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Being a woman in China is getting harder. But in Chengdu, female-only spaces are flourishing
Who is Steve Hilton, the Briton who could become California’s next governor?
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Graham Platner shrugs off scandals to win Maine Democratic Senate primary
Platner, whose campaign was hit by series of negative headlines, to face Susan Collins in key midterm contest Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has scaled a mountain of personal controversies to win the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine. Victory on Tuesday caps a remarkable rise for a candidate who has never held elected office and whose campaign was shadowed by negative headlines that might have ended a more conventional political career. Continue reading...
'This one danced and snaked': Nasa astronaut captures aurora australis from space – video
Nasa astronaut Jessica Meir, part of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission, released a timelapse showing the southern lights as seen from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. They appear near the poles because Earth's magnetic field channels charged particles from the sun toward those regions, where they collide with the atmosphere and create shimmering curtains of colour. 'As opposed to the previous aurora I’ve seen, this one danced and snaked its way directly below us, putting on quite a show. I am in awe of this ethereal and emotionally evocative phenomenon,' Meir wrote on social media Continue reading...
Ukraine war briefing: Moscow car bomb kills Russian ammunition chief – reports
Second car bomb was discovered and blown up by authorities; more panic buying of fuel in Russia as Ukrainian attacks bite. What we know on day 1,568 Continue reading...
Lammy’s cuts to jury trials could have ‘far-reaching’ effect on race relations, say MPs
Justice secretary’s plans likely to increase black people’s suspicion of court system, committee suggests David Lammy’s planned changes to the criminal courts in England and Wales could have a “far-reaching” impact on race relations, a cross-party committee of MPs has concluded. The deputy prime minister’s plan to remove the right to elect for a crown court trial “has the potential to increase mistrust in the criminal justice system among the black community”, the justice select committee said, because black defendants are more likely to elect for trial. Continue reading...
Staff at immigration detention centre wore England flags, report finds
Chair of prisons and detention watchdog concerned about intimidating effect as wide-ranging and damning review published Staff at an immigration detention centre wore England flags pinned to their uniforms while guarding migrants, a report from the prisons and detention watchdog has revealed. Their use by staff at one of the Home Office’s short-term holding facilities to detain migrants is revealed in the Independent Monitoring Boards’ national annual report, published on Wednesday, which is based on 127 annual reports about different prisons, young offender institutions and immigration detention centres. Continue reading...
Grim reality of prison conditions laid bare in damning report
Inmates in England and Wales live among vermin while gangs control entire wings, monitors warn, with failures ‘at risk of becoming normalised’ The independent monitoring board’s annual report of conditions across the prison estate of England and Wales is stark and unflinching. Men and women are held for long periods in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, often living alongside vermin. Continue reading...
Project a Black Planet review: spits out dreary academic theory where it should sing
Barbican, London This exhibition is so in love with the theoretical whimsy of utopian Panafrica that it loses superb artworks in an indigestible intellectual stew Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a painter with the imagination of a great novelist. Her contribution to the Barbican’s exhibition about Panafrica in art and culture deserves to win the Booker prize. She paints fictional people not portraits – a young woman reading avidly, a man standing alone in Pierrot-like fancy clothes, another wearing a cool green coat. You wonder if they are siblings, their scattered trajectories taking them through contemporary life as if this were a book by Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen. For this brand new group of paintings she has a white-walled room to herself. While her young moderns are captured in their ironies along the side walls, at the ends of the room, in uneasy relation to them, hang sombre pictures of African elders, idealised ancestors. Together they form an utterly absorbing, unfinished, epic story of the diaspora experience. Can the young contemporaries connect with those noble figures and find their way back to Africa? Do they even want to? As the poet Aimé Césaire asked: “Who am I? Who are we? What are we in this white world?” Continue reading...
Cattle in England to get tuberculosis vaccine from 2030 as badger cull to end
Targeted vaccination and improved testing planned as part of drive to eradicate disease by 2038 Cattle will be vaccinated against tuberculosis from 2030 as a “gamechanging” part of a new strategy to drive eradication of the disease in England by 2038. In parallel, the last badger culls are expected to end by 2029, with vaccination of badgers expanded. More than 20,000 infected cattle are slaughtered each year, costing taxpayers £100m and inflicting a heavy toll on affected farmers’ livelihoods and mental health. Mass culling of badgers began in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 animals, at a cost of about £60m. Continue reading...
Uzbekistan World Cup 2026 team guide
With a World Cup winner at the helm in Fabio Cannavaro, the White Wolves make their tournament debut This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June. Continue reading...
US federal judge blocks Alabama from executing man by nitrogen gas
Emily C Marks finds method proposed to kill Jeffery Lee violates ban on cruel and unusual punishment A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing a man with nitrogen gas after declaring the method violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. US district judge Emily C Marks issued the decision a day after an appeals court reversed her ruling that the method is constitutional. Continue reading...
Anthropic releases ‘safe’ version of Claude Mythos AI model to public
AI company restricted access to Fable 5, its most powerful Mythos model, for months over cybersecurity concerns Anthropic, the maker of the Claude artificial intelligence (AI) models, made a new version of its technology available to the general public on Tuesday while restricting its use in sensitive areas. Dubbed Fable 5, the model is the first to be made widely available from the company’s new Mythos class – its most advanced lineup of AI technology, unveiled in April but restricted to a small set of partner institutions for months over cybersecurity concerns. Continue reading...
US primaries 2026 live: Graham Platner vies to overcome scandals in Maine as four states hold elections
Polls open in Maine, North Dakota, Nevada, and South Carolina; voters appear to stand by Democratic challenger Graham Platner despite string of controversies Maine voters weigh Platner scandals: ‘It’s not my job to judge’ Sign up for the Breaking News US email Outside of Maine, three other states are holding primary elections today: South Carolina, North Dakota and Nevada. Polls close in South Carolina at 7pm ET. Continue reading...
Bukayo Saka is playing through pain barrier, says Tuchel, as World Cup kick-off looms
Arsenal forward still struggling with achilles injury ‘Bukayo is just not there yet. Some things are missing’ Bukayo Saka continues to play through the pain of an achilles injury, according to the England manager, Thomas Tuchel, and must be managed carefully as the start of the World Cup looms large. The Arsenal winger joined up with the England squad in West Palm Beach on Saturday after being given an extra week off after his involvement in the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain. Tuchel gave a similar break to his other Arsenal players Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke. Continue reading...
Lionesses ease past Ukraine but must navigate playoffs to qualify for World Cup
England 3-0 Ukraine Carter 14, Stanway 37, Mead 67 England had to settle for a place in the World Cup playoffs despite cruising to a 3-0 victory against Ukraine, as Spain’s 6-1 win in Iceland forced England to finish in second spot. It is the first time that England have failed to top their World Cup qualifying group for nearly 25 years, since missing out on a place at the 2003 World Cup, back when the major tournament finals only included 16 nations overall. Being involved in the playoff this time around is not as concerning as it might initially sound – a revamp of the format has meant that only four European sides will qualify automatically, down from nine automatic qualifiers four years ago. Continue reading...
Wembanyama condemns apparent attacks on Spurs fans in New York during NBA finals
Videos show Spurs fans having jerseys ripped off Players from both teams say incidents are unacceptable Players from both teams in the NBA finals have condemned apparent attacks on San Antonio Spurs fans by supporters of the New York Knicks. Videos circulating on social media showed Spurs fans having their jerseys ripped off on the streets of New York in the aftermath of the Knicks’ loss in Game 3 of the finals at Madison Square Garden. Continue reading...
Best Medicine review – this US remake of Doc Martin is perfect rubbish … and you need it in your life
This cosy medical drama does exactly what it sets out to do – soothe viewers’ souls with a celebration of smalltown values and secret goodness. It’s TV where nothing will distress you Well, what in the cultural cringe is going on here? Of all the things I could possibly have imagined the US would take an interest in to the point of executing a straight-to-series commission, Doc Martin would not have been one of them. And yet here we are: Dominic Minghella’s creation, starring Martin Clunes as a crotchety GP in the fictional sleepy Cornish village Portwenn, which ran for 10 series on ITV between 2004 and 2022, has been tweaked for a new market and relabelled Best Medicine because it never really worked as a pun on Dr Martens anyway. Like 99% of puns, actually, but that’s probably a discussion for another time. Clunes is now Josh Charles. The character’s name is Dr Martin Best instead of Ellingham, otherwise the new title wouldn’t work, and he went to Harvard medical school instead of Imperial College London. But he is still cantankerous – by medical teatime drama standards, which is to say that he barely approaches normal human levels of irritability. And he is still a vascular surgeon who developed a fear of blood, had to abandon surgery and decided instead to inflict his lack of bedside manner on the good people of Port Wenn, now two words and in Maine, where he used to stay in the summer as a child. Best Medicine aired on Sky One and is on Now Continue reading...
Kane is in scorching form but England will need others to step up with goals | Jacob Steinberg
With fears about an over-reliance on the goalscoring captain, Tuchel needs more from his other attackers If Thomas Tuchel requires proof there are worse things to be than the Harry Kane team, he need only hear how underwhelming the future looked when an England second string bid farewell to the 2014 World Cup with a desperate 0-0 draw against Costa Rica in Belo Horizonte. Those were dark times. England’s race was run after defeats in their first two group games in Brazil and the worry for the Football Association was that the humiliations no longer felt like a surprise. Continue reading...
World Cup 94 chief Alan Rothenberg: ‘We wanted Whitney Houston on the pitch but Fifa said no’
The man in charge the last time the US hosted the World Cup marvels at the transformation of football in America over the last 32 years The Super Bowl-style half-time show curated by Chris Martin for the World Cup final will not be to everybody’s tastes, but one octogenarian American will have a wry smile on his face when Madonna and Shakira walk out on to the pitch at MetLife Stadium next month. In his role as chair and chief executive of the 1994 World Cup, Alan Rothenberg wanted Whitney Houston to perform on the pitch at the final at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, only to be overruled by Fifa, who insisted that the singer stay on the sidelines. Continue reading...
Didier Deschamps: ‘Mbappé knows that when he speaks, he speaks for all the players’
Questioned in France but championed from afar, the departing head coach has forged a legacy that no one – bar, perhaps, himself – would dare dispute Follow the verdant path towards the Château de Clairefontaine and you are met by a three-metre replica of the World Cup trophy accompanied by two stars, representing France’s World Cup triumphs. Didier Deschamps had his hand in both of them, captaining his side to victory in 1998 before repeating the feat as manager in 2018. The ‘98 World Cup final was France’s first ever but Les Bleus have now participated in four of the last seven end games, with Deschamps involved in three of them. In North America, he will have one final shot at reaching another. These are the expectations, moulded by past success. Deschamps has taken France to three major finals in his 14-year stint as manager. “We’re among the favourites,” he says as he sits down for the interview. “It isn’t a taboo word for me. If we have this status today, which seems logical and legitimate to me, it’s because of everything that we have done, the results we achieved.” Continue reading...
Attachment review – adoption is a marathon in this sprint of a show
Everyman theatre, Liverpool Julia Cranney’s play illustrates complex processes as it explores one woman’s plans to start a family but it hops too quickly through her life Adoption and the care system are at the emotional centre of Julia Cranney’s new monologue. There are hoops to jump through, questions that require you to crack your soul open and hope bubbling beneath it all. Mat (Paislie Reid) and her partner, James, are drawn into early permanence, a pathway in which babies and toddlers are placed with prospective adopters who initially foster them. There is, however, always the possibility that the child could return to their birth family. The script valuably sheds light on that process but Cranney’s play hops through Mat’s life too quickly to have a potent impact. When we meet her she is isolated, not keen on kids and working in a pharmacy. Then, she falls head over heels for James. Soon their relationship is flourishing, she has bonded with his daughter and they are making plans to start a family of their own. Continue reading...
How Belfast knife attack became the latest far-right ‘trigger event’
The rapid spread of footage shows how social media is pivotal in enabling far-right agitators to mobilise internationally Filmed at about 10.30pm on Monday night on a Belfast street, bystanders captured the moment when a man, believed to be a Sudanese asylum seeker, wielded a knife over another man he had pinned to the ground. By Tuesday, the clip had become the latest transnational “trigger event” – in the mould of the Southport killings and the case of the murdered 18-year-old student Henry Nowak – as far-right activists from Britain and beyond seized on it. Continue reading...
Two men jailed for violence at protest over police treatment of Henry Nowak
Leon O’Leary threw a smoke grenade and Connor Bishop a traffic cone at officers during disturbance in Southampton Two men who threw a smoke grenade and traffic cone at police during the violence in Southampton that followed the sentencing of Henry Nowak’s killer have been jailed. Leon O’Leary, 41, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, was sentenced to three years and one month after throwing a smoke grenade at officers. Continue reading...