Malkinson spent 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted in rape case for which another man is now on trial A woman who alleged she was raped by Andrew Malkinson admitted to police 22 years ago that she “wasn’t too sure it was the right man,” a court has heard. Malkinson spent 17 years in prison for an attack he did not commit in what jurors heard was a “most terrible” miscarriage of justice. Paul Quinn is now on trial at Manchester crown court accused of the 2003 rape after fresh DNA tests allegedly linked him to the victim. Continue reading...

Lossiemouth’s presence means the selection is an attractive bet to follow up last year’s novice win at this meeting The sporting decision to send Lossiemouth, the Mares’ Hurdle winner for the last two seasons, in against all-comers in Tuesday’s Champion Hurdle adds considerably to the depth of the competition, but it has also prompted a minor drift in the price of The New Lion and he is an attractive bet to follow up last year’s novice win at this meeting. Unlike the other three runners at single-figure odds for Tuesday’s feature event, The New Lion does not benefit from a 7lb mares’ allowance. While Brighterdaysahead, Golden Ace and Lossiemouth have 12, 12 and 17 runs behind them respectively, however, The New Lion has just half a dozen, with five wins and just one defeat when he made an uncharacteristic jumping error at Newcastle in December. Continue reading...

Mercedes’ flying start lives up to promise, but new regulations receive scathing reviews The pre-season favourites had done their level best to play down their expected advantage in the buildup to the Australian Grand Prix, but it was impossible to hide. A dominant one-two by the best part of a second for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in qualifying was followed by a similarly assured one-two finish in the race. Continue reading...

Russian oligarch says money is his to allocate despite international sanctions imposed on his assets The Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has stepped up his row with the British government over the £2.5bn proceeds of his sale of Chelsea FC, insisting that the money is his to allocate despite the international sanctions imposed on his assets. The UK and EU imposed sanctions on Abramovich in 2022, freezing his assets in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing his ties to Vladimir Putin’s regime. Continue reading...

Incident took place during anti-Islam protest by rightwing agitators outside Gracie Mansion, where the New York City mayor lives Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox The throwing of two improvised explosive devices – allegedly by counter-protesters during an anti-Islam demonstration – outside the residence of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday was an act of “terrorism” inspired by the Islamic State terror group, officials said Monday. Jessica Tisch, the New York police department (NYPD) commissioner, told reporters at a press conference in Manhattan that two men from Pennsylvania were arrested at the scene – and that a federal criminal complaint against them would be filed later on Monday. Continue reading...

Now’s the perfect time to sort your outdoor space, and we’ve got the whole thing covered with our roundup of the best online nurseries. Plus, gardening pros reveal their go-to kit • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here With the first signs of spring and that tantalising sense of sap rising, it’s time to venture into the garden. If it’s looking a mess, then don’t despair: these days the received wisdom is to let it stay scruffy over the winter, providing a much-needed habitat for all kinds of wildlife. So the good news is that you’ve been doing your bit, however unwittingly. Now, though, it’s time to tidy up dead leaves, straggly growth and all those precocious weeds that are trying to get a head start. And if 2026 is the year that you want to up your gardening game – whether that’s planning a new border, or just plugging some gaps – you might be thinking about buying some new plants. We’re here to help. The best LED face masks, tested The best Mother’s Day gifts for mums, grannies, aunties and friends ‘I’m going to be very cautious about buying gnocchi from now on’: the best (and worst) supermarket gnocchi, tasted and rated The best pillows for every type of sleeper, tested Continue reading...

‘Rick’s basically a what-if version of me. Had I not found success, that’s how I would have been – deluding myself into thinking success will come, or believing it’s not my fault that it hasn’t’ I was doing a lot of standup, working with other comedy writers. I was interested in the relationship between writer and performer. I wondered: “What if the writer is funnier than the performer?” I approached Pete Sinclair, who I’d written with for a long time, and said: “What do you reckon?” BBC4 commissioned a pilot. Continue reading...

Jamie Lee Curtis is among a number of prominent figures to take exception to the Oscar nominee for disparaging artforms ‘no one cares about any more’ The Oscar-winning actor Jamie Lee Curtis has added her disapproval to the chorus protesting against Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet’s comments about the relevance of opera and ballet. The star of Marty Supreme has attracted considerable backlash for his remarks during a CNN/Variety video conversation with Matthew McConaughey, which was recorded on 24 February. Continue reading...

Britain’s toads have begun their spring migration, putting them at even greater risk than usual. Here’s how – and why – we should look after them There’s a touch of old magic about toads, those shapeshifters of myth, superstition and folklore. Charismatic creatures with the pleasing Latin binomial bufo bufo, common toads have astonishing copper- or gold-coloured eyes and rugged, textured skin. “People say they look warty, which I’ve always thought is a bit unfair,” says Dr Silviu Petrovan, a conservationist and toad population researcher. More prosaically, toads are great for your garden. “We say toads are a gardener’s best friend, because they eat all the pests,” says Jenny Tse-Leon, the head of conservation and impact at the British amphibian charity Froglife. Their spring migration is a dramatic event, during which hundreds of thousands of animals travel back to their ancestral breeding ponds. “Like the wildebeest of the Serengeti,” says Tse-Leon. “They’re just a lot smaller than wildebeest.” The males “piggyback” on potential partners: “You see them riding on the female’s back to get a lift to the pond.” Continue reading...

The leaders haven’t won the title in more than 20 years. Yet very few neutrals are excited about seeing them as new champions Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here What was striking after Arsenal’s grim 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday was less Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler’s attack on the Gunners’ style than the way his criticism seemed to resonate. In England, it feels as though almost nobody, other than Arsenal supporters or anyone-but-City fans, wants them to win the title. “If I would ask everyone in the room: ‘Did you really enjoy this football game?’ I’m sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan but, besides that, no chance,” Hürzeler said. This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition. Continue reading...

After operating on victims of the Westminster attack in 2017 and visiting Ukraine and Gaza, Hettiaratchy has seen more horror than most can imagine – but he still believes in humanity, optimism and selflessness On 22 March 2017, trauma surgeon Shehan Hettiaratchy was running end-of-term exams for his medical students when his phone buzzed. There had been a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament. Three men had driven into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, then started stabbing people on the street. Within minutes, Hettiaratchy was in a car with a colleague and heading to St Mary’s hospital near Paddington, west London, where he is the lead surgeon. Victims injured in the attack were due to arrive. Though Hettiaratchy and his team were used to treating patients with life-threatening injuries – on paper, he says, what they were facing was no different from “a busy Saturday night” – this felt different. There was “a collective fear that we’re under attack – there are people on the streets of London trying to kill our fellow Londoners”. Continue reading...

Arquette says 1994 film is ‘great on may levels’ but she ‘cannot stand that [the director] has been given a hall pass’ Pulp Fiction and Desperately Seeking Susan star Rosanna Arquette has said she found Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in Pulp Fiction to be “racist and creepy”. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Arquette said of the film, in which she plays the tattooed and pierced wife to Eric Stoltz’s syringe-wielding drug dealer: “It’s iconic, a great film on a lot of levels. But personally I am over the use of the N-word – I hate it. I cannot stand that [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass.” Continue reading...

Nscale’s AI project still in use as depot ahead of pledged completion date – with planning permission filed after Guardian’s inquiries Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’ The press releases announcing a gleaming supercomputer on the outskirts of north London depict a glass and concrete building, rising from a tree-lined street. Accompanied by images of glowing blue robot faces, it looks like the centre of a technological revolution. By the end of this year, that artist’s impression is supposed to be a reality. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Rented datacentres and ‘supercomputer’ site that’s still a scaffolding yard raise questions for Starmer’s push to ‘mainline AI into veins of economy’ From press release … to scrap metal site: the Essex supercomputer that’s still a scaffolding yard A multibillion-pound drive to “mainline AI into the veins” of the British economy is riddled with “phantom investments” and shaky accounting, a Guardian investigation has found. Since 2024, successive Conservative and Labour governments have proclaimed massive deals to build new datacentres, create thousands of jobs and construct a supercomputer. Continue reading...

Monaco are flying but PSG are in bad shape before their Champions League last-16 tie against Chelsea By Get French Football News Sébastien Pocognoli doesn’t like to talk about “foundational matches” but there are moments that can shape a season for better or for worse – and they do not necessarily come on the pitch. Sometimes they come in restaurants. Monaco hit a low at the Bernabéu at the end of January. Their 6-1 defeat to Real Madrid was their heaviest in European competition and followed a run of seven defeats in eight games in Ligue 1, the worst record in the club’s history. After their humbling defeat in Madrid, the squad remained in the city until the afternoon of the following day to come to terms with the deepening crisis. The club’s coaches and staff held a meeting to talk things through. The players also gathered to thrash things out. “We thought it was important to have one as players, to be open, to try to find solutions,” said Folarin Balogun. “It was positive.” Continue reading...

Goalkeeper has not travelled to Istanbul with teammates Alexis Mac Allister is available after fears over knee injury Alisson has not travelled to Istanbul for Liverpool’s Champions League last-16 first leg against Galatasaray after sustaining a problem in training. The goalkeeper is understood to have felt minor discomfort after Monday’s session and a decision was taken not to risk taking him to Turkey. Continue reading...

Full-back has struggled since his move but fierce strike took his side seven points off neighbours who could wobble Pervis Estupiñán called it “the most important goal of my career”. He does, admittedly, only have 12 to choose from, but to score the winner in a Milan derby is something few players ever experience. It could only feel better for having done it towards the end of a difficult first season in Italian football. The Ecuadorian was billed as a replacement for Theo Hernández when he joined Milan from Brighton last summer, lumbered with unreasonable comparison from the start. Hernández, at his best, was one of the most effective attacking full-backs on the planet. Estupiñán, at 28, is yet to put himself in that conversation, but the hope was that he could offer some of the same directness and ability to get up and down the left flank. Continue reading...

Watching one nocturnal family through all of spring, I experienced the exhilarating thrills of their nightly routine – and learned the call of the frogmouths What’s not to love about a Muppet in a long coat with spooky eyes like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon? Posing as tree stumps on a branch, tawny frogmouths almost parody themselves. But there’s much more to them than that. Frogmouths have another life that few people see: like vampires, they wake at sunset and night-hunt until dawn. These stolid creatures turn into zephyrs that silently swoop, catching prey on the ground and in the air. Continue reading...

The line-up for this year’s festival includes Emma Thompson, Malala Yousafzai, Ian McEwan and other prominent authors and figures Emma Thompson, Malala Yousafzai, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Gisèle Pelicot are among the headline names appearing at Hay festival 2026, organisers have announced. The popular UK literary festival has now unveiled its full programme, featuring more than 500 events running from 21 to 31 May in Hay-on-Wye, Powys. Continue reading...

After being eliminated from the Asian Cup, the players reportedly escaped their regime minders and are being looked after by police in Queensland Middle East crisis – live updates Five members of the Iranian women’s football team have been taken into the protection of police in Australia after refusing to return to their home country following the team’s elimination from the Women’s Asian Cup, according to reports. Speculation had mounted for days that some of the players would try to seek asylum in Australia after reports that they had been called “traitors” for refusing to sing their national anthem before their opening game of the tournament last week. Continue reading...

Cem Özdemir gains 30.2% of vote in Baden-Württemberg, ahead of CDU, with far-right AfD in third Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have stumbled into a busy election year with a defeat to the Greens in a key state poll, as his embattled party struggles to fend off a challenge in other pivotal races from the far right. The German chancellor’s conservative CDU had enjoyed a double-digit lead in the south-western car production region of Baden-Württemberg just weeks ago but the Greens and their charismatic candidate Cem Özdemir eked out a half-point-margin win in Sunday’s poll with 30.2%. Continue reading...

Musician created numerous volumes of beats that were acclaimed across the grime scene, before crossing over with solo chart success British rapper and producer Dot Rotten, who flourished in the grime scene before crossing over to mainstream success, has died aged 37. The musician, real name Joseph Ellis-Stevenson, reportedly died in the Gambia. His family confirmed the death to the BBC. Continue reading...

London-based startup, which is vital to the government’s artificial intelligence ambitions, is now valued at $14.6bn Business live – latest updates Nscale, a UK company vital to the government’s AI ambitions, has raised $2bn (£1.5bn) in a funding round and appointed former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg to its board of directors. It brings the valuation of the London-based startup, which is backed by US tech company Nvidia, to $14.6bn, it said in a statement, and follows a $1.1bn funding round the company raised last September. Continue reading...

Oil prices have already shot up thanks to the US-Israeli war in Iran. But what is the economic fallout likely to be? Will interest rates rise? What about inflation? Could the cost of borrowing increase – and by how much? Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss how the cost of living might be hit and the political implications of that Continue reading...

★★★★★ / ★★★★★ Photographers’ Gallery, London Gottschalk documents lesbian life in the 60s and 70s, while this year’s Deutsche Börse prize ranges from appalling scenes from women’s prisons to an exploration of invented facts When Donna Gottschalk came out as gay to her mother, she replied: “You’ve chosen a rough path.” It was New York in the 1960s, homosexuality was illegal and, as the photographer reflects in a video piece included in her new exhibition We Others: “There were no happy gay people.” A photograph of Gottschalk’s mother in the beauty salon she ran in the notoriously crime-ridden Alphabet City appears at the start of the show, in which the images are accompanied by texts by the French writer Hélène Giannecchini, recording the photographer’s memories of the people and events depicted. Gottschalk picked up a camera at 17, so these pictures also constitute her own awakening, as she accepted her identity and became involved with the Gay Liberation Front. It starts with family. Here is a painfully poignant image of Gottschalk’s sister, Myla, aged 11, the picture of innocence and peace, asleep in bed in the family’s apartment in a tenement building. Continue reading...