Suspended president removed after impeachment over martial law declaration, with acting leader Han Duck-soo to remain in office until election held Yoon Suk Yeol impeachment – live updates South Korea’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been removed from office after the country’s constitutional court voted to uphold parliament’s decision to impeach over his ill-fated declaration of martial law in December. After weeks of deliberations and rising concern about the future of South Korean democracy, the court voted to strip Yoon of his presidential powers. Continue reading...

Kristolina Georgieva warns against retaliation to US levies while US president insists ‘markets will boom’ after sweeping tariff announcement Full report: Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street Analysis: Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists Senior senators introduced new bipartisan legislation on Thursday seeking to claw back some of Congress’s power over tariffs after Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new import taxes and rattled the global economy with sweeping new import taxes. The Trade Review Act of 2025, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley, a top Republican lawmaker from Iowa, a state heavily reliant on farm exports, and Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, whose state shares a border with Canada, would require the president to notify Congress of new tariffs, and provide a justification for the action and an analysis on the potential impact on US businesses and consumers. Continue reading...

John Harris on how music helped him connect with his autistic son James When James was a child, he loved playing songs over and over. I Am the Walrus, by the Beatles. Autobahn, by Kraftwerk. “He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact,” James’s father the Guardian journalist John Harris tells Helen Pidd. Continue reading...

Security high in capital as constitutional court to decide whether to remove or reinstate president months after he imposed martial law and triggered country’s worst political crisis in decades South Korea ‘at breaking point’ ahead of ruling on President Yoon’s impeachment Welcome to our live coverage of the South Korean constitutional court’s ruling on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol after months of political turmoil. The court in Seoul will decide whether to remove or reinstate Yoon after he imposed martial law in December and triggered South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades. A 100-metre radius has been imposed outside the constitutional court building to prevent demonstrations, report Raphael Rashid and Justin McCurry, and the security clampdown extends well beyond the barricades. A no-fly zone has been imposed over the court, with police deploying signal jammers against unauthorised drones. Petrol stations near the court were to be closed to prevent arson attacks, and rooftop access to high-rise buildings restricted. Embassies including the US, French, Russian and Chinese have warned citizens to avoid mass gatherings in connection with today’s verdict. Continue reading...

Gen Christopher Cavoli says Russia has lost 4,000 tanks, comparable to whole US fleet; Kremlin goes to war against Elton John. What we know on day 1,136 See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage Continue reading...

Dow, S&P and Nasdaq among markets feeling share price pain while Trump insists ‘markets are going to boom’. The key US politics stories from 3 April Global financial markets were roiled by Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement – with trillions of dollars knocked off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession. In the US, the main indices saw their worst one-day falls in five years as the president claimed that “the markets are going to boom” in response to his sweeping tariffs. Continue reading...

LSPH chief executive announces ‘groundbreaking proposal’ intended to grow international rail travel from the UK Cross-Channel train services serving new destinations will be cheaper to run under a scheme to grow international rail travel from the UK. London St Pancras Highspeed (LSPH), which owns and operates the railway and stations from the capital to the Channel tunnel, said it would slash charges for operators planning new routes. Continue reading...

Curtis Jones is not a long-term fix at right-back for Liverpool, Tyler Dibling is a wanted man and Arsenal are depleted When Arsenal next visit Merseyside on 11 May their first act may be to form a guard of honour for Liverpool, who could by then be newly crowned Premier League champions. The title appears destined for Anfield – Arsenal have been unable to sustain a consistent challenge for it all season – but Mikel Arteta will feel duty-bound to delay the seemingly inevitable for as long as possible on his return to Everton. Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid may be the priority for Arsenal but rotating is hardly an option for Arteta at Goodison Park given he has four defenders available. A makeshift unit would benefit from a demanding afternoon together before welcoming Real to the Emirates. Arne Slot claimed it is unfair on Everton to have an early Saturday kick-off after Wednesday’s Merseyside derby. Depleted or not, Arteta’s team should take advantage. Andy Hunter Everton v Arsenal, Saturday 12.30pm (all times BST) Crystal Palace v Brighton, Saturday 3pm Ipswich v Wolves, Saturday 3pm West Ham v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm Continue reading...

Bunting beats Price 6-5 in final to break his duck Littler beaten by Dobey in opening match Stephen Bunting turned his Premier League form around in stunning fashion to claim victory in Berlin after Luke Littler crashed out early. Bunting had failed to win a match in the first eight rounds of the series but he saw off Nathan Aspinall to break his duck then eased to victory over Luke Humphries before defeating Gerwyn Price 6-5 in the final. Continue reading...

Dispatches, presented by Cathy Newman, talks to 16 survivors or witnesses of the ex-Harrods boss’s abuse, as well as tracking down his alleged enabler. The result is a raw, horrifying and invaluable watch It is disturbingly easy to respond with little more than fatigue to reports of powerful men sexually exploiting women, because there have been so many. The part of us that should emit shock, disgust and righteous outrage becomes dulled through overuse. And so, when Mohamed Al Fayed, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, died in 2023 and was then credibly accused of being one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, the collective reaction felt like a shrug. The new Dispatches investigation, Delivered to a Predator: Al Fayed’s Fixer, however, ought to sharpen our revulsion and our resolve to fight for change. Building on the 2017 Dispatches documentary Behind Closed Doors and the 2024 BBC programme Predator at Harrods, it outlines the scale of the tycoon’s wrongdoing: last year, the Metropolitan police said it believed Al Fayed may have raped or abused at least 111 women and girls, but here a lawyer working for survivors estimates the number to be more like 300. Continue reading...

Former TV pitchman has close relationship with boss RFK Jr but regularly encourages Americans to get vaccinated Former heart surgeon and TV pitchman Dr Mehmet Oz was confirmed Thursday to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz became the agency’s administrator in a party-line 53-45 vote. Continue reading...

It was a typically incident-filled meeting between these sworn enemies but, really, there was only one place to start. Ange Postecoglou, the remorselessly under-fire Tottenham manager, had been barracked by his own club’s supporters when he replaced Lucas Bergvall with Pape Sarr in the 64th minute. Bergvall had enjoyed a few bright moments. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” the travelling hordes informed Postecoglou. And so just imagine how the fiercely proud Australian must have felt shortly afterwards when Sarr won the ball off Moisés Caicedo and unloaded a low shot that the Chelsea goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, inexplicably allowed to beat him. Continue reading...

Dr Amy Orben says there are no ‘one-size-fits-all answers’ given importance of access to online information A leading academic tasked by the UK government with reviewing the effects of smartphones on teenagers has suggested blanket bans are “unrealistic and potentially detrimental”. Amy Orben, from the University of Cambridge, will lead the work on children and smartphone use that has been commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) along with a team of other academics from a number of UK universities. Continue reading...

A man, a woman and five children got out unharmed from blaze that took hold of terraced house in Prescot overnight A 13-year-old girl has died in a house fire near Liverpool. The blaze was found in the first-floor rear bedroom of a mid-terraced house in Kingsway, Prescot late on Wednesday evening, Merseyside police said. Continue reading...

Trade Review Act would require greater checks on tariffs in further sign of congressional disquiet over president’s plans Senior senators introduced new bipartisan legislation on Thursday seeking to claw back some of Congress’s power over tariffs after Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new import taxes and rattled the global economy with sweeping new import taxes. The Trade Review Act of 2025, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley, a top Republican lawmaker from Iowa, a state heavily reliant on farm exports, and Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, whose state shares a border with Canada, would require the president to notify Congress of new tariffs, and provide a justification for the action and an analysis on the potential impact on US businesses and consumers. Continue reading...

Campaigners denounce ‘cover-up of a cover-up’ as IOPC clears officers of scapegoating Liverpool supporters A 12-year investigation into the Hillsborough disaster by the police watchdog has concluded that no senior South Yorkshire police officers were guilty of misconduct for falsely blaming misbehaviour by Liverpool supporters. That police case was wholly rejected in 2016 by the jury at the second inquest, who determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster, which happened on 15 April 1989 at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium. Continue reading...

The US president’s announcement has caused market chaos and threatens a trade war and US recession Donald Trump’s announcement of a long slate of new tariffs on the US’s trading partners has caused chaos in global markets and threatens a global trade war and US recession. Long trailed on his election campaign, Trump’s plans were even more sweeping than many had predicted: a baseline 10% tariff on all imports and higher tariffs for key trading partners, including China and the EU. Continue reading...

The tale of the ex-SNP politician’s career is packed with her fierce, funny Commons performances – and the sad truth about how little chance she was given to thrive in the corridors of power Mhairi Black’s maiden speech in the House of Commons 10 years ago remains a thing of beauty. We are only treated to a snippet of it in this excellent documentary about the former Scottish National party politician – the youngest MP elected to parliament since 1832 – but I recommend finding the whole thing on YouTube. Black, then just 20 years old, has the Commons in the palm of her hand, simultaneously charming her fellow MPs with her dry wit and laying bare the deprivation in her Paisley and Renfrewshire South constituency (among the horrors: a man who starved himself in order to afford his bus fare to the jobcentre, only to collapse on the way there). The documentary does, however, retain some of her best one-liners from that address. Among them, the fact that her MP status and changes to housing benefit meant that she was “the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK” that would be getting any government help with their housing. Black – if it wasn’t clear already – is a force of nature, and someone we surely need in politics. And yet, her exit from Westminster is what this one-off film is all about. We zip between archive clips from her younger years as an IndyRef campaigner; the last days of her career as an MP (Black announced her intention to stand down at the next election in 2023, following through on that promise in 2024); and her post-politics life. There’s also footage from last year’s Edinburgh fringe show, Politics Isn’t for Me, which saw her turn her tumultuous time in parliament into something approaching comedy, commanding the stage with what she calls her “Britney mic” jutting out in front of her mouth (the Guardian described it as “comedy therapy”). Being a young, gay woman in the Commons, we learn, took a profound toll on Black’s mental health. She tells us as much – describing it as having had “anxiety all the time” – but we can see it, too, the colour slowly draining from her face as her 20s march on. When we cut back to the present, she is calmer, happier; there is talk of regaining independence and control. Continue reading...

Defense chief and others discussed US military operations on messaging app that included journalist The inspector general of the Department of Defense (DOD) is launching an investigation into Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen. The probe, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist. Continue reading...

Cory Booker delivered the longest Senate speech in history. We asked urologists one pressing question about it On Monday evening, Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, took the floor to denounce the harm he believes Donald Trump and his administration have inflicted on the United States. “Our country is in crisis,” he said, decrying the economic chaos, mass layoffs and tyrannical acts of the administration’s first 71 days. He stopped speaking 25 hours and five minutes later, making it the longest Senate speech in history. Many praised Booker for the rousing political act. Some were also impressed by a particular physical feat: namely, he seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.) Continue reading...

Economists say levies of 10-50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn Global financial markets have been plunged into turmoil as Donald Trump’s escalating trade war knocked trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession. As world leaders reacted to the president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2tn (£1.5tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe. Continue reading...

Discovery in Altadena months after fires brings deaths in Eaton fire up to 18, while 12 people killed in Palisades fire Months after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities, officials announced this week they had discovered another set of human remains, bringing the death toll in the disaster up to 30. Investigators were dispatched to Altadena on Wednesday to investigate possible human remains in the community, which was hit hard by the Eaton fire in January. The special operations response team confirmed that the remains were human, the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office said in a statement. Continue reading...

Multimillion-pound project will also boost capacity by 20% and improve wheelchair accessibility Different generations of tennis fans may disagree on its name – to traditionalists it will always be Henman Hill, millennials probably plump for Murray Mound and gen Z may know it as Raducanu Rise or even, regrettably, Jack’s Stack – but all ages can agree that bringing a little shelter to Wimbledon’s most famous viewing area can only be a good thing. Wimbledon’s Hill – which since 1997 has allowed tennis fans with a grounds pass to watch the action on No 1 Court live atop its grassy knoll – is getting a makeover, the All England Lawn and Tennis Club (AELTC) has announced. Continue reading...

Son of murdered academic calls on Facebook owner to ‘radically change how it moderates dangerous content’ Meta faces a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) lawsuit accusing the Facebook owner of inflaming violence in Ethiopia after the Kenyan high court said a legal case against the US tech group could go ahead. The case brought by two Ethiopian nationals calls on Facebook to alter its algorithm to stop promoting hateful material and incitement to violence, as well as hiring more content moderators in Africa. It is also seeking a $2.4bn “restitution fund” for victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook. Continue reading...

Forward is in fine form going into Belgium double-header ‘To be a No 9 you have to have that confidence about you’ Leah Williamson has praised the form of Alessia Russo before England’s No 9 spearheads the Lionesses’ attack in their Women’s Nations League double-header against Belgium, starting in Bristol on Friday. Arsenal’s Russo has scored 14 goals in her past 21 games for club and country, including two in last week’s Champions League second-leg comeback win over Real Madrid. Her clubmate, the England captain Williamson, praised Russo’s character, saying at St George’s Park on Thursday: “Everyone will always say how nice a person Alessia is and everyone wants to see her do well for that reason. But to be a No 9 you do have to have that sort of – not arrogance – but confidence about you. Continue reading...