A new kind of van life: $180 to camp for seven months – and a real taste of freedom

As the US sees rapidly rising housing costs, nomads flock to the public lands around Quartzsite, Arizona, where a person can legally live for more than half a year

This story was produced in partnership with Re:Public Lands Media, an independent, non-profit news organization. Sign up for Re:Public’s newsletter.

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Published: May 5, 2026, 4:00 am

‘Pocket-sized symbol of colonial loot’: how New York’s mayor revived Koh-i-noor diamond debate

Zohran Mamdani’s suggestion King Charles should return diamond to India has reopened old wounds

It may not be the biggest or most precious jewel ensconced in the Tower of London, but few diamonds have a legacy to rival that of the Koh-i-noor.

Likely to have originated in southern India, the diamond’s history is that of a great disruptor across the subcontinent, exchanging hands over centuries through acts of war, violence and assassination from Mughal emperors, Persian invaders, Sikh Kings and eventually snatched by the British colonial rulers of India.

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:32 am

Met Gala 2026 red carpet: the best looks in pictures

Event chairs Nicole Kidman, Beyoncé, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour have guests dress to the theme ‘Fashion is art’ at the event controversially funded by new honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos

Published: May 4, 2026, 2:23 pm

The man who blew up a nuclear power station and disappeared

In December 1982, South African Rodney Wilkinson walked four bombs into Koeberg power station – the crown jewel of the apartheid state – pulled the pins and then left on his bicycle. How did he do it?

At 21, Rodney Wilkinson was the best fencer in South Africa: national champion in foil and sabre, second in epee. He had toured Europe and Argentina. He had not stood on the Olympic podium, because South Africa was banned. The apartheid state had taken that from him, along with everything else it took from everyone.

One evening in August 1971, Wilkinson stood in the gym at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, foil in hand. He was facing his coach Vincent Bonfil, a 25-year-old Englishman who had represented Britain as a reserve at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, and who was now in Johannesburg finishing a master’s thesis in metallurgy. They were working on a technique in which both fencers lunge simultaneously, and the one who reads the other’s move a split second earlier wins the point. They came at each other. Wilkinson’s foil caught the edge of Bonfil’s sleeve. There was a pop.

Published: May 4, 2026, 9:00 pm

Is Jeff Bezos the real villain of The Devil Wears Prada 2?

The film’s villain is a conniving tech oligarch seeking to buy his way into fashion’s inner circle. Sound familiar?

In The Devil Wears Prada 2, we’re introduced to a very different Miranda Priestly. There was a time where the all-powerful queen of fashion – who is played by Meryl Streep and based on Vogue’s longest-serving editor, Anna Wintour – could end careers with a glance. But this time, she spends most of the movie taking orders herself. First, we see her at the behest of advertisers, then publishing magnate Irv Ravitz and his irritating nepo baby son. And it isn’t long before Benji Barnes, an eccentric billionaire, shows up and threatens to dismantle the excellence she has spent her entire career championing.

In the film, Benji is played – scarily well, I should add – by Justin Theroux. After a high-profile divorce, he has had a “glow-up”, which loosely translates to losing weight and boasting a deep mahogany tan. Post-divorce, he is now in a relationship with Emily – Miranda’s acerbic former assistant, played by the scene-stealing Emily Blunt, who is described as “every girl who ignored him in high school”. Benji’s inclusion in the story feels representative of the wider media landscape, where the whims of billionaires decide which parts of the old, pre-social media world get to survive. And for Emily, she’s learning that being associated with someone so powerful has the potential to help her finally step out of Miranda’s shadow. The romance between these diametric opposites – Type A fashion queen and a nerd who grew up to become one of the world’s richest men – provides a stream of comic relief. But beyond the laughs are a deeper – and bleaker – statement about how people with enough money can buy cultural power.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:00 am

Menopause is tough. But it’s fantastic being a woman in her 60s

My girlfriends and I have more fun, more adventures, more independence than ever before. And as for the sex …

I met my boyfriend when he was playing Bach in the park. I was taking my usual jog past London zoo and around the Regent’s Park boating lake when I was stopped in my tracks by the most beautiful music. Wafting across the rose garden was an exquisite guitar rendition of Bach’s prelude in E major. When the final notes hung in the air like gossamer, I congratulated the musician. A twinkly-eyed bloke smiled up at me. “Ah, no bother,” he said in a soft Irish burr.

At the sound of his mellifluous, velvety voice, my heart beat so loudly I felt as though it was coming through stereo speakers. His eyes seemed to smoke their way into me. I stared at him for what I estimate to be about, oh, a decade, but was probably only two seconds, before asking him for coffee. Pathetic, I know. A romcom “meet-cute” like this is not just cheesy; it’s deep-fried Brie in a bechamel sauce on a bed of melted cheddar.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:00 am

Middle East crisis live: Hegseth says US-Iran ceasefire ‘is not over’ despite growing tensions in strait of Hormuz

US defence secretary tells press Iran is attempting ‘international extortion’ but the ceasefire remains in place

• Donald Trump sends warships to break Iran’s strait of Hormuz blockade

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, is travelling to Beijing later today for talks with his Chinese counterpart “on bilateral relations and regional and international developments”, his ministry said on its Telegram account.

While Beijing condemned the initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran which started the war in late February, China has largely adopted a posture of neutrality ever since and has urged for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:52 am

Ohio voters head to polls to select candidates for midterm elections

State expected to play major role in deciding whether Republicans maintain control of Congress in his final two years

Voters in Ohio on Tuesday are selecting candidates ahead of November’s midterm elections. The state is expected to play a major role in deciding whether Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans maintain control of Congress for the final two years of his term.

The race with the highest national profile is Ohio’s Senate special election, in which Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is vying to unseat the Republican incumbent, Jon Husted, and return to the chamber after failing to win re-election in 2024. The winner will serve the final two years of the term JD Vance won in 2022, before he became vice-president last year.

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:30 am

Protesters push Portland to investigate firm that appears to supply drone tech to Israel

Sightline Intelligence sent AI-supported tool to company that provides drones to Israeli military, research group says

Anti-war activists in Portland, Oregon, are pushing city authorities to ensure no local resources, tax breaks or investments support a local company that appears to be supplying artificial intelligence software to the Israeli military.

The company, Sightline Intelligence, manufactures AI-supported video technology that is used in drones to interpret target movements and make quick decisions based on the perceived threat level. Cargo documents appear to show Sightline has shipped its technology to Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer that provides drones to that country’s military and exports to others. The activists argue that such sales violate the UN’s arms agreements.

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:00 am

World ‘unprepared’ for next pandemic as countries fail to agree on sharing information, tests and vaccines

Finalisation of pact governing global response to disease outbreaks delayed as talks on how to share benefits stall

A key deadline to finalise a global pandemic treaty has been missed by negotiators, prompting warnings that the world remains unprepared for the next major disease outbreak.

Countries have been trying to agree how they should share information on pathogens, such as bacteria or viruses, that could cause pandemics – and what access to any resulting vaccines, tests and treatments they should be guaranteed in return.

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:34 am

Trump administration investigates Smith College for admitting transgender women

Civil rights inquiry claims policy may breach Title IX as administration escalates attacks on trans rights

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The US education department is investigating one of the country’s largest women’s colleges over its admittance of transgender women in another escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on trans people.

The department’s office of civil rights announced the investigation on Monday in a press release, saying the Massachusetts college could be violating federal law by “allowing biological males into women’s intimate spaces”, including dorms, bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams.

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:50 am

Remains of US airman missing since second world war laid to rest in Florida

Robert Cyr Jr, a US navy airman, had gone missing in 1944 when his seaplane crashed in the Segond channel

The remains of a US military aviator who went missing after his crew crashed during the second world war were recovered and identified through DNA analysis and his family recently laid him to rest in Florida, according to officials.

US navy airman Robert Cyr Jr’s burial in Clearwater, Florida, brought to an end a decades-long saga that began on 22 January 1944, when he and eight fellow crewmates crashed while they were aboard a seaplane as it took off in the Segond channel in what is now the south Pacific’s Republic of Vanuatu.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:00 am

The Odyssey: new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s classical Greek epic released online

Trailer offers glimpses of Matt Damon as mythological hero Odysseus, Tom Holland as his son Telemachus and Anne Hathaway as his wife, Penelope

The new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey has been released.

Starring Matt Damon as mythological hero Odysseus, the epic film retells the story of Odysseus’ 10-year voyage back to his homeland of Ithaca after the Greek victory at the siege of Troy.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:13 am

London Marathon sets record after 1.8% of UK adult population applies for 2027 race

• Over one million entries received from UK runners

• London also sets record with 1.3m total applications

The London Marathon has set yet more records with organisers announcing that 1.8% of the UK adult population – more than one million people – have applied to run in next year’s race.

Running’s boom was also reflected in a world record 1,338,544 global application for the 2027 London Marathon – up from 1.13m for this year’s race and more than double the amount they received in 2024.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:06 am

As household bills soar, is it time for a ‘working-class climate agenda’?

Proposal from group that worked with AOC and Bernie Sanders seeks to counter claim that climate policy is politically toxic

Americans do not care about the climate crisis, only economic issues: that’s the message some wonks have put forth in the past year, as the Trump administration has dismantled environmental protections. But the shift away from climate is misguided, an influential group of progressives is arguing.

“The climate crisis is a core driver of the cost-of-living crisis and instability we see across the economy,” says a new policy platform from left-leaning thinktank Climate and Community Institute (CCI).

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:30 am

They were hunted by the Taliban for helping the US. Now, Trump wants to send these families to the DRC

Thousands of Afghans who assisted US forces are stuck in limbo in Qatar. Instead of promised resettlement in America, they face an uncertain future in another war-torn country

Hasina Nasimi* had been counting down to 27 January 2025, the day she was booked on a flight with her husband and four children, to Denver, Colorado. Her brother, four sisters and mother were already there, rebuilding their lives after fleeing Afghanistan.

Nasimi’s father and brother were killed by the Taliban; her brother shot in 2018 because the family’s eldest son Mohammad had worked as a translator for American forces during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Since then, the family had received threats and lived cautiously. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, they knew they had to leave.

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:00 am

Man accused of starting Palisades fire was ‘angry, intense, driving erratically’, lawyers say

Jonathan Rinderknecht’s attorneys say he’s being used as scapegoat for Los Angeles fire department’s failure to fully extinguish earlier blaze

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The man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades fire in Los Angeles was upset over a failed relationship and his lack of plans for New Year’s Eve – and he ranted about being angry at the world before the initial blaze was ignited, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, has pleaded not guilty to starting what became one of the most destructive wildfires in California history. It began on 7 January 2025 in the hillside neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu and killed 12 people. Prosecutors say Rinderknecht started a fire on 1 January that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up a week later.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:35 am

California seeks millions in penalties from State Farm over alleged claims violations after LA wildfires

State’s top insurance regulator says insurance company violated law while handling claims from 2025 wildfires

California is seeking millions of dollars in penalties from State Farm after an investigation found the insurance company was slow to investigate and underpaid claims from the 2025 Los Angeles-area wildfires, regulators announced on Monday.

State Farm violated the law hundreds of times in a sampling of 220 cases, the state’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, said. The maximum penalty amount allowed by law would be about $4m if State Farm is found to be “willful” in violating state law. Regulators may also temporarily suspend the company’s license, effectively prohibiting the state’s largest home insurer from writing new policies for a year in California.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:46 pm

Britney Spears pleads guilty to reckless driving charge in DUI case

Ventura county district attorney says pop star made plea through lawyer after being arrested in March for allegedly driving erratically

Britney Spears pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of reckless driving in the driving under the influence case against her, sparing the 44-year-old from any jail time.

The pop star, who was initially charged with driving while under the combined influence of alcohol and at least one drug, did not appear in court in California’s Ventura county. Because she faced a misdemeanor, she was not required to attend proceedings.

Published: May 4, 2026, 9:36 am

New Orleans moves to brighten underserved neighborhoods: ‘Lights impact people’

A new initiative aims to repair broken and inadequate street lighting to help prevent crime

During the 19th century, American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson penned the expression “gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal police” in his essay Worship. With regard to public lighting in American cities today, the phrase can have a double meaning – security or surveillance.

Beyond simply making it safe for people to see at night, public lighting’s link to security carries deeper significance in neighborhoods, especially regarding race and class. The use of public lighting has been viewed as a socioeconomic indicator that separates wealthy areas from less affluent ones.

Published: May 5, 2026, 7:00 am

Brazil caught up in craze for whistling-only WhatsApp groups

Some chats can get up to 600 voice notes a day and reach the 1,024-member limit in less than 24 hours

The WhatsApp groups have one simple rule: typing and speaking are forbidden, on pain of immediate removal.

Only voice notes with whistling are allowed, although the choice of content is up to the sender: it can be an imitation of a bird or a tune such as the theme from The Pink Panther or the introduction to Scorpions’ Wind of Change.

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:00 am

Could gold mining help Colombia’s armed groups to finally lay down their weapons?

In Nariño, guerrilla groups are swapping arms for legal mining as part of the country’s peace accord. But as presidential elections loom, armed rivals and delays threaten to derail progress

Dressed in civilian clothing with Pasto Indigenous motifs across his sleeves, Royer Garzón, a guerrilla commander and delegate at the peace negotiation table, sits alongside about two-dozen combatants on a small stand beside a concrete sports field in one of Nariño’s state-recognised Indigenous collective territories in Colombia.

Most wear military fatigues and rubber boots, matching a huge red-and-white banner reading FC Sur-ELN – Frente Comuneros del Sur, or National Liberation Army, the guerrilla group they once belonged to – an identity they have not lost.

Members of Comuneros del Sur. The group is estimated to have about 250 fighters in the Nariño department

Published: May 5, 2026, 7:00 am

Rage workouts: the best way to exercise – or just infuriating?

Angry gym classes are booming, with activities including pummelling tyres with a sledgehammer. But they might not be as cathartic as they at first appear

Name: Rage workouts.

Age: Would this be a good time to invoke Aristotle’s beliefs on catharsis?

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:59 am

‘Nobody’s going out!’ Why is Britain’s nightlife in such decline – and can anything save it?

One in four late-night venues went out of business between 2020 and 2025. Those that remain are struggling to pull in customers. Maybe a night out in Birminghan will reveal why

The £5 entry is a good start. So is the loud, lively music booming down the nightclub’s stairway. But when I finally reach the dancefloor, hidden behind a curtain, my hopes for a wild night out in Birmingham are dashed. Despite the roving disco lights and blaring pop bangers, it is entirely empty, aside from a few bartenders milling around, tending to no one.

This isn’t 9pm on a random Tuesday. I am hitting the town on Saturday night, when the city’s bars and clubs should be in full swing, but Birmingham is looking like a bust.

Published: May 4, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘People crave friendship’: thousands flock to resurgence of centuries-old south Asian board game

Carrom, a game in which players flick counters into pockets on a board, has drawn hundreds to events across the UK

On a Monday evening in the upstairs room of Dishoom Permit Room in Notting Hill, the atmosphere is already crackling before the games night begins. Chai is poured and passed around, chalk is dusted across wooden boards, and the sharp click of counters striking the surface cuts through the noise of conversation.

At one table, Uneeb Khalid, 39, and his friend Varun Solan, 43, are deep in conversation about artificial intelligence while flicking small counters across a wooden board. Later, they reach the final round – and finish in second place.

Published: May 5, 2026, 1:00 am

A game-changer for good health? Scientists believe ‘we are when we eat’ | Devi Sridhar

Decades of advice on what to eat and what not to might have been missing one key ingredient, according to new research

Reduce your calories. Eat more vegetables. Limit soft drinks and junk foods. For years, even decades, this has been the advice for those wanting a healthy body weight, lower blood pressure and better markers of metabolic health. Most weight-loss advice has focused on either what to eat (and what to avoid), or how much to eat. Think of dietary pyramids produced by government agencies, calories on food packaging and meals, and typical nutritional advice.

It’s all true, to a certain extent: it’s obviously better to eat a healthier, nutritionally balanced diet, and yes, lower body weight is broadly linked to reducing calories. But this type of approach can be hard to sustain. Even as a personal trainer who knows what I “should” be eating according to government dietary advice and has heard too much about calorie deficits, I take a slightly different approach to food. I think we need to bring nuance and a balanced approach to food and what we eat.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

Published: May 5, 2026, 12:00 am

Why Friedrich Merz decided to risk Donald Trump’s wrath | Jörg Lau

Trump’s retribution is painful for Germany and Nato, but Merz is not backing down. He knows the status quo is untenable

What began as a spat between Friedrich Merz and Donald Trump over the Iran war is rapidly turning into a historic rupture between Germany and the US. Its significance is hard to overstate. In Germany, the transatlantic falling-out adds to the domestic woes of a coalition government in crisis, overshadowing the first anniversary of Merz’s becoming chancellor tomorrow.

More importantly, it proves the futility of Merz’s attempt to be Europe’s Trump-whisperer and puts Nato’s credibility into question. But the dispute also boosts the ambition that Germany’s conservative leader set out on the night of his party’s election victory: to make Europe more independent from the US security umbrella.

Jörg Lau is an international correspondent for the German weekly Die Zeit

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:00 am

Abortion pills are saving women’s lives. The right is trying to eliminate them | Moira Donegan

The supreme court has kicked the can down the road after a federal court sought to ban the mailing of mifepristone

An event that ruined lives, degraded the citizenship of hundreds of millions, and permanently lowered the status of American women came and went four years ago, and American politics seems to have largely moved on. When the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022’s Dobbs decision, it fulfilled a decades-long project of the American right and made real a nightmare for women’s health and equality that feminists had dreaded for a generation. In the months that followed, protests were sporadic and largely moot: popular will, it had long become clear, had little bearing on abortion policy. Women began giving birth to babies they did not want, and dropping out of school and work to care for them – wasting their talents and abandoning their dreams. A flurry of court cases negotiating the impact of the court’s ruling in states across the country made abortion legal, then illegal, then legal again, then illegal again, with women’s ability to control their own lives flickering on and off like a dying lightbulb. Clinics that had served communities for years shut their doors, the world they had helped to build now extinguished by the justices. The new abortion bans are written in such draconian and expansive language that there are often no exceptions for rape or incest and only narrow, inscrutable legal permission for the life of the mother. Because of these bans, women died. Their names blazed across the headlines for a few days, then faded.

The fact is that just four years after Dobbs, abortion has receded from the headlines and from the attention of many American voters. Part of this is because of legal reality: voter referendums on abortion, in states where they were possible, were mostly successful in protecting the right to choose, and those campaigns raised money and awareness about the issue. But that strategy was quickly exhausted; just about every state where a referendum on abortion rights is legally possible has now had one. And it is partly due, too, to the peculiar discursive invisibility of misogyny in American political life. Though we have perhaps never seen a moment when male identity and male grievance have been wielded to greater political effect, feminism is at a comparative nadir. The country is used to seeing women be made to suffer because they are women. America saw the violence that Dobbs did to women’s dignity, dreams, and health, and it largely shrugged its shoulders.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:00 am

The day had come to scatter my mum’s ashes. What could possibly go wrong? | Zoe Williams

I thought the ceremony, at my mother’s cottage, would pass without a hitch. I don’t think she’d have been impressed by what followed …

If you’re looking for sound, practical advice on what happens when an elderly parent dies – the so-called “sadmin” – then you shouldn’t come to me because all the bits that went OK, my sister did, and all the bits that went unaccountably awry were when I got involved. If, however, you are looking for advice on the ceremony of ash-scattering, then I have loads, all of it learned five to 10 minutes after it would have been good to know.

We’d actually planned this pretty carefully, insofar as we knew where we wanted to go – a cottage our mum rented for years, which is still empty. When my mum died, a friend gave me a lovely hanky, so I took that, in case I got upset. It was a beautiful day; I had my cherished loved ones, a bottle of water and my vape. What could possibly go wrong?

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:00 am

Want a green card? Better make sure you haven’t criticized Israel on social media | Arwa Mahdawi

Updated guidelines issued by the Trump administration mean immigrants could potentially be denied a green card for their political opinions

Let’s play a fun game of Will This Get Me Deported? The first contestant is myself: a British-Palestinian green card holder in the US. I’ll start by quoting some recent news items concerning Israel. I don’t have the space to list every atrocity that the US ally has been accused of in the past few weeks so, unlike certain trigger-happy soldiers, I’ll restrict myself to two bullet points.

“Israeli soldiers and settlers are using gendered violence and sexual assault and harassment to force Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, human rights and legal experts say.” (The Guardian; 21 April)

“Israeli forces shot and killed a young female student on Thursday while she was attending a class held in a tent in the town of Beit Lahiya in ‌the northern Gaza Strip … third-grade student Ritaj Rihan was hit by a bullet in front of her classmates.” (Reuters; 9 April)

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:00 am

The Guardian view on Trump, Merz and Europe’s security: EU countries cannot go it alone | Editorial

The announcement of the withdrawal of thousands of US troops from Germany underlines the urgency of a pan-European defence strategy

As Donald Trump’s second term has become overshadowed by plunging poll ratings and an illegal, ill-advised war in the Middle East, European governments have regularly been singled out to bear the brunt of the US president’s growing frustration. Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to militarily back the attack on Iran led to unfavourable comparisons to both Winston Churchill and King Charles. “Unfriendly” Spain has been threatened with a trade embargo for similar reasons. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, previously seen as a key political ally, has also been on the receiving end. “I’m shocked by her,” Mr Trump said last month. “I thought she had courage. I was wrong.”

Currently it is Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who finds himself in Washington’s crosshairs. In the wake of Mr Merz’s accurate observation that the US has no convincing strategy on Iran, the Pentagon has announced the future withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from bases in Germany. Vital long-range weapons are also to be withheld as American military stockpiles are depleted by events in the Middle East. For good measure, Mr Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on European car manufacturers to 25% – a measure that would hit Germany hardest.

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.

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:31 am

These are the questions I would ask the Enhanced Games … if they would let me | Sean Ingle

While the doping-friendly event does not seem keen on journalistic interrogation, here’s what needs to be asked

The plan to fly to Las Vegas to cover what the Enhanced Games claims is the “next frontier of human performance” ended with a short email sent at 7.02pm on Friday. “After careful consideration, we are unable to approve your media credential request for this year’s event,” it said. “Due to the high volume of applications and limited media capacity, we could not accommodate all requests … thank you again for your interest and understanding.”

Admittedly, the rejection didn’t come entirely out of the blue. Unlike most sports organisations, the Enhanced Games had a pre-screening process which led to a nice PR man calling me a few days beforehand. His opening gambit? To point out the Guardian’s negativity towards the event (“Grotesque” – Barney Ronay; “Showcasing so much of the wrongness of the age” – Marina Hyde; “Competitors run the risk of their libido being ‘killed off’, leading experts have warned” – Sean Ingle).

Published: May 5, 2026, 12:00 am

Arsène Wenger’s ‘daylight offside rule’ is on trial in Canada. Will it work?

The Frenchman believes the rule change will make the game more open and exciting. If it succeeds in the Canadian Premier League it could go global

When Alejandro Díaz scored, he did not realize he was making history.

It was only hours after his club’s 2-2 draw with the Halifax Wanderers – a hard-fought match in which the Pacific FC striker grabbed the opener with a left-footed volley – that he learned that he had become the first professional player to score as a result of the so-called daylight offside rule.

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:34 am

Edwards helps Timberwolves to win over Spurs despite Wembanyama’s playoff record

• Minnesota star returns from knee injury

• Wembanyama makes NBA playoff record 12 blocks

• Knicks keep on rolling with huge win over 76ers

Anthony Edwards announced to the San Antonio Spurs he had returned – not that anyone in the sold-out Frost Bank Center needed to be told.

The Timberwolves guard made an unexpected return 10 days after hyperextending his left knee, leading Minnesota to a 104-102 victory on Monday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference semi-finals.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:09 am

Sabalenka believes players will boycott grand slams to ‘fight for our rights’

• Players want greater share of revenue from tournaments

• Sabalenka: ‘I think at some point we will boycott it’

Aryna Sabalenka believes that the top tennis players will boycott grand slam tournaments in an attempt to resolve their dispute with the four events, which they argue should provide players with a greater share of their growing revenues.

“I think at some point we will boycott it, yeah,” said Sabalenka during her pre-tournament press conference at the Italian Open. “I feel like that’s going to be the only way to fight for our rights.”

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:32 am

Mercedes may have won again but Miami upgrades have shaken up the F1 grid | Giles Richards

The improved form of McLaren and Red Bull and in Florida suggests the 2026 title race is likely to run and run

There is a long old way to go but after Formula One emerged from its enforced early season break with an entertaining romp around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, it indicated that there may yet be a decent tale to be told this season. One where Mercedes do not have it all their own way.

Regulation changes dominated the buildup – of which more later because honestly paragraph two is too early to subject readers to the increasingly soul-destroying phrase “energy management” – but what really mattered in Miami was the sporting imperative of upgrades making a competitive difference.

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:23 am

Auriemma says critics were ‘lying in weeds waiting’ in runup to Staley confrontation at Final Four

• UConn coach attracted widespread criticism for actions

• Auriemma says he felt ‘dumb’ after altercation

Six weeks after his team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma said on Monday that he felt “dumb” for how his postgame exchange with Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley played out in front of a national audience.

“When I walked into the locker room afterward with the coaches, you are just shaking your head, thinking five more seconds, you couldn’t keep it in for five more seconds,” Auriemma said in his first news conference since then.

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:53 am

Guardiola frustrated as hopes of City taking Arsenal to wire left in critical condition | Jamie Jackson

Sluggish Manchester City failed to get the win they needed and have left themselves with a lot to do to regain title

Bedlam here, utter bedlam – particularly the finish when Jérémy Doku’s 97th-minute right-foot curler grabbed Manchester City a 3-3 draw with Everton.

Yet, the bottom line is this: the result places one Arsenal hand on the Premier League trophy, and City no longer control whether the other hand will join it.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:50 pm

David Squires on … an unexpected cameo amid all the Premier League drama

Our cartoonist on a weekend of genuine excitement at the top and bottom of the English top-flight table

• Buy a cartoon here | His favourites from 2025

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

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:09 am

Bullish Arteta urges Arsenal to ‘make next step’ as Atlético battle resumes

A first Champions League final in 20 years is within touching distance, but a difficult tie is not over yet

Mikel Arteta can be forgiven for never missing the chance to remind everyone that these are unprecedented times for Arsenal. As his side prepares to face Atlético Madrid in the decisive act of their second successive Champions League semi-final, it is easy to forget that they have only reached this stage on four occasions in their entire history.

But 20 years after Arsène Wenger’s team edged past Villarreal in the last European match to be played at Highbury, Arsenal have their best opportunity since then to reach a second final after a campaign where they have swept all before them. The 1-1 draw in last week’s first leg in Madrid made it 13 matches unbeaten in this year’s Champions League – the only club to have achieved that feat – and also matched Wenger’s longest run without a defeat in Europe’s premier competition.

Published: May 5, 2026, 12:00 am

Google DeepMind workers in UK vote to unionize amid deal with US military

Exclusive: Worker pointed to Iran war and Pentagon’s Anthropic feud as indications the department is ‘not a responsible partner’

Workers developing Google’s artificial intelligence products in the UK have voted to unionize, in part out of concerns about a deal between the company and the US military that was announced last week.

In a letter slated to go to management on Tuesday and shared exclusively with the Guardian, workers at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI research laboratory, requested recognition of the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives of the lab’s UK-based staff.

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:05 pm

Zelenskyy condemns Russian ‘cynicism’ over parade truce as attack kills five

Russian attack on gas facility in Poltava region kills three energy firm employees and two emergency service workers

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Kremlin of “utter cynicism” for killing five people in overnight strikes at the same time as seeking a truce so it can stage a military parade in Moscow.

Three employees of the state energy firm Naftogaz were killed in an initial attack on a gas facility in Ukraine’s central Poltava region, and two emergency service workers died at the scene in a follow-on bombing. Thirty-seven people were injured in the strikes.

Published: May 5, 2026, 4:05 am

Sweary first trailer for young Anthony Bourdain biopic

Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers breakout, will play legendary chef in a 70s-set drama from BlackBerry’s director

The first trailer for the Anthony Bourdain biopic, Tony, has been released giving us a sweary look at the late food icon’s younger years.

Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers breakout, plays 19-year-old Bourdain as he gets his first job in a kitchen in mid-70s Cape Cod.

Published: May 5, 2026, 7:07 am

Macron backs Armenia’s pro-Europe PM as re-election campaign draws to close

French president pitches in for Nikol Pashinyan, who faces stiff challenge from pro-Russia parties in vote next month

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Emmanuel Macron has made an unabashed pre-election pitch on behalf of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, saying the country’s destiny lies with Europe.

The French president also accused Russia of abandoning Armenia after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war that led to Azerbaijan displacing tens of thousands of Armenians.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:52 am

The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead Tony nominations with Rose Byrne and Daniel Radcliffe in the race

Nominations also include recognitions for actors including Nathan Lane and Luke Evans while stars such as Lea Michele and Ayo Edebiri were snubbed

The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead this year’s Tony nominations with 12 nods each.

The original musicals, based on the 80s vampire movie and cancelled Apple TV comedy respectively, will face off against each other in the category of original musical up against Titanique and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).

Published: May 5, 2026, 7:05 am

Explosion at fireworks factory in China kills at least 26

Other fireworks manufacturers in Liuyang, in central Hunan province, ordered to halt production after deadly blast

An explosion at a fireworks plant in a central Chinese province has killed at least 26 people and injured 61, prompting the halting of all firework manufacturing near the site.

The blast occurred in the city of Changsha, in Hunan province, on Monday afternoon, China’s official news agency Xinhua said. China Daily said the plant was operated by the Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co in the Changsha-administered, county-level city of Liuyang.

Published: May 5, 2026, 1:34 am

HSBC profits fall amid $400m fraud-related charge and Iran war

London-headquartered bank’s shares slide as it sets aside an extra $300m to cover effects of Middle East conflict

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HSBC has taken a $1.3bn (£961m) hit to profits, amid the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran and fraud in the troubled private credit sector.

The London-headquartered bank said profits fell 4% in the first three months of the year, dropping $100m to $9.4bn, compared with the same period in 2025. Revenue increased 6% to $18.6bn.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:57 am

France serves up €1 meals to all university students in effort to cut hardship

Ministers take action after survey shows almost half of students had gone without food for financial reasons

French universities have begun offering €1 (86p) meals to all students regardless of income in a measure designed to address financial hardship.

Student unions have been pushing to extend the €1 rate – down from the usual €3.30 – for a three-course meal to all students, which was previously only available to those with low incomes or receiving financial aid.

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:16 am

‘The whale was not treated with the respect it deserved’: recriminations after carcass towed to Wollongong tip

Tugboat tows carcass of ‘leviathan proportions’ 20km from Era beach to Bellambi boat ramp, attracting sharks, says councillor demanding inquiry

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Fishers, surfers and divers say they should have been warned about the towing of a huge whale carcass along a 20km stretch of coast south of Sydney, which resulted in increased shark activity.

A Wollongong City councillor is demanding a review into the operation to remove the sperm whale from a remote beach in the Royal national park last week.

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:08 pm

Anger over green light for traffic lights on Argyll’s ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’

Plans to install traffic lights on Clachan Bridge will ruin tourist attraction and endanger pedestrians, critics warn

Traffic lights are to be installed beside the scenic Clachan Bridge on Scotland’s wild Argyll coast despite fears it will be a “desecration” of a nationally-significant heritage site.

Known since the early 19th century as the “Bridge over the Atlantic”, the 233-year-old crossing from the mainland to the Isle of Seil attracts visitors eager to boast of their trans-oceanic journey, but there are concerns motorists on green will soon act aggressively towards pedestrians on what is a much-photographed landmark.

Published: May 5, 2026, 12:00 am

Norwegian fish farms polluting fjords with waste likened to ‘raw sewage of millions of people’

Exclusive: ‘Fish sludge’ in coastal waters now has nutrient levels equivalent to those in untreated effluent of country the size of Australia, report finds

Norwegian fish farms are filling fjords and other coastal waters with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people each year, a report has found.

Norway is the largest farmed salmon producer in the world, and nutrients in fish feed are excreted directly into coastal waters. Analysis from the Sunstone Institute found that Norwegian aquaculture released 75,000 tonnes of nitrogen, 13,000 tonnes of phosphorus and 360,000 tonnes of organic carbon in 2025.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:01 pm

Fixing methane mega-leaks could boost energy stock amid crisis, report says

International Energy Agency analysis shows methane leaks remained at near-record highs in 2025

Methane emissions from the energy sector remained at near record levels in 2025, the International Energy Agency has concluded.

Tackling the emissions could make billions of cubic metres of gas available to international markets, a top priority as the war in the Middle East squeezes energy supplies, the IEA said in a report.

Published: May 4, 2026, 1:50 am

Judge ‘disturbed’ over ‘legally deficient’ treatment of Trump gala shooting suspect

Cole Allen was isolated from other inmates, denied a Bible and placed on suicide watch despite showing no suicidal tendencies

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A US judge on Monday apologized to the man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump for the “legally deficient” treatment he has faced in a Washington DC, jail, including being placed on suicide watch, separated from other inmates and denied a Bible.

The US magistrate judge Zia Faruqui said he was disturbed by the conditions for Cole Allen, who allegedly fired a shotgun during a foiled attack on Trump and senior officials in his administration at a 25 April press gala. The judge said the conditions were inappropriate for a person with no criminal history.

Published: May 4, 2026, 1:41 pm

Rudy Giuliani breathing on his own after being hospitalized for pneumonia

Former New York City mayor, who was placed on ventilator, is also being monitored, a spokesperson said

Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, is breathing on his own after being hospitalized with pneumonia and placed on a ventilator, his spokesperson said on Monday.

Giuliani, 81, remains in critical but stable condition at a Florida hospital and is being monitored as a precautionary measure, Ted Goodman, a spokesperson, said.

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:47 am

Zohran Mamdani condemns ICE after police and protesters clash in Brooklyn

Police forcibly broke up protest outside hospital where federal immigration agents took detainee for evaluation

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New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and other local officials on Monday condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after federal officers dragged a man out of a hospital building where he had been taken following an arrest, prompting a crowd of protesters to gather outside, where they clashed with police.

The incident over the weekend has also drawn scrutiny from critics questioning the New York police department’s response at the scene, in relation to New York City’s sanctuary laws, which bar local police from assisting federal immigration authorities in civil immigration enforcement.

Published: May 4, 2026, 2:25 pm

Elon Musk settles SEC lawsuit over Twitter purchase and agrees to pay $1.5m fine

Musk won’t have to give up any money he allegedly saved from delaying disclosure of initial purchase of Twitter stock

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Elon Musk settled the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil lawsuit accusing the world’s richest person of waiting too long in 2022 to disclose his initial purchases of stock in Twitter, now known as X.

A trust in Musk’s name will pay a $1.5m civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing. Musk won’t have to give up any money he allegedly saved from the delay.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:22 pm

Concierge firm co-founded by queen’s nephew went on ‘ill-timed’ hiring spree before Iran war

Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in Middle East and Asia less than year before wealthy began to flee Gulf

The embattled luxury concierge service co-founded by Queen Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot embarked on what appeared to be an inopportune hiring spree in the Middle East and Asia before wealthy individuals began fleeing the region because of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in the regions from 22 to 84 during its financial year to 30 April 2025, according to newly released annual accounts, which again reported multimillion-pound losses and warned of “material uncertainty” about its future.

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:00 pm

Two killed and several hurt after car ploughs into crowds in German city of Leipzig

A suspect has been apprehended, but detectives say little is known about their motivation at this stage

At least two people have been killed and several injured after a driver in an SUV ploughed into a crowd in the centre of Leipzig in eastern Germany, the city’s mayor has said.

“The police have apprehended the suspected assailant,” Burkhard Jung said on Monday, adding that the authorities had the scene in a pedestrian zone under control. “We still don’t really know the motivation. We don’t know anything about the perpetrator.”

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:45 am

Lawyer who represented Hamas in court says UK police falsely listed him as member of group

Fahad Ansari says it was ‘chilling’ that police ‘equated him with his client’ after he was stopped on return from family holiday in Ireland

A lawyer who filed Hamas’s challenge to proscription in the UK was recorded by police as being a member of the banned group, “equating him with his client”.

On a risk assessment form, a detective inspector, who authorised the detention of Fahad Ansari under the Terrorism Act on his return from a family holiday in Ireland, wrote “Hamas” in the space reserved for “membership of a known group”.

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:54 am

Salisbury Cathedral restores stained-glass treasure by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris

Project to refurbish ‘Angels’ hailed huge success as dean says it will ‘lift spirits and rekindle hope’

Sam Kelly admitted there had been some nights of broken sleep as he led a two-year project to restore one of Salisbury Cathedral’s treasures, a stained-glass window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

“It would be wrong to say I didn’t lie awake sometimes,” said the head glazier. “You are working on something that is very precious and if it fell on the floor, it would be very bad.”

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:00 pm

An AI version of Milton’s Paradise Lost is fundamentally unworthy of one of the great works of art

Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary wants to bring the epic poem to the big screen using the power of artificial intelligence. It can’t be any good

The thing about unfilmable works of literature is that most of them eventually turn out to be quite filmable after all. The Lord of the Rings was a bit of a mess when shot in rotoscope on a minuscule budget by the guy who filmed Fritz the Cat; it won Oscars when handed to Peter Jackson, given the GDP of a small nation and a visual effects department the size of Gondor. The 1984 version of Dune was a disappointment, despite the presence of David Lynch in the director’s chair, largely because all that gleaming, tawdry galactic opulence couldn’t make up for the comprehensively bad acting, clotted exposition and obsession with freaky heart plugs. And yet the 2021 adaptation from Denis Villeneuve ended up being a tour de force of masterly restraint and monolithic scale.

Milton’s Paradise Lost? The 17th-century epic poem has always felt like an outlier, a work of literature too religiously inspired to be filmed purely as a work of fantasy, yet too riotously bonkers to be treated with puritanical reverence. It contains more drama than the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in every line of thunderous God-baiting iambic pentameter. And now Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction and director of Killing Zoe and The Rules of Attraction, wants to bring it to the big screen using the power of AI.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:25 am

‘It was like a spiritual experience’: two TV stars on being handcuffed together in every scene

Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle had only just met when the crew snapped cuffs on their wrists – and made them do roly-polys. The stars of Sky drama Prisoner talk bravery, breast milk and Denzel Washington

Few devices in film and television are as enduring as the “odd couple handcuffed together”. Think Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, or Bob Hoskins sawing cuffs off a cartoon Roger Rabbit. It has been parodied and recycled – and yet, as Sky’s new show Prisoner makes clear, the idea of being stuck with a stranger still packs a punch.

In Prisoner, the odd couple are Amber Todd, a prisoner transport officer played by rising star Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point, Big Boys) in her first leading role, and Tibor Stone, a contract killer played by French star Tahar Rahim (The Serpent, The Mauritanian). It is Todd’s job to get Tibor to his high-profile court hearing at the Old Bailey. But when their convoy is ambushed, they’re forced to flee a relentless crime syndicate. The result is a propulsive six-parter with plenty of twists, turns and handcuffed fight scenes.

Published: May 5, 2026, 3:15 am

‘Extreme demands’: Finnish cross-country ski psychodrama Guts finds global success

Ferocity of women’s sport juxtaposed with cosy homes and pretty snow scenes in TV series gaining wider recognition

The concept of sisu – used to refer to guts or inner strength – is often talked about as the source of Finnish happiness.

And Guts, a hit Finnish TV series about top female cross-country skiers, makes it clear from the beginning that any happiness in this psychodrama is going to be exceptionally hard-won.

Published: May 4, 2026, 9:00 pm

Surrender review – Josh Duhamel hunts smirking serial killer in 90s throwback thriller

A whiff of David Fincher’s Seven lingers in the air but this moody crime drama from David Lipper is devoid of clever twists

‘We got a serial killer,” announces a policeman in this retro 1990s-style thriller directed by David Lipper; evidence has comes back that an enigmatic, super-clever suspect (played by Dylan Sprouse) has the blood of three different people on his clothing. (But if the victims were all killed at roughly the same time, wouldn’t that make him a mass murderer?) It’s best not to get too hung up on nomenclature or to think too hard about anything here – like how can one character predict that an ordinary pen would get left behind in a room to serve as a convenient murder weapon? Just go with the throwback vibe, the moody underlit cinematography, and growling subsonic score. Even the faces vaguely recall B- and C-movie fodder from the 1990s/early 2000s including Josh Duhamel and Til Schweiger, here playing a retiring police detective and his mysteriously German commanding officer, respectively.

Duhamel’s Shaw is nominally the protagonist here, although he’s consistently upstaged by Sprouse’s blood-splattered murderer, called AJ, who pulls out the unsettling high-pitched giggles and evil smirks we’ve come to expect from our movie killers. It turns out that AJ has left a trail of clues leading to each of his recent murders that Shaw must unravel if he’s to find his own teenage son (Corbin Pitts), who AJ has locked up in some underground lair with only hours left until he runs out of air.

Published: May 5, 2026, 1:00 am

Preemptive Listening review – artist’s film about sirens is buzzing with sonic ideas

With its striking images and experimental soundtrack, artist Aura Satz’s film is an endurance test that might work better in a gallery

This film from the London-based artist Aura Satz is an exploration of sirens – as in the warning devices, not the mythical creatures that lure unsuspecting men to their doom. Really it’s an art film, and might have been more at home in a gallery where audiences would be able to engage with its striking images and experimental soundtrack for as long as the mood takes them. As a feature-film experience it becomes an endurance test, a battle to pay attention and concentrate for the whole thing.

It opens with a drone shot of a huge siren in the middle of what looks like a residential neighbourhood, ready to alert residents to heaven knows what threat. Over the top, a shrill, insinuating track from composer Laurie Spiegel buzzes with the nagging whine of an electronic mosquito. There are some interesting ideas here. British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla muses on the role of sirens in the 2011 Arab spring protests, and we learn that in Palestine loudspeakers in mosque minarets sound a siren every year on Nakba day – one second for every year that has passed since Palestinians were displaced from their homeland after the creation of the state of Israel.

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:00 pm

‘As reassuring as a warm hug’: why Donnie Darko is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most rewatched comfort films is an unusual journey back to the 1980s through the lens of the early 2000s

If the stereotypical feelgood movie is a cashmere comfort blanket – the kind of film that leaves viewers blissed out on the sofa as the credits roll and Bridget Jones finally gets to snog Mark Darcy – I should probably notify a qualified team of specialists that my own is a tale of teenage alienation, suburban hypocrisy, apocalyptic dread and a man in a monstrous rabbit suit issuing stern instructions about death. Then again, it does have a considerably better soundtrack.

Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko explored alternate realities decades before the Marvel films and Everything Everywhere All at Once made the multiverse a pop-cultural touchstone. Its tree-lined streets, Halloween skies and teenagers pedalling through suburbia were like a weirder, sadder blueprint for Stranger Things long before Hawkins existed. It’s a suburban fever dream about fate, madness and collapsing timelines, a nightmarish physics puzzle steeped in existential dread. But beneath all the cult-film weirdness, it is also the oddly uplifting story of a lonely, damaged kid who finally understands his place in the world – and sacrifices himself to save it against the backdrop of some of the most luminous 80s alt-pop atmospherics ever recorded.

Published: May 4, 2026, 2:00 am

‘My body ached from the volume’: the mystery and majesty of Japanese noise-rockers les Rallizes Dénudés

The incendiary Japanese group who emerged out of late-60s unrest were suspicious of studios so their legacy was long left to bootleg obsessives. But unheard recordings are revealing their lesser-known gifts for melody

By 1969 student protests were raging across Japan, as anti-university, anti-war and anti-government movements mingled in strikes and classroom blockades. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. “I’d never experienced that amount of volume. My body ached.”

Les Rallizes Dénudés, which Kubota soon joined, have become the stuff of rock mythology: a mysterious, ever-shifting group whose early use of extreme distortion has won fans ranging from Osees’ John Dwyer to Lady Gaga. As its sole constant member since founding it in 1967, vocalist-guitarist Mizutani’s secretive nature and aversion to studio recordings have meant their story is still being pieced together, and their music chiefly circulated as live bootlegs. Discovering these had generated a cult international fanbase long after the band’s final gig in 1996, and Mizutani and Kubota reconnected in 2019 with plans to reunite – cut short by Mizutani’s death later that year. In his memory, Kubota is restoring and releasing their music, including an extraordinary lost album.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:49 am

‘My generation have deluded themselves’: ex-Vampire Weekender Rostam on pop, protest and life as an Iranian-American

Inspired in part by Zohran Mamdani’s NY mayorship, Rostam Batmanglij’s gorgeous new album fuses Americana with sounds of the Middle East. So why isn’t his mum happy?

The first song Rostam Batmanglij ever learned to play on guitar was Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode, the quintessentially American rock’n’roll hit about being an American rock’n’roll star. “It doesn’t get more American than that,” he says, with a smile.

The 42-year-old superproducer (Frank Ocean, Charli xcx, Carly Rae Jepsen) and former Vampire Weekend member is sitting across from me in a coworking cafe in London, trying to explain the fixation he’s always had with US culture. “My brother was born in France, my parents were born in Iran,” he says. “But I was in my mum’s womb when I first came to America. My position is different. So what is my relationship to the American flag? What is my relationship to American citizenship?”

Published: May 4, 2026, 12:00 am

Galilee String Quartet review – Palestinian ensemble improvise their signature east-west blend

Milton Court, London
The four siblings start with Webern before ditching traditional instruments for mics, voices, percussion and oud

‘We’ve done many concerts, but this is the first time I’m stressed,” the first violin confesses with a grin, lowering his instrument before a single note has sounded. But before he can launch into the story he’s interrupted by the cellist. “We’re actually supposed to play first!” she chides.

A string quartet is often compared to a four-way marriage. But what if the dynamic was closer to four siblings? One group that doesn’t need to imagine the answer is the Saad family: brothers Omar, Mostafa and Gandhi, and sister Tibah – AKA the Galilee String Quartet.

Published: May 4, 2026, 7:12 am

The Given World by Melissa Harrison review – a stunning tale of rural life for an era of ecological crisis

Eerie omens haunt this absorbing group portrait set over six months in an English village

Sitting stoned on a hill above his village, a young man muses on his place in the world. Connor is proud to have fenced pastures while his mates have been away at university. But it’s overwhelming to think of all their lives being equally real and urgent. Are they part of the same story or separate ones? A phrase comes to him from a book he hated at school: something about “the roar on the other side of silence”. In this fine, subtle and strange novel from one of the most probing writers of contemporary rural life, Melissa Harrison earns that nod to George Eliot, whose words she gives to an anxious and ecstatic labourer clutching a can of Fanta.

The Given World follows the inhabitants of one village in a river valley, a place “as old as anywhere”, for six months between the equinoxes of a year. The time is now, or an imminent future when the seasons seem to have “ceased their metronome”. At first, the central figure appears to be Clare, who knows each flagstone of the ancient priory that has been the centre of her life. The six months are her dying time, from diagnosis to last thoughts. But, in a way that pays tribute to the solitary Clare’s understanding of interconnectedness, the novel goes out from the priory to trace a web of lives. In the breezeblock bungalow next door, a desperate farmer tunes in at dawn to American evangelists on the radio. Like Saj the postman, we call at addresses where literary fiction rarely bothers to ring the bell.

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:00 pm

One Leg on Earth by ’Pemi Aguda review – a powerfully eerie portrait of Lagos

A young pregnant woman is assailed by dark visions of sisterhood in a novel splicing eco-horror, cosmic distress and ideas of the monstrous feminine

Realism, contrary to appearances, isn’t a form closed off to horror. The stories in ’Pemi Aguda’s debut collection, Ghostroots, a finalist for the 2024 US National Book award, rivetingly bore out this fact. Neither strictly realistic nor wholly supernatural, they seized on ordinary events pulsing with sinister possibility: a mother distraught at her inability to produce milk for her newborn wonders whether her unresolved feelings over her husband’s infidelity might have poisoned her body; a young woman prone to violence fears she is inhabited by the spirit of a wicked ancestor; a driver who runs over a pedestrian can’t shake off the feeling that her own daughter will be next to die. One Leg on Earth, as the title suggests, is similarly a liminal creature, although it flirts more openly and ingeniously with darkness. It follows a young woman, Yosoye Bakare, newly arrived in Lagos to intern at an architecture firm involved with building Omi City, a state-of-the-art enclave on land reclaimed from the sea.

Away from home, Yosoye is hungry for adventure. Out on a stroll one night, she slips into a cruddy bar, allows a man to buy her a drink, and goes to a cheap motel where they have ravenous sex without protection. Across the city, pregnant women are inexplicably throwing themselves into open water. But when Yosoye learns she is expecting, she decides to keep the baby. “It was hard to explain to someone who hadn’t spent their whole life trying to belong, to be inside – the joke, the anecdote – that the promise of another being that would be just theirs, that would, yes, belong to them, was like cold water on the tongue after hours of trekking under the Lagos sun.”

Published: May 4, 2026, 1:00 am

Lubaina Himid’s British pavilion at the Venice Biennale review – alienation in a green and pleasant land

Amid a calming soundtrack of lapping waves and cooing birds, workers in brightly coloured paintings share glances that say: ‘What the hell are we doing here?’ But isn’t there more to not belonging than this show suggests?

Home comforts aren’t always all that comfortable. Here at the Venice Biennale, Lubaina Himid paints an awkward, tense, uncomfortable portrait of our damp old home nation. Her installation of monumental paintings and a wall of painted oars at the British pavilion is full of tailors and cooks and architects, the people who shape the country, keeping it fed, clothed and sheltered.

An audio piece burbles through the space with the sound of bucolic country life: seagulls, rigging slapping on masts, bird calls and buzzing flies. How lovely Great Britain is, how welcoming and kind and accepting.

Published: May 5, 2026, 6:10 am

Seen a ghost? The eeriest images from Fotografia Europea – in pictures

From gigantic goat hair costumes to small hidden rooms in houses, this year’s photography festival takes a turn for the spectral

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:00 pm

Women behind the lens: ‘After state massacres, I began burning the prints as an act of mourning’

Iranian visual journalist Parisa Azadi set her images alight in response to January’s violent repression by the regime, not to erase them, but to convey ‘rage, grief and refusal’

In September 2022, as revolution spread across Iran, I witnessed it from Dubai through the unstable glow of phone screens. Raw videos surfaced daily before disappearing into internet blackouts: women burning their hijabs, young men wounded by metal pellets, teenagers dragged into unmarked vans.

Unable to return safely to Iran, where I had spent six years documenting life under repression, I felt helpless. This work emerged from that pain and is both testimony and absence: the public violence of the state and my private, long-distance bearing witness.

Published: May 4, 2026, 10:00 pm

Feminism play Liberation and first world war novel Angel Down among Pulitzer winners

This year’s winners also include Jill Lepore’s book on the constitution and Brian Goldstone’s on housing insecurity

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Pulitzer prize officials awarded the fiction award to an author with a long history in fantasy, horror and young adult novels: Daniel Kraus, cited for Angel Down, a first world war narrative that unfolds in one long sentence. Liberation, Bess Wohl’s look back at the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, received the drama prize.

Winners announced on Monday included two books rooted in the founding of the US. Jill Lepore’s We the People: A History of the US Constitution won for history, and Amanda Vaill’s Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution was the winner for biography.

Published: May 4, 2026, 1:23 pm

‘It feels like an independent republic’: Madrid’s new arty barrio of Carabanchel

This traditional neighbourhood ‘across the river’ is where the city’s creatives are heading as the centre heats up

Madrid’s current boomtown dynamics are driving the city centre way upmarket, pushing the average punter to outer barrios in search of cheaper rent. As seen in New York and elsewhere, the creative class is moving too – crossing the River Manzanares to open studios in the former factories and metalworks of Carabanchel. Now the city’s most populous district, this used to be a separate municipality, which was annexed to the capital in 1948 and built up into canyons of high-rise flats to house the postwar influx from the provinces, and later from Latin America.

Published: May 4, 2026, 11:00 pm

Put those weights down! How ‘eccentric’ exercise opens up a whole new world of fitness

For years we have been told the best way to get fitter and stronger is to lift something heavy, whether that’s a barbell or our own bodyweight. What if how we put it down was just as important?

We all love a power move, such as running, jumping, throwing balls, swinging kettlebells or scaling walls. In comparison, deliberate, controlled movement can seem a bit boring. But this slower side of exercise is frequently safer and less physically demanding than its more showy rival. And according to the latest research, one form of it is more effective than it has traditionally been given credit for.

“Eccentric exercise training provides numerous benefits for physical fitness and overall health, making it suitable for a wide range of individuals,” Prof Kazunori Nosaka writes in a new paper published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science. It “offers unique advantages over concentric or isometric exercise, particularly in promoting neuromuscular adaptations”.

Published: May 4, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Stores an ungodly amount of stuff’: 11 products our writers rely on to organize and declutter

Spring cleaning is upon us. Here are tips to manage space and things, from swapping out clothes to clearing cabinets

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The sense of awakening that comes with spring can spur many of us to clear out the clutter and get organized.

From switching out winter wardrobes to reining in overflowing bathroom cabinets and spice racks, there are many ways to get ourselves and our homes in better order – or at least try to. Filter reviewer Julie Skinner has deployed giant clothespins. Writer Bernadette Machard de Gramont found a nifty way to organize her sprawling skincare collection. Longtime Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi has a solution for your spice rack.

Published: May 4, 2026, 12:15 pm

Is it true that … your lungs regenerate when you quit smoking?

Our lungs have evolved to heal from damage, but some smokers will suffer irreversible effects

It used to be thought that the lungs couldn’t regenerate,” says Dr Charlotte Dean, head of the lung development and disease group at Imperial College London. “But we know now that’s not the case. Broadly speaking, they can repair when you quit smoking.”

Smoking is in effect damaging your lungs, Dean says, and the lungs have a substantial capacity to heal themselves. They have evolved to cope with pollution or getting infected by bacteria or viruses. “Because they’re so vital – you can’t survive without your lungs – they needed to have this capacity,” she says.

Published: May 4, 2026, 12:00 am

Houseplant hacks: can a damp towel keep plants alive?

As a cheap, easy solution for when you’re away from home for a few days, it quietly does its job

The problem
Going away for a week and leaving your plants to fend for themselves is a specific kind of anxiety. You water thoroughly before you leave, move them out of direct sunlight, group them together and then spend your holiday picturing a wilted peace lily.

The hack
One hack suggests wrapping damp towels around the base and sides of your pots, creating a slow-release moisture jacket that keeps the root zone cooler and hydrated, while also acting as an insulating layer that slows evaporation from the soil surface. Unlike wicking systems that actively draw water in, this is purely about retention – holding on to the moisture that’s already there.

Published: May 5, 2026, 2:00 am

My rookie era: ‘Why don’t I cut my own fringe? I have hands. I have a mirror. What’s stopping me?’

There are many online techniques for self-cutting a fringe – but would I end up looking like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction or a low-budget Grimes?

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I have had a fringe since I was 15 years old. I will never forget this life-altering haircut. For years before it I had been suffering lingering effects from a bob cut I received unwillingly in primary school.

You were not a cool person if you had a bob as an adolescent in the early 2000s. But finally my hair had grown sufficiently for styling and I got it cut to sit neatly on my shoulders with front bangs.

Published: May 4, 2026, 8:00 am

The pet I’ll never forget: Merlin the sassy pig, who helped me meet my husband

I always knew my Vietnamese pot-bellied pig was smart and special – and he has brought love, chaos and happiness into my life

We have lots of animals in our home in Sacramento, California – a dog, two chicks, a pigeon, a bearded dragon, three rats and two rescue cows. But our pig, Merlin, is special.

I had a pig obsession for a while. I remember going to visit some animal sanctuaries and getting emotional when I saw the pigs. There’s just something about them that I felt a connection to. I knew how smart they were. I remember telling myself that one day I’d have a pig.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:00 am

Republicans split with Trump and back Haitians – to save their seats

In Ohio, where Haitians have helped revive the economy, vulnerable Republicans are reluctant to toe the Trump line

For months Carl Ruby, a pastor at a church in Springfield, Ohio, and a prominent supporter of the city’s estimated 10,000 Haitian immigrants, had been trying to contact his local congressman, Republican Mike Turner.

Ruby had long hoped for an opportunity to explain in person the difficulties facing Haitians in Springfield and how that community had helped revive the struggling town.

Published: May 4, 2026, 5:00 am

‘We’re a perfect example of being lied to’: Democrats vie to flip Ohio in a battle for trust

Trump’s war in Iran, gas prices and corruption dominate messaging as special election nears to fill Senate seat

It’s tough to beat the prices at Golden Dawn, an Italian restaurant that first opened its doors in 1932 on the north side of Youngstown, Ohio, and where a hamburger and fries today goes for $7 and a domestic beer just $2 at happy hour.

But the price that’s most discussed these days around its neon-lit, crescent-shaped bar is the $5 a gallon that gas prices are nearing at stations across this north-eastern Ohio city that is one of the state’s most prominent victims of manufacturing disinvestment. Where people differ is about what caused it, and who should take the blame.

Published: May 4, 2026, 3:00 am

‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds

Louisiana’s cultural hotspot could be surrounded by Gulf of Mexico before end of this century, authors say

The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a “point of no return” that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded.

Ongoing sea-level rise and the rampant erosion of wetlands in southern Louisiana will swallow up the New Orleans area within a few generations, with the new paper estimating the city “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century”.

Published: May 4, 2026, 2:00 am

Victory Day dance in Moscow and rubbish removal in Gaza: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: May 5, 2026, 5:13 am