Officials assessing route after serac between base camp and camp one deemed unstable and too risky for climbers A large ice block on the route just above the Mount Everest base camp has forced hundreds of climbers and local guides to delay their attempt to scale the world’s highest peak. The serac between base camp and camp one is unstable and is risky for climbers, said Himal Gautam of Nepal’s department of mountaineering on Friday. Continue reading...

⚽ All the latest football news heading into a huge weekend ⚽ Fixtures | Tables | Get the Football Daily email | Mail John We expect to hear from interim – for the second time – Chelsea head coach Calum McFarlane today. And there’s news of the first manager he stood in for back in January. The regular weekend digest of what to expect here. Continue reading...

(Kallista) The Australian songwriter’s fourth album exists in the captivating chasm between the coolness of her music and the unrepentant obsession of the crush it explores Across what is now four albums, Australian singer-songwriter Carla dal Forno has moved with an eerily light gait across spartan post-punk landscapes with the occasional spot of sunlight from dub or indie-pop. She has said her latest, Confession, is about “a friendship that became emotionally charged in an unexpected way”, a drama that plays out in a series of riveting scenes. Powered by a New Order-worthy bass line, opener Going Out confesses her shame as a romantic obsession hardens into brute determination; Dal Forno’s tone of voice is unrepentantly chilling as she makes up her mind to acquire her target. That obsession continues on the title track, though it’s as if Dal Forno tries to brush off how deep it goes by using a bright, gently skanking rhythm (a style familiar to listeners of 2022’s Come Around). The coolly funky Nighttime crackles with erotic potential, but other songs contain hurt and regret – though again, it’s not always mirrored by the music, which takes in naive twee-pop melodies, peppy coldwave and more. All of her conflicted feelings rattle around the superb Under the Covers, about the inexorability of not just attraction, but also the stasis that can set in to a relationship. Continue reading...

The parents of a school shooter meet those of a victim in the film Mass, which is now a play. It explores the bitter proposition – and extraordinary sacrifice – of restorative justice There is a documentary that I encourage everyone to watch called Long Night’s Journey Into Day. I first saw it when I was a student more than 20 years ago. The wordplay on the renowned Eugene O’Neill title was enough to pique my undergraduate-level interest when it began. What transpired over the next 90 minutes, however, never left me. It follows four amnesty hearings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. You watch family members of murdered loved ones sit face to face with the violent perpetrators. The purpose of these meetings was to see if the families could forgive them. The necessity of the meetings, which in some cases looked more like ritual given the catharsis that occurred, rested on the belief that only through forgiveness would the country truly heal. Continue reading...

(Blue Note) The redoubtable musician and guests including Branford Marsalis and Ron Carter make standard song-shapes sparkle with focus and rugged phrasing As the passing of time undoes established norms, the contemporary music world keeps updating the meaning of that collection of styles often bundled up as “classic jazz”. In the 1940s, the modernist bebop movement was jazz’s uncompromising cutting edge, and the music’s early 20th-century roots in street music, plantations, saloons and red-light districts became its classic trad forms. Thirty years later, bebop’s breakneck melodies and jarring chords became “classic jazz” themselves, overtaken by the free-improv avant garde of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, the jazz/rock fusions of Miles Davis, Weather Report and Frank Zappa, and new jazz-influenced folk and contemporary classical forms from all over the world. In those creatively dizzying years, jazzers still wanting to play song-tunes and old-school swing sometimes found themselves mocked by progressives as sad nostalgics. But now, in a 21st-century music world accepting of abundantly competing choices, all that has changed. Continue reading...

The teenager crushed Veselin Topalov 5-1 to become the youngest ever 2700-rated grandmaster, after which his coach said his future target was 2900 Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, 14, has become chess’s youngest 2700-rated grandmaster, breaking an age record set a decade ago by China’s Wei Yi at 15. The Turkish teenager is already the highest ever rated 12, 13, and 14-year-old, and the youngest to reach the world top 50. For the moment, his new achievement only shows in the live daily ratings, but will become official when Fide’s monthly list for May is published at the end of the month. Veselin Topalov was the world No 1 20 years ago and was the Fide world champion. However, the Bulgarian has been largely inactive since he finished seventh of 10 at Norway 2022 and the rust showed in his performance. For Erdogmus, it was his third important match success, following his 4-2 victory against the eight-time Russian champion Peter Svidler and his 3.5-2.5 margin against France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. One of his wins from the 2025 Fide Grand Swiss in Samarkand has been dubbed the “Turkish Immortal” due to its brilliant sacrificial conclusion. Continue reading...

Smart scheduling is key to longevity and avoiding injuries, and the Spaniard has sometimes paid for his imprudence Carlos Alcaraz’s title defence at the Monte Carlo Masters ended two Sundays ago in an intense two-set final loss to his arch-rival Jannik Sinner. While some players would have been desperate for a break after a gruelling week, Alcaraz had other plans. Less than 24 hours later, he landed back home in Spain to compete at the Barcelona ATP 500 event, immediately undertaking promotional duties. A few hours after his first practice, the following day, Alcaraz walked on to Pista Rafa Nadal for his opening match. By the next day Alcaraz was out. He had struggled with pain in his right wrist during his first-round match, an injury that turned out to be more serious than first thought. The 22-year-old is uncertain about his return date, and whether he will be able to compete at Roland Garros. He wears a bulky immobilisation cast on his right wrist while awaiting tests on the injury. Continue reading...

PlayStation 5; Housemarque/Sony As a fast-firing spaceman, one minute you’re invincible, the next you’re dead – with every battle like watching a firework show through a kaleidoscope On the planet Carcosa, mangled, blackened trees and crimson flowers take root next to the ruins of some ancient alien civilisation, flanked by statues contorted in pain, tearing at their marble skin. There are metallic tunnels deep underground, chasms of impossible size snaked with cables, so you feel as though you’re exploring the intestines of some giant machine. There’s a House of Leaves quality to these spaces, which shift and change and clearly weren’t built for humans. You are Arjun Devraj (played by Rahul Kohli), a space security guy who’s on a mission to find missing colonists on an alien world before it all goes a bit Event Horizon and you become the next lost expedition. Classic. There’s some unethical space capitalism happening out here, and Devraj himself is a bit of a traumanaut who brought way too much mental carry-on luggage for this extremely long-haul flight. But it’s nothing that shooting some aliens won’t fix, right? Continue reading...

Rival to government plans would scrap net zero policies, as party aims to woo sector after decades of job losses Reform UK has asked steel bosses to draw up an “alternative steel strategy” to rival recent government plans, stoking industry fears over a charm offensive by Nigel Farage’s party as it eyes gains in former Labour heartlands. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, met a group of bosses shortly before Labour announced new steel tariffs in March and commissioned them to draft a competing plan that will include scrapping net zero policies. Continue reading...

Have you followed the big stories in football, snooker, cricket, NFL, athletics, rugby league and golf? Continue reading...

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

I’m now at a time of life where a rib injury can feel like a ruptured spleen but playing still trumps watching, so we go again. Again I woke up a few weeks ago with a searing pain under my left ribs. I ruled out heart attack relatively quickly – I haven’t read about your heart sagging as you enter deep middle age, or whatever your late 40s is. Breathing was uncomfortable, but not short – there were no stabbing pains. Inhaling ached, and it turns out you inhale all the time. Once I was confident of seeing out the remainder of the day, I started Googling other potential ailments in this region, confidently seizing upon ruptured spleen. It sounded impressive enough to put in a WhatsApp group. And so I went with it. Continue reading...

As Trump lurches from tariffs to wars and Farage makes unrealistic pledges about immigration, their impunity needs to end Rightwing populists always promise they will get things done when they get into power. Immigration will be halted. Government waste will be eradicated. Traditional values will be revived. National decline will be halted. National greatness will be restored. Relations with the outside world will be redrawn. Great tasks that, for decades, have been beyond the capability and will of conventional, compromising politicians will be accomplished – and fast. Populist governments will respond decisively to voters’ accumulated frustrations, cut through bureaucracy, and avoid the delays, U-turns and half-finished projects that usually blight democracies. The business of government will be straightforward and highly productive – even heroic – rather than complicated and disappointing. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

US president orders navy to ‘shoot and kill’ boats laying mines in Hormuz and claims ‘total control’ over the strait Trump claims US has total control over strait of Hormuz after Iran seizes two container ships Analysis: Trump may talk of regime infighting, but Iran seems united by strategy born of war Here’s a snapshot of the latest Middle East news to bring you up to speed. Donald Trump has ordered the US military to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the strait of Hormuz and claimed that US minesweepers “are clearing the strait right now” amid the standoff over the key waterway. US special forces earlier boarded a stateless oil tanker in the Indian Ocean which the Pentagon claimed was carrying Iranian crude oil, ratcheting up the standoff with Tehran over the strait. The US president also announced that a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon would be extended by three weeks. Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside the participants in the meeting, said he hoped the two countries’ leaders would meet during the additional three-week cessation of hostilities. Trump said the US had “hit about 75% of our targets” in Iran and that a deal had not yet been reached because Iran’s leadership was “in turmoil”. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said there were no “hardliners” or “moderates” in Iran, responding to the Trump claim of internal division in Iran’s leadership. Separately, Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said Iranian state institutions “continue to act with unity, purpose and discipline”. The US offered up to $10m for information on the leader of a Tehran-backed Shia militia in Iraq. The US state department’s “rewards for justice” program alleged Hashim Finyan Rahim al-Saraji was the leader of the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS) and that it was a terrorist group. Israel’s killing of a Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, 43, in a strike has been met with international outrage as Lebanon’s prime minister described the attack as a “war crime”. Colleagues called it a sustained attack by Israeli forces and said rescuers attempting to dig her out of the rubble of a building were also targeted and prevented from providing life-saving assistance. US journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was freed a week after being kidnapped in Baghdad late last month, has taken to social media to thank people for helping secure her release by the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. “Thank you all so very, very much,” she said. Italian sports officials say Italy is not interested in replacing Iran at the upcoming World Cup after a suggestion to that effect by a Trump administration official. Pope Leo urged the US and Iran to return to talks to end the war and condemned capital punishment, calling for a new “culture of peace” to replace the recourse to violence. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Experts are predicting a stronger version of the weather pattern this year, which could supercharge extreme events and see temperature rises breach 1.5C • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Scientists and officials are keeping a close eye on conditions brewing in the Pacific Ocean that could spike temperatures and smash global heat records in the year ahead. It’s still too early to get a definitive picture, but there are signs that a so-called super El Niño could develop this year, supercharging extreme weather events around the world. Some forecasts are suggesting it could become one of the strongest ever recorded. Stern warning: one man’s mission to clear the rotting boats poisoning Cornwall’s creeks On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife Who’d have thought a fossil-fuel shill like Trump would be the one to spark a green revolution? | George Monbiot Are we heading for ‘super El Niño’ – and what could we expect? What is supercharging global heat? – video explainer Chance of El Niño forming in Pacific Ocean may push global temperatures to record highs in 2027 Continue reading...

A young woman’s dissociation from reality and her road to recovery are vividly rendered in this striking novel Meet Ada, the anguished young narrator of 26-year-old Albertine Clarke’s radically strange and engrossing debut novel. Adrift in London, Ada occupies herself by swimming in her apartment’s basement pool and generally hiding from the world until she finds herself on the verge of a tumultuous mental collapse. If you’re allergic to the kind of novel in which characters exchange lines such as “I’m not real”, “Neither am I”, then it’s a case of diminishing returns. Otherwise, the book bears rich rewards. The title refers to Ada’s father, an IT technician who is kicked out by Ada’s mother when he becomes obsessed with the gym – and much of the book explores how we create ourselves and others. Ada grows up surrounded by the marshy countryside near Norwich and early on experiences episodes of dissociation and ontological insecurity, including auditory and visual hallucinations. She imagines a voice on the radio saying her parents are getting divorced. The voice is “like a door swung open inside her head. Through it she could see a black tunnel, like a mine shaft, stretching down inside her.” Continue reading...

The 1980s band are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year – but why does singer Sade Adu’s pared-back look still resonate in 2026? Earlier this month it was announced that Sade, the British group fronted by Sade Adu that found fame in the 80s and 90s, would be inducted into the 2026 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And although the music is indisputably worthy of such a distinction, if there were a similar accolade for style, Adu would have been inducted a long time ago. With her scraped-back hair, red lipstick, hoop earrings and penchant for simple black dresses or denim and polo necks, she has become the last word in understated – but somehow unattainable – style. Continue reading...

From cycling in the Cinque Terre to sipping espresso at a secret spot overlooking the Colosseum, here are some of your Italian highlights • Tell us about great beach bars and restaurants in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher When we visited Venice, we stayed in Padua. It’s half an hour to Venezia Mestre (Venice’s mainland suburb), trains are frequent and cheap, as long as you avoid expresses, and easy to book if you have the Trenitalia app. You’ll find accommodation and restaurants significantly cheaper if you are based in Padua and day trip into Venice, and Padua is worth exploring in its own right. There are also trains to Vicenza, Verona, Bologna and Bassano del Grappa – we found it the perfect base for a public transport trip in north-east Italy. Fergal O’Shea Continue reading...

Bahari/Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Rouvali (Alpha) In this all-Sibelilus disc, violinist Ava Bahari’s account of the Violin Concerto has heft and exuberance, while Rouvali’s dramatic nous suits the drama of the Four Legends of Lemminkäinen Santtu-Matias Rouvali continues his Gothenburg SO Sibelius survey with this latest instalment pairing a bracing account of the Violin Concerto by Swedish violinist Ava Bahari with the proto-symphonic Lemminkäinen Suite. Bahari is an enthralling storyteller, investing every phrase with musical intention. The opening Allegro moderato is a silvery toned tour de force supported by Rouvali and the Gothenburgers’ gossamer textures, yet there is plenty of heft and a suitable darkness to the collective sound when required. The slow movement is a lyrical oasis before conductor and soloist kick up their heels in a chuckling account of the exuberant finale. Continue reading...

Matthew Rhys stars in a genuinely creepy comedy horror from the maker of Parks & Rec. Plus, the woman who turned informant when her fiancé confessed that he’d killed a man Continue reading...

From a country cottage with double-height bookshelves to a new-build flat in London with ‘period’ panelling hiding tech Continue reading...

The former Casualty actor wrote Driftwood – a family drama set against the backdrop of Trinidadian independence – as a private act after reconnecting with her roots. It was like solving a crossword, she says More than two decades ago, the actor Martina Laird took a trip back to her past. As part of the ensemble on the TV drama Casualty, in which she played paramedic Comfort Jones, she was a household face with a rewarding job, yet she felt stuck in her life. “Things weren’t developing,” she remembers. “I went: ‘OK, there’s stuff to go and face in the past.’” She travelled to St Kitts, where she was born, to look for the Black Caribbean mother from whom she had been separated at the age of three, when her white British father took her to live with his family in Trinidad. “It was a relatively privileged upbringing but there’s always questions. So I went to St Kitts and I met the family that I had not known was there. I thought that I could keep myself shielded and not let people in but that was not the case. It all had to just crack open. Afterwards, the world seemed to me beautifully upside down. Everything I knew to be feared was loved and everything that was down was up.” Continue reading...

Six households move to a new street where they battle it out. Plus: it’s time to crown the winner of I’m a Celebrity South Africa. Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, ITV1 It’s got a big-name host in Graham Norton, but in the early stages it’s hard to find the unique selling point of this new reality elimination contest. Six real households decamp to a village where they live at close quarters and gradually vote each other out. Everyone participating has clearly watched a lot of similar shows, so there’s much talk of “threats” and “gameplans” as the first family are, for no good reason, sent home. Jack Seale Continue reading...

Retired grocer from Macclesfield is proof that running is not just a young person’s game after only starting his journey at the age of 57 At a time when running has never been more popular with generation Z, one man is proving that it is not just a young person’s game. The oldest athlete in this Sunday’s London Marathon is 88-year-old Harry Newton – whose remarkable running journey only started by chance when he was 57. Since then Newton, a retired grocer from Macclesfield, has completed 31 marathons, including 21 at London and another by jogging 461 times around his garden during lockdown. And he has a simple message for nervous first timers this weekend. “Don’t try to run too quickly, and keep a steady pace,” he says. “And make sure your bowels are empty.” Continue reading...

Recriminations continue over failure to bring in new laws allowing assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales Amid the failure of an attempt to bring in new laws allowing assisted dying for terminally ill people with less than six months to live, campaigners on both sides of the debate vented their anger and frustration with the opposing side. Its supporters, including terminally ill people, blamed the failure of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, which passed in the House of Commons, on sabotage by a handful of unelected peers. Continue reading...