Police seek warrant for Bang Si-Hyuk over allegations he illegally gained millions in investor fraud scheme South Korean police said on Tuesday they were seeking to arrest Bang Si-Hyuk, the chair of the agency behind the K-pop band BTS, as they expand an investigation into allegations that he illegally gained more than $100m (£74m) in an investor fraud scheme. The Seoul metropolitan police agency confirmed it had asked prosecutors to request a court warrant for arresting Bang, founder and chair of HYBE. Continue reading...

It’s got amazing names attached, from Christopher Eccleston to Siobhan Finneran – but the new Netflix drama starts off workmanlike then goes downhill. Why would these stars ever sign up? Unchosen is set in the world of a Christian splinter sect. Everyone lives simply in grace and harmony, following Christ’s teaching of peace and love for all humankind, with men and women sharing equally in domestic and other labour. They exist as shining lights for what is possible when you set aside the patriarchal nonsense and other accretions that gather around religions. Every episode is a delight and nothing much happens because everyone is living such a good and godly life. I jest! Unchosen is not here to break new ground. It is here to deliver by-numbers drama that has inexplicably attracted the talented likes of Siobhan Finneran and Christopher Eccleston to its cast and you should proceed with your expectations lowered. Continue reading...

IFR budget has risen from £10m previously projected Levy imposed on clubs will be tiny fraction of revenues Premier League clubs are increasingly unhappy at the Independent Football Regulator’s (IFR’s) rising costs and uncertainty about how much each club will be made to pay. Premier League and EFL clubs have repeatedly asked the IFR for an update on its operating budget, which is believed to have risen significantly from the annual £10m projected by the previous government, and been frustrated by the limited response. Continue reading...

The journey from the Von Neumann to the Niemann affair has much to teach us about the changed landscape of the sport There really is, it turns out, a true story involving cheating in chess and a vibrating crotch. Only this one is a whodunnit that dates back more than 30 years and was only solved last week. Imagine the scene at the World Open in Philadelphia in 1993 when a mysterious unrated player with fake dreadlocks and headphones, and with a bulge that vibrates in his trousers, shows up. Now multiply it 100-fold when this unknown amateur, who calls himself John von Neumann after the founder of game theory, draws with a grandmaster, Helgi Ólafsson, in round two. Continue reading...

Leicester City, the champions of England 10 years ago, could be relegated on Tuesday, with plenty more ups and downs to be resolved in the next few days Promoted: Coventry City. Relegated: Sheffield Wednesday. Continue reading...

ABF to demerge fashion chain from firm that owns Kingsmill, Twinings and Patak’s, plus a sugar company Business live – latest updates Primark is to break free from its sister food company which owns Twinings, Kingsmill and Patak’s next year despite warning that the conflict in the Middle East was likely to hit consumer spending. The fashion chain’s owner, Associated British Foods (ABF), confirmed the plan to split off Primark from the rest of the group, first mooted last year. Continue reading...

ONS data for three months to February is not expected to alter Bank of England’s decision on interest rates Unemployment in the UK unexpectedly fell in the three months to February, according to official figures – but the fallout from the conflict in the Middle East is expected to cause a rise in job cuts. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the rate of unemployment was 4.9% in the three months to February. This compares with 5.2% in the three months to January, a rate that economists had expected to also see in February. Continue reading...

Zayne Jason William McMillan’s lawyer says client’s tirade was antisemitic but claims he ‘does not consider himself racist against Jewish community’ A man seen mimicking the Bondi beach terror attack before making slurs against Jewish people has been jailed. Zayne Jason William McMillan, 23, was heavily intoxicated when he and a friend went to Bondi beach, six weeks after the shooting, in which 15 people were killed. Continue reading...

UK’s Rare Breeds Survival Trust says calf numbers of white park cattle last year were less than two-thirds of 2022 level An ancient breed of cattle whose ancestors are thought to have accompanied the Celts as they were pushed to Britain’s fringes by the Romans has been designated as urgently at risk by a UK conservation charity. Publishing its 2026 watchlist on Tuesday, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust moved white park cattle to its “priority” category as new calf numbers sank last year to less than two-thirds of their 2022 level. Continue reading...

She left after being held up at gunpoint. Now Silvana Trevale wants to show a different side to the ‘wounded’ country – with a photography project about the resilience of its youth completed last year Continue reading...

What’s it like to lose your partner of more than 40 years? The novelist and essayist reflects on going from ‘we’ to ‘I’ It wasn’t quite Beatlemania, but, at the height of Paul Auster’s fame in the 1980s and 90s, screaming fans clambered on to the hood of a car after a reading in Buenos Aires. Admirers mobbed him at bookshop events in Paris, the city where he had once eked out a living translating French literature. He was offered big money to make ads promoting American beef to Japan. He was hailed as a rock god, a literary superstar, a postmodernist with leading-man looks. Little of this is of much consequence or consolation to novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt who, before he died of cancer in 2024, had been married to Auster for more than 40 years. As she tells it in Ghost Stories, her memoir of their life together, she was a tall blond PhD student in a jumpsuit when she met him – “a beautiful man in a black leather jacket” – at a poetry reading. He was separated from the mother of his child, living alone in a gloomy Brooklyn apartment, yet to publish anything of substance. Literature bound them: he was just 15 when he decided his future was in writing; she had come to the same insight at an even younger age. Continue reading...

I was forced to lose all the £609 I had paid, although Booking.com couldn’t contact our host, either A friend and I paid Booking.com for an apartment in Paris. The next day we received an email informing us our “request” had not been confirmed and advising us to contact the owner. Our many attempts failed, and so did Booking.com’s. A call centre manager suggested we travel to Paris, knock on the door and contact Booking.com if nobody answered. Otherwise we would not get our booking refunded. Continue reading...

When a veteran of the American war of independence returns to his native country with popular rule on his mind dangerous passions ignite This Polish historical drama is an odd duck of a feature but there’s definitely a cinematic flair to proceedings. For a start, a lot of it unfolds over one evening in a candlelit setting, so you may have to screw up your eyes in order to make out what’s going on. My advice is to then surrender to its strange tonality and weird flat stretches, because the ending pulls most of the strands together satisfyingly and goes out with bangs, whizzes and a fair few sword thrusts. The year is 1794, and it’s not long since the American war of independence has finished, in which Polish hero Tadeusz “Kos” Kościuszko (a real historical figure, played here by Chris Pine lookalike Jacek Braciak) fought valiantly on the side of the American rebels. Now he’s back in what’s left of Poland, a nation with particularly elastic borders at that time as various neighbours invade and pull back, especially the Russians. Kos is accompanied by his friend Domingo (Jason Mitchell), a freed slave and top marksman, and together the two of them are hoping to start something in Poland and get the peasants revolting against the oppressive nobility. That sort of social order shake-up would definitely be a boon for folks such as Ignac Sikora (Bartosz Bielenia), the bastard son of a local landowner who has promised with his dying breath to leave Ignac some kind of inheritance in his will. Continue reading...

Tucked away in a remote valley, these cosy off-grid cabins come with a wild-swimming pond, loads of wildlife and a farm where kids can run free Holidaying as a single parent is a tricky balance. You want to ringfence the kind of extended one-on-one time that can be difficult to find during term time; but too much of that and you know you’ll drive each other a little crazy. Kids need other kids, and you could do with some adult company too. You also need a break. It’s a nice idea to pack the car with camping gear and head out into the wilderness, but it can be a lot of work – and you end up in a field, attempting to put up a tent, alone. Friends of mine have suggested holiday parks, some of them with bars and restaurants and a daily schedule of kids’ activities. That all sounds a bit overstimulating. I’d been dreaming about sinking into a quiet landscape. But would there be enough to do? Continue reading...

Yanar Mohammed’s assassination comes amid a number of killings as fellow campaigners warn women’s rights are going backwards In early March, two unidentified gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on Iraq’s most notable women’s rights activist, Yanar Mohammed, as she stood outside her home in the north of the capital, Baghdad. She had long been the target of death threats from Islamic State and other armed groups. Her death was the latest of several killings of well-known female figures in Iraq in recent years, who were either prominent advocates for women’s rights or notable individuals. In early April, soon after Yanar’s death, a female lawyer known for supporting girls was also murdered. Speaking to the Guardian and Jummar Media, women in Iraq say the murders have had a chilling effect on their ability to speak out at a time when women’s rights and freedoms in the country are going backwards. Continue reading...

The actor slides into the hot seat on The Assembly. Plus: an Australian dating series for people who are scared of dating. Here’s what to watch this evening 10.05pm, ITV1 Stephen Fry was asked whether there was “anything he wouldn’t do for money”. Lenny Henry fielded questions about racism and discovering his uncle is his biological father. Now, actor Anna Maxwell Martin slides into the hot seat of TV’s most revealing chatshow. Whatever questions the Assembly – a group of neurodivergent and disabled adults – have in store for her, you can bet they’ll be bold and fascinating. Lucinda Everett Continue reading...

F1’s latest world champion speaks with deep candour about overcoming his insecurities but questions about Max Verstappen and regulations? Off limits There are always complications and difficulties in Formula One, as there are in life and even in this interview. On a beautiful evening at a lavish golf club in Surrey, Lando Norris and I are tucked away in an anonymous yet brightly-lit room crammed with a television crew and representatives from his management team and Laureus, the global organisation driven by a belief that “sport has the power to change the world”. At first Norris talks thoughtfully and honestly about his struggles with profound insecurity before becoming world champion last year. But we reach a low point when a young man from his management company feels sufficiently empowered to answer questions on the 26-year-old’s behalf, as a way of controlling our interview. Continue reading...

Ed Miliband has a rare chance to do for the climate what Nye Bevan did for health: create something future generations will be proud of It looks unlikely that Labour will emerge as the largest party at the next general election (though it’s by no means impossible). If just one term is Labour’s destiny, what legacy will it leave behind? There is already in the making one great success that can’t be reversed, the transition to homegrown clean energy. This is a true “taking back control” escape from the clutches of febrile oil and gas markets. Indeed it might become such a political success that it could rescue Labour’s electoral fortunes. Historically it may come to be recognised as equivalent to the 1948 creation of the NHS, with Ed Miliband the Nye Bevan of our day. He has fought his cause in much the same ruthless way Bevan did. He faces the same ferocious (and politically deranged) opposition from the right, who will have to eat their hats over rejecting renewables. Just as the NHS is a prime reason for pride in Britain, we can expect the same national pride in homegrown energy independence, freeing us from rollercoaster markets and mercurial foreign oil and gas dictators: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or ayatollahs. Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink? On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.live Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Alarm caused by posts of Alex Carp, tech firm’s CEO, championing US military dominance and of AI weapons The US spy tech company Palantir published a manifesto extolling the benefits of American power and implying some cultures are inferior to others – in what MPs have called “a parody of a RoboCop film” and “the ramblings of a supervillain”. “Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive,” wrote Palantir in a 22-point post on X over the weekend, which also called for an end to the “postwar neutering” of Germany and Japan. Continue reading...

Poppadoms masquerade as tortillas in these tostadas topped with a striking pink mole, and grilled mushroom tortillas smothered in melty cheese and a sharp salsa Costra, meaning ‘crust’ in Spanish, is a classic dish from the north and centre of Mexico that’s traditionally made with tender cuts of beef and finished with a melted crust of semi-hard cheese (usually Chihuahua or manchego mixed with Oaxaca cheese for texture). The cheese is grated on a plancha grill and allowed to melt and crisp up, and is then draped over the meat. Here, though, I have substituted the steak for mushrooms. Then, tostadas are traditionally made with crisp corn tortillas that are either baked or deep-fried, a technique that was first invented to preserve the tortillas for longer. They’re commonly used to serve lean, light preparations, like ceviches, aguachiles and salsas. Here, I’ve used poppadoms to achieve a similar texture and starchiness; use ready-cooked ones to make this even quicker. Continue reading...

Publicans say celebrity-backed brands have helped the take-up of a ‘slightly lighter alternative’ to the classic G&T A crisp gin and tonic has for many British people been just the ticket as the weather gets warmer, but new consumer data shows tequila is overtaking gin for the first time as a summer tipple of choice. Spicy margaritas, which are a piquant twist on the classic tequila, lime and triple sec cocktail, have taken the UK by a storm in recent years and now the country is firmly hooked on tequila, with many ordering a tequila and tonic instead of a G&T. Continue reading...

Experts say attacks, also carried out by settlers, are leading girls to quit school and enter early marriages 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. Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israelis exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence. Continue reading...

As he stars alongside Sheridan Smith as a casino boss on the take, the actor talks about leaving school with no qualifications, playing vile dads – and why he’s eager to circulate the This Is England reunion rumour Michael Socha is about to jump on a train to Wales. The impressively bushy beard he’s got is for his role in The Witch House, a dramatic adaptation of an episode of the Danny Robins podcast Uncanny, about a supposed haunting in the Brecon Beacons. He plays Bill Rich, who moves his family to a spooky old farmhouse where it all goes “horribly wrong”, Socha says. “In the photos he has a beard, and I thought, ‘I’ll match that.’” The actor strokes his chin and turns his head from side to side. It looks pretty substantial to me. “You say that, but see this bit? I’m struggling. It’s a bit patchy there. I’m happy with this bit, but then this needs work.” Socha has just left a screening of his new BBC thriller The Cage, and he has the gentle bounce of a man who struggles to stay still. As with his beard, he finds it hard not to find flaws in what he’s done. Normally, he admits, he tries to avoid watching himself on screen. “I’ll sort of nitpick away,” he shrugs, but he had such a nice time making The Cage that he was looking forward to seeing it. “But the more you watch something, the more you find bits that you’re not too happy with.” Continue reading...

‘Stone age’ system of booking cross-border rail tickets holding back climate action by consumers, says thinktank Europe’s “stone age” system of booking train tickets makes it needlessly difficult for travellers to avoid polluting flights, a report has found. Booking equivalent train tickets is “difficult or impossible” on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, analysis from the Transport & Environment (T&E) thinktank shows. Continue reading...

Fraudsters are using the promise of fake roles to trick job-seekers out of money, personal information or both, and with the help of AI they are more convincing than ever. But there are ways to spot them There were clues from the start that it was too good to be true. A headhunter emailed me with a job prospect – a journalist role with “a leading US technology and markets editorial team”. The opportunity, she said, was part of a confidential expansion and hadn’t been publicly posted. My spidey-sense was tingling, but the timing was auspicious. I was on the lookout for new work as my maternity leave was coming to an end. Initially, the email seemed legitimate. When I Googled the sender, I found a headhunter with the same name and profile picture on LinkedIn, and the message was clearly tailored to me: It referenced several roles I’d previously held and identified my specific areas of expertise. “Your focus on the real-world impacts of AI, digital culture and the gig economy aligns perfectly with an internal, high-priority mandate I’m managing,” the headhunter wrote. Continue reading...