Jo Banner founded the Descendants Project in 2020, they didn’t expect to be defending their hometown first

aWhen twin sisters Joy and Jo Banner founded their non-profit, the Descendants Project, in 2020, their goal was to protect the Black-founded “freetowns” in Louisiana’s river parishes. Like the Banners’ hometown of Wallace, many of the Black communities that abut the lower Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans were founded after emancipation by people who’d once been enslaved.

Today, decades of disinvestment have left freetowns vulnerable to predatory development, land theft and industrialization. The Banners hoped to reverse those trends. Yet within weeks of creating their organization, their purpose shifted dramatically. Instead of supporting other Black communities, the twins found themselves fighting for their own hometown’s survival. Wallace, population 1,240, was facing an existential threat in the form of the proposed construction of a gargantuan grain-export terminal, the latest in an onslaught of industrial growth along the lower Mississippi River. The terminal would “drain us of all of our resources and all of our quality of life”, Joy said. “The overall goal is to run all of us out.”

People in the US: share your ‘modern wedding etiquette’ suggestions

Have you asked for cash gifts from your guests, rather than a stainless steel dining set? We want to hear from you

While the notion of marriage may be steeped in tradition, many couples like to add a modern twist to etiquette and their own stamp on “the rules”.

In fact, in 2024, established norms at wedding ceremonies are relatively loose. For example, it’s fine for a bridesmaid not go to the bachelorette party if she can’t afford it.

Teachers: tell us about moving from abroad to a school in England

We want to speak with teachers from Jamaica and other countries that have seen a rise in those moving to a job in England

Schools in England are increasingly recruiting teachers from overseas, with an impact on school staff shortages in countries such as Jamaica.

We would like to speak with teachers who have recently moved countries to teach in a school in England. If you moved in the last two years, tell us about your experience. Why did you decide to move? How do you feel about it? Do you have any concerns?

Our lives in the UK asylum system: 'the power of fear' – video

The Guardian has been working with a group of community reporters in Rochdale and Oldham who wanted to highlight the realities for women in the asylum system across Greater Manchester. Supported by the Elephants Trail, the group met women stuck in the asylum backlog, women traumatised by detention and women struggling to find housing. They were all volunteering in their communities, while reckoning with a hostile climate towards refugees and asylum seekers. This film is part of a collaborative video series called Made in Britain

• Britain's broken welfare system is leaving our community on the brink

Sites of resistance: threatened African burial grounds around the world

Too often cemeteries for enslaved people have been all but erased from history but how we remember matters

• Buried: remembering the transatlantic slave trade

For archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free – defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming people’s humanity through acts of remembrance.

When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupert’s Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguously placed the island at the centre of the Middle Passage – tying the British empire to the institution of slavery in the US, the Caribbean, and globally.

St Helena urged to return remains of 325 formerly enslaved people to Africa

British overseas territory may face legal action over alleged failure to honour reburial plan after remains found during airport project

• Scraping away generations of forgetting: my fight to honour the Africans buried on St Helena

A British overseas territory is being urged to return the remains of 325 formerly enslaved people to their ancestral kingdoms in Africa, or potentially face legal action.

The remains were excavated in 2008 when an access road to a new airport was being built on the remote South Atlantic Ocean island of St Helena. They were held in storage for 14 years before being reburied.

Scraping away generations of forgetting: my fight to honour the Africans buried on St Helena

A braid from a formerly enslaved African buried on the island was the catalyst for Annina van Neel’s work to preserve and share these histories

• St Helena urged to return remains of 325 formerly enslaved people to Africa
• Buried: how we choose to remember the transatlantic slave trade – documentary

At the end of January 2012, I arrived on St Helena after a six-day journey by ship from Cape Town. After being surrounded by water for nearly a week, the sight of land on the midnight-blue horizon was overwhelming. It was as though someone had forgotten their piece of land in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. 47 square miles of volcanic rock, 2,810 miles from the coast of Brazil and 1,610 miles from Angola – an oasis in a desert, an enigma.

I arrived on the island as part of the project team constructing St Helena’s first airport. Previously accessible only by sea, this incredible community, which had been defined by its isolation as an outpost and a place of exile for 500 years, would for the first time be easily reached by the rest of the world.