New post-Brexit border checks ‘set to zero’ to avoid what Defra calls risk of serious disruption The UK government has reportedly told port health authorities it will not “turn on” health and safety checks for EU imports as new post-Brexit border controls begin this month. A presentation prepared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) highlighted the risk of “significant disruption” if the new measures were implemented, according to the Financial Times. It made clear that the systems would not be fully ready on time. Continue reading...

Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool to four European finals, one Champions League trophy and places that players and fans alike may never have imagined possible but a journey that pulsated and punished is over. There will be no fairytale ending in Dublin after one more feat of escapology proved beyond Klopp’s team against Atalanta. The 91st European game of Klopp’s nine-year Liverpool reign was also his last despite a vastly improved display and win against Gian Piero Gasperini’s side. “If we fail, then let’s fail in the most beautiful way,” Klopp had said on the eve of the Europa League quarter-final second leg. Liverpool delivered to a degree. Mohamed Salah struck an early penalty that decided the contest but could not transform the tie, although it looked possible during a first half in which Atalanta creaked and the Egypt international missed an excellent chance to double Liverpool’s advantage. Atalanta regained their composure in the second half to secure only the second European semi-final place in their history and revel in one of their greatest nights. Continue reading...

Bayer Leverkusen will be waking up with sore heads again. Their treble hopes remain alive, as does their unbeaten run after Jeremie Frimpong’s late equaliser, but this was uncomfortable. After the beer-stained celebrations that followed their regal charge to the Bundesliga title, Xabi Alonso’s side looked groggy on a pulsating night at the London Stadium and can count themselves lucky to be in a Europa League semi-final against Roma after beating West Ham 3-1 on aggregate. West Ham were close to becoming the first side to beat Leverkusen in 44 matches this season. Michail Antonio’s early goal raised hopes of a comeback and there were plenty of near misses during a one-sided first half. It could have been different if one of those chances had gone in. Continue reading...

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 pre-emptory 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”. Continue reading...

Company says ‘we’re off to a good start in 2024’ as net income jumps 79% to $2.3bn, beating analysts’ expectations Profits at Netflix have surged as the world’s largest streaming service added millions of new paying subscribers. The entertainment giant added 9.3 subscribers in the latest quarter – more than expected by analysts on Wall Street – leaving it with a record 269.6m worldwide. Continue reading...

Siblings appear on stage with president at campaign event in Philadelphia and offer-full throated support of White House run Prominent members of the Kennedy political dynasty delivered a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign on Thursday, a pointed message that was in equal measure a stinging repudiation of their relative, Robert F Kennedy Jr, making an independent run for the White House. Kerry Kennedy, one of six siblings of the controversial candidate on stage at a Biden campaign event in Philadelphia, called the US president “my hero” as she celebrated a litany of his achievements she said would have pleased her father, the former US attorney general Robert F Kennedy and uncle and president John F Kennedy. Continue reading...

Poland’s national prosecutor says man was preparing to share security details of airport used by Ukrainian president A Polish man has been arrested on allegations that he aided a plot by Russian intelligence services to assassinate Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors. The office of Poland’s national prosecutor said in a statement that the man, identified only as Pawel K, was accused of being prepared to pass airport security information to Russian agents and that he was arrested in Poland on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Briton wins 6-0, 7-5 to set up quarter-final with Iga Swiatek Says she is ‘not surprised’ by her fine recent run of form Emma Raducanu says the best is yet to come as she continued her excellent form by making it through to the quarter-final of the Stuttgart Open. The 2021 US Open champion beat Linda Noskova 6-0, 7-5 in Germany to set up a mouth-watering last-eight tie with world number one Iga Swiatek on Friday. Raducanu is making her way back after a torrid 2023 but looked excellent in winning her two ties in the Billie Jean King Cup at the weekend and then followed that up by swatting home favourite Angelique Kerber aside in Wednesday’s first round. Continue reading...

From the moment Emiliano Martínez was booked for time-wasting 39 minutes into this tempestuous Europa Conference League knockout tie, there was an air of inevitably that the Aston Villa goalkeeper would prove to be the hero. So it proved, with Martínez saving penalties from Nabil Bentaleb and Benjamin André in a shootout after Matty Cash’s late strike prevented Lille advancing and took the game to extra time. That, however, is only half of the story. Martínez seemed intent on being the pantomime villain, his every touch jeered from the off, was cautioned again by the referee, Ivan Kruzliak, during the spot-kicks after being warned for gamesmanship – another dollop of shithousery, you could say – but avoided being sent off, leaving Villa without a goalkeeper, because cautions are not carried forward into penalties. Continue reading...

This super cute show about an animal hospital will have you crying happy tears from the off. And just wait till you meet the seal pups! The late great critic Roger Ebert once said that “movies are like a machine that generates empathy” – the idea being that when we sit down and watch dramas, comedies, documentaries or even horror films, they take us out of ourselves and force us to share in the pain and triumph of others. In short, they can make us better people. Watching Wildlife Rescue, no one would call it a cinematic masterpiece, but Ebert would definitely approve as it generates such empathy for each of the wonderful people at South Essex wildlife hospital and all the gorgeous animals in their care. Continue reading...

Bridget Thorne, a Republican elected in Fulton county in 2022, has spread election fraud lies and accused county employees of crimes A Fulton county commissioner in Georgia has been operating a private Telegram channel for years, propagating debunked claims about the 2020 election, and spreading accusations of crimes by county employees, including Ruby Freeman, an election worker defamed by Rudy Giuliani in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 loss. Bridget Thorne, a Republican representing the relatively conservative cities of Fulton county north of Atlanta, indirectly identifies herself as the creator and administrator of the Fulton County Elections channel on Telegram, a mobile messaging platform, in multiple posts to its page. The channel uses the official logo of the Fulton county board of registration and elections. Continue reading...

Rowaa Ahmar’s claims were made in the court papers of a discrimination case against the Cabinet Office A former senior civil servant has said in court papers that “a hostile racist working environment” in the Cabinet Office meant she was “forced to resign”. Rowaa Ahmar, who has now withdrawn a discrimination case against the Cabinet Office, said that “the racism within the Cabinet Office appeared to be unrelenting and systemic” and claimed that she was frozen out of ministerial meetings after complaining about it. Continue reading...

Club ‘disappointed’ and now risk losing personnel to rivals Heather Knight says cricket will be more viable career option Richard Gould, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has stressed that Yorkshire initially missing out on the revamp of the professional women’s game is not a case of the club being “punished for past sins”. From next year the current eight-team regional women’s system will switch to 15-strong full-time squads run directly by eight counties. Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Surrey were those selected this week, before an expansion to 10 counties by 2027 and up to 12 by 2029. Continue reading...

Jonathan Hall, Britain’s reviewer of terrorism legislation, says more children could be exposed to encrypted extremist content The UK’s terror watchdog has criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for lowering the minimum age for WhatsApp users from 16 to 13, warning that the “extraordinary” move could expose more teenagers to extreme content. Jonathan Hall KC said more children could now access material that Meta cannot regulate, including content related to terror or sexual exploitation. Continue reading...

Tech firm released early versions of its latest large language model and a real-time image generator as it tries to catch up to OpenAI Meta Platforms on Thursday released early versions of its latest large language model, Llama 3, and an image generator that updates pictures in real time while users type prompts, as it races to catch up to generative AI market leader OpenAI. The models will be integrated into virtual assistant Meta AI, which the company is pitching as the most sophisticated of its free-to-use peers. The assistant will be given more prominent billing within Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps as well as a new standalone website that positions it to compete more directly with Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s breakout hit ChatGPT. Continue reading...

High court hears arguments over prosecution of Trudi Warner for holding sign telling activists’ trial juries of their rights The prosecution of a woman for contempt of court for holding a sign reminding juries of their rights is not in the public interest, the high court has been told. During a hearing on Thursday, the court heard arguments for and against an attempt by the solicitor general to bring a case against Trudi Warner, 69, who was charged last year for holding a sign – outside the trial of climate activists – reminding juries of their right to acquit a defendant based on their conscience, a principle known as jury equity. Continue reading...

Prime minister also seeks to assure allies Israel’s response to Iran will be measured, as officials urge him to focus on ceasefire deal Benjamin Netanyahu has told western diplomats that he will go ahead with a ground offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza, and has also suggested that Israel’s anticipated reprisal for Iran’s missile and drone salvo will be aimed at Iranian interests rather than Tehran’s proxies. The Israeli leader has sought to assure anxious allies that Israel’s response to Iran will be measured, while also claiming he will flood Gaza with aid and ensure that civilians and aid agencies are given ample opportunity to flee Rafah, the last relative refuge for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinians. Continue reading...

Husband of Nicola Sturgeon had been rearrested as part of police investigation into party’s finances The former Scottish National party chief executive, Peter Murrell, has been charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the party. Murrell, 59, who is the husband of the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, was rearrested as part of the Police Scotland investigation into the party’s finances on Thursday. Continue reading...

Case comes after insiders warned of a potential ageism row last year following merger of BBC News and World News channels The BBC is facing another damaging row over equal pay, with the presenter Martine Croxall taking legal action against the broadcaster for age and sex discrimination. Croxall is suing the corporation after being off-air for more than a year following the merger of the BBC’s News and World News channels, according to listings for London Central tribunal court for 1 May. Continue reading...

There’s some low-stakes pleasure to be had in the first half of the gory new film from the team behind Ready or Not and Scream but things fall apart disastrously Last year’s handsome gothic horror The Last Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Universal the opportunity to present known IP as something fresh, at least on the surface, stories involving Dracula but told in ways we hadn’t seen before. They represented a nifty marketing strategy for a back catalogue of classic monster movies but both worked better as loglines than finished films – Dracula on a boat, Dracula as a bad boss – and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of old property distracting from the promise of something new. As the studio preps a new take on The Wolf Man with next year’s Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter. In the contemporary take, she’s a ballerina (Matilda’s Alisha Weir) who gets kidnapped by a group of unaware criminals, hired to keep her locked in a grand old house for 24 hours while ransom money is obtained. But early on, recovering addict and single mother Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that something is up and starts to realise that the scared little girl in their care might not be so scared after all. Continue reading...

The anti-growth coalition, Bank of England and the OBR are among those under fire from Liz Truss Raw free-market economics is missing in action. Somewhere between its 1980s ascendancy and today, the media, politicians, civil service and even the corporate mainstream abandoned small government and low taxes. At the heart of Liz Truss’s new book, Ten Years to Save the West, the former prime minister reckons this is the reason for Britain’s economic drift, alongside “unelected technocrats” overruling the “wishes of the people”. Continue reading...

Europa League quarter-final, 8pm BST kick-off (first leg: 3-0) West Ham v Bayer Leverkusen: join our MBM report Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | Send Michael a mail Atalanta: Musso, Djimsiti, Hien, Kolasinac, Zappacosta, Ederson Silva, De Roon, Ruggeri, Miranchuk, Koopmeiners, Scamacca. Subs: Toloi, Holm, Pasalic, Toure, Lookman, De Ketelaere, Bakker, Adopo, Carnesecchi, Rossi, Hateboer, Bonfanti. Liverpool: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Konate, van Dijk, Robertson, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, Jones, Salah, Gakpo, Diaz. Subs: Gomez, Endo, Nunez, Adrian, Elliott, Jota, Tsimikas, Gravenberch, Clark, Kelleher, Danns, Quansah. Continue reading...

Europa League quarter-final, 8pm BST kick-off (first leg: 0-2) Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | Drop Daniel an email Also for you… Bundesliga champions, DFB-Pokal finalists and an overall record of Played 43 Won 38 Drawn 5 Lost 0; somehow, Xabi Alonso has magicked Neverkusen into Everkusen and his squad stand on the cusp of one of football’s all-time great seasons. Continue reading...

Madrid being cast as underdogs is a grotesque measure of where we are but absorbing tie was a telling clash of contrasts It turns out Pep Guardiola was right after all. Manchester City’s pursuit of the double-treble will now remain “a hypothetical dream”. This was Pep’s own excellent phrase before Wednesday’s second leg against Real Madrid, a formulation that suggests even Guardiola’s dreams are full of theory, algebra, hypotheticals, like a footballing version of Evelyn Waugh’s professor Silenus, the modernist architect who doesn’t sleep but instead lies in the dark for eight hours with his eyes shut doing high-speed calculations, before rising at dawn to design another machine-age masterpiece. Continue reading...

Coalition of civil society groups says Paris should return harsh reparations imposed on Caribbean state two hundred years ago France should repay billions of dollars to Haiti to cover a debt formerly enslaved people were forced to pay in return for recognising the island’s independence, according to a coalition of civil society groups that is launching a new push for reparations. The Caribbean island state became the first in the region to win its independence in 1804 after a revolt by enslaved people. But in a move that many Haitians blame for two centuries of turmoil, France later imposed harsh reparations for lost income and that debt was only fully repaid in 1947. Continue reading...