Iraq team due in Mexico for playoff final on 31 March Middle East crisis has made travel plans uncertain The intercontinental World Cup playoffs are in doubt with officials from the Iraq Football Association (IFA) in crisis talks with Fifa over concerns they may be unable to take part in the final scheduled for Mexico later this month. The Guardian has learned that the IFA received a letter from Iraq’s national airline, Iraqi Airways, and the Ministry of Transportation earlier today informing them that the country’s airspace will remain closed for “at least four weeks”, which would leave around 40% of the squad unable to travel. Continue reading...

At times like this you have to thank your lucky stars that the opposition leader is not in Downing Street On another day it might even have been quite funny. The mismatch between Kemi Badenoch’s self-belief and her performance. But Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions was far too serious for that, with Donald Trump’s Awfully Big Iranian Adventure threatening to escalate into all-out war in the Middle East. It was also a day when you could think the unthinkable. Might Kemi actually be even weaker than Chris Philp? Certainly she’s the worst leader of the Tory party in living memory. There again, the gene pool of talent is no more than a puddle. Continue reading...

Deploying the world’s most powerful military seems to exert an almost erotic fascination for Donald Trump This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday It was a claim uttered repeatedly on the 2024 campaign trail: “I’m the only president in 72 years that didn’t start a war,” Donald Trump said in Sioux City, Iowa. Fact checkers cried foul and pointed out that Jimmy Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, did not start any wars either. But Trump won the election anyway. Continue reading...

Press secretary expected to face number of questions on Trump’s handling of US-Israel war on Iran Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Gen Caine said today that the US will “now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory”, after forces were able to establish air superiority. “The throttle is coming up,” Caine said, “as opposed to ramping down”. Continue reading...

⚽ Premier League updates from the 8.15pm GMT kick-off ⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | And mail Scott Newcastle United have lost their last three Premier League games at St James’ Park. The one before that required them to score two goals in stoppage time to turn defeat into victory. So things haven’t exactly been going smoothly for Eddie Howe’s side recently. But my goodness they’ve been good value. With their score first, here is their sequence of results starting with that amazing night against Leeds: 4-3, 3-3, 0-2, 0-0, 3-0, 0-2, 1-1, 1-4, 1-3, 2-3, 2-1, 3-1, 6-1, 1-2, 3-2, 2-3. Say what you will, the Toon give good bang for your buck. Manchester United aren’t quite as scattergun. They’ve won six out of seven games under caretaker Michael Carrick, for a start, and you’d have to be a curmudgeon-and-a-half to take issue with that. But needs must for this preamble, and rustling up some tension ahead of tonight’s entertainment, so here we go: Carrick’s side were excellent against Manchester City and Arsenal, decent enough against Fulham and Spurs, but a tad stodgy against West Ham, Everton and Crystal Palace, when their bread fell jam side up more often than not. Tonight will be more revealing than the Palace comeback, put it that way. All of which adds up to a microscopic direction of travel that will give Newcastle a small splash of succour as they try to arrest a more alarming trend of their own. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s cautious stance about helping the US against the Tehran regime mirrors that of the electorate Middle East crisis: live updates It was perhaps the most attention-grabbing moment of prime minister’s questions. Responding to yet another Conservative salvo about his approach to Iran and how it might affect ties with America, Keir Starmer was direct. “American planes are operating out of British bases – that is the special relationship in action,” he said. “Sharing intelligence every day to keep our people safe – that is the special relationship in action. Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship in action.” Continue reading...

Saharan dust will transform sunsets and might leave deposits on cars and windows A vast plume of Saharan dust is expected to light up the skies over much of the UK this week. The fine sand lifted from the deserts of North Africa will travel thousands of miles on warm southerly air currents and is set to coat cars and other outdoor surfaces, forecasters said. Continue reading...

The UK should optimise North Sea oil and gas production while it transfers to renewables and nuclear developments The chancellor’s failure to reform or remove the energy profits levy (EPL) – aka the North Sea windfall tax – in her spring statement was a case of “political expediency and more to do with putting one byelection result ahead of the economic needs of the country”. Who said that? Some Tory or Reform politician being opportunist as war in Iran puts the UK’s energy import dependency in the spotlight? Actually, no, it was the general secretary of the GMB union, Gary Smith, on Wednesday, demonstrating once again that views on the North Sea oil and gas do not fit neatly into a left/right divide. He has been making the principled case for an orderly transition in energy for ages, warning that decarbonising via deindustrialising costs jobs and will end up pushing voters rightwards. Continue reading...

An unreliable and volatile American president makes a compelling case for closer security and defence cooperation with continental allies There is truth to Donald Trump’s declaration earlier this week that the UK-US relationship is “not what it was”, although there is no indication that he understands the reasons for the change. The US president is “very disappointed” that Sir Keir Starmer has been “uncooperative” in the war against Iran, offering only limited logistical support to American forces. The prime minister’s concession that RAF resources can be involved in defensive operations does not compensate for the prior refusal to put Britain’s military assets at American disposal. It came too late for Mr Trump, whose irritation turned to culture-war jibes about “windmills” ruining British landscapes and a false claim about the prevalence of sharia courts. Continue reading...

Ofcom, the government and the police are all to blame for allowing online sex advertising to run out of control The latest report from the UK anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, is a call to action on websites used to advertise sex workers – some of whom are victims of trafficking and exploitation. Researchers studied 12 adult service sites (ASWs), which between them had 63,000 listings in January, and attracted 41.7m visits. When analysed with a tool, known as the Sexual Trafficking Identification Matrix, which is also used by police, just 8% of listings showed no warning signs. These include the same phone number appearing across multiple ads, and phrases such as “new to the area”. The watchdog has identified alarming gaps in the law, in the approach taken by Ofcom, and in policing. The commissioner’s recommendations demand a response. The sharp recent rise in referrals of potential victims of sexual exploitation makes the issue all the more pressing. Between 2020 and 2025, they increased by 78% – from 1,618 to 2,887 women and girls a year (men and boys are more commonly referred for labour or criminal exploitation, including “county lines”). Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Campaigners say ‘hard-hitting, clear-sighted and damning’ inquiry – the most expensive in history – ‘absolutely has been worth it’ ‘A new normal’: inquiry’s key findings on how Covid changed UK society Bereaved families have marked the final day of witness testimony in the long-running Covid inquiry by saying government “incompetence, chaos and callousness is now on the public record”. Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (CBFFJ), urged officials to use the inquiry as a blueprint “to take brave, decisive, urgent action” and warned the country was still not prepared for a future crisis. Continue reading...

⚽ Latest news from four games kicking off at 7.30pm GMT ⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | And mail Niall This season’s title battle reminds me of the famous fight scene from dystopian 80s classic “They Live”. It’s been long, attritional and hard to watch at times, with neither party looking truly convincing. Arsenal and Manchester City were both fortunate to collect three points from bruising encounters with Chelsea and Leeds; now they have to get back in the ring tonight. Arsenal go to Brighton, where they haven’t lost in their previous five trips. City host Nottingham Forest, who are battling relegation and have lost on their last three visits to the Etihad by an aggregate score of 11-0. Later, Manchester United visit Newcastle, hoping to make a dramatic late entry into a two-horse title race. Continue reading...

From butch alter egos to radical images of motherhood, the photographer rises to the challenge of capturing her community in imposing and glorious style Catherine Opie has done for butches what Hans Holbein the Younger did for the Tudor nobility. Since she graduated in the late 1980s, amid the Aids crisis, Opie has made portraits of her community, friends and family, adopting unflinching realism, saturated colours, and dramatic tonal contrasts from the 16th-century portrait painters. Many of Opie’s most famous portraits – included in her new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery – use these devices deliberately, a declaration that these people deserve, as the title of the show underlines, to be seen. Opie has always been interested in construction – how we can be transformed by costume, posture, pose, role-play. This show is a testament to that, and her love of tattoos, piercings and body modifications (she does live in LA, after all). She’s especially drawn to the performance and presentation of masculinity – in the 1991 series Being and Having, one of the earliest bodies of work in the show and still one of Opie’s best known. She has 13 lesbian friends dress up as their masculine alter egos – Opie also appears as her own, Bo. They don a range of fake moustaches and are photographed close, so their faces fill the frame against an egg-yolk yellow background, the glue attaching the hair to their faces clearly visible. Their nicknames are engraved into name tags, like they’re trophies. Continue reading...

Greater Manchester mayor rekindles leadership speculation with speech addressing party’s byelection loss Andy Burnham has reignited hostilities with Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership, criticising what he described as the “bankruptcy” of the party’s approach to campaigning, a week after it lost the previously safe seat of Gorton and Denton. The mayor of Greater Manchester and former MP, regarded as a rival to Starmer, said Labour’s campaigning style prevented it from connecting with non-Labour voters and other progressive parties, as he evoked the system of clipboard-wielding canvassers going door to door with records of previous Labour supporters. Continue reading...

Household costs could reach £1,800 a year from July as UK market hits three-year high Middle East crisis – live updates Household energy bills could climb by £160 a year from this summer after the war in Iran pushed the UK’s gas market to a three-year high. A typical combined household gas and electricity bill could reach £1,800 a year in Great Britain under the government’s quarterly price cap from July, according to analysis by Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy. Continue reading...

Pretty coloured eggs from fancy breeds can now cost as much as £4.50 for half a dozen. But some people have found a sneaky way to avoid paying a premium Name: Posh eggs. Age: Best before three weeks from now. Continue reading...

It’s monstrously presumptuous? Unforgivably glib? Perhaps. But this stylised drama is the show we all need right now If you are looking for a break in the clouds from this terrible news cycle, can I direct you towards Love Story, the nine-part series executive-produced – but crucially, not written! – by Ryan Murphy, which documents the love and untimely deaths of John F Kennedy Jr and his wife, Carolyn Bessette. You might think this isn’t for you, that it’ll be too tabloidy or that you’re not interested in JFK Jr. But while Love Story, which takes us back to a very particular version of early-1990s New York, might not seem like the show we want right now, it is exactly the show that we need. This probably sounds like a heartless summary of a true story that ends in the terrible deaths of two young people (in 1999, while flying his wife and her sister from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard, Kennedy crashed his light aircraft, killing everyone on board). But that tragic end only suffuses the preceding nine hours of storytelling with a kind of pearly, nostalgic light, just the thing to see off the iron-grey wash of today’s reality. The New York of Love Story isn’t the city’s current iteration, with its impossible rents and charmless finance bros ruining downtown. Nor is it the 1990s New York of, say, Home Alone 2, in which Donald Trump strides through the Plaza Hotel and Central Park is a crime-ridden disaster. Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Airlines are using long-readied contingency plans but bottlenecks have formed that no amount of planning can fix Middle East crisis – live updates A war engulfing the Middle East has cleared the region’s skies, forcing airlines to make drastic rerouting plans and leaving a massive void in usually busy global airspace. With Israel and the US bombing Iran day after day – and Tehran responding with waves of missiles and drones attacks – airlines have been forced to divert their passenger jets away from the Gulf or risk a catastrophic accident. Continue reading...

New Zealand, 173-1, bt South Africa, 169-8, by 9 wkts NZ opener Allen blasts 100 not out from 33 balls South Africa won every match they could afford to lose in this tournament and then lost the first one that they had to win. They were completely marmalised by New Zealand, who won the first semi-final by nine wickets. Finn Allen ripped through South Africa’s feared fast bowling attack, and hit an unbeaten hundred off just 33 balls. It was the fastest century in the history of the competition, and, as Allen said himself, the innings of his life. Only two batters have ever hit a faster ton in international T20 cricket. South Africa’s captain, Aidan Markram, blamed the change in conditions for throwing off his team. “We’ll reflect as a group,” he said, “We’ll let the emotions settle first and foremost and once they do we’ll get back on the horse and try and get better. But we’re obviously hugely disappointed with the result, it feels like we’ve been slapped in the face.” Continue reading...

Plan, which aims to preserve jobs in clean tech and low carbon sectors, could include UK if there is reciprocal market access The European Commission has proposed a “Buy EU” plan to boost domestic low-carbon industries and help the continent compete against China. The commission published a draft regulation – called the Industrial Accelerator Act – on Wednesday, setting demands for EU-made and low-carbon content on bodies spending public money. The rules mark a major shift in economic thinking from Brussels, long a bastion of open markets. Continue reading...

Global oil and gas prices have spiked as the conflict in the Middle East halts energy exports from the region. The strait of Hormuz has been in effect closed since the war began, causing fears of a global economic crisis. About a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped through the narrow passage of water, but, according to reports, traffic has dropped by about 80%, with little sign of return. How long until we feel the effects? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to John Collingridge, the Guardian’s head of business. Continue reading...

‘Divorce rings’ have been gaining popularity. But for some women, freedom warrants a stronger, more defiant symbol I have been a divorce coach for five years. Every client’s process is different, but occasionally I notice new trends. One afternoon, a woman showed up to her session fuming. Her soon to be ex-husband was trying to claw back her engagement ring through his attorney. “Absolutely not,” she said, her jaw stiffening. “That ring is mine. I earned it. And I already know exactly what I’m doing with it.” Continue reading...

McLaren could start slowly, Mercedes may set the pace, while newcomers – and returning heroes – add huge interest Car MCL40 Engine Mercedes Principal Andrea Stella Debut Monaco 1966 GPs 994 Constructors’ titles 10 Last season 1st. Held their nerve to close out the constructors’ and drivers’ double last season, albeit with the latter going to the wire as they rather tied themselves in knots trying to be fair to both drivers. Enter this year a little off the front but in a season likely to be marked by a fierce development battle, will expect to exploit their huge strengths in bringing the car on with alacrity and be in the mix in no short order. Continue reading...

Climate deniers expected more resistance to the fossil fuel blitz. But Democrats, billionaires and activists have gone silent This story is published in partnership with DeSmog, the climate investigations site As Donald Trump assaults the legal foundation of America’s ability to regulate global warming emissions, climate deniers have been privately celebrating what they claim is the “silent” acquiescence of billionaires, Democrats, climate activists and even reporters to the president’s aggressive pro-fossil-fuel agenda. “In my 26 years of being focused on climate, I’ve never seen anything like this. Trump is gutting everything they ever stood for,” Marc Morano, a long-time climate denier, said in January at the World Prosperity Forum, a five-day event in Zurich, Switzerland, billed as a rightwing alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Continue reading...

Readers respond to Lady Amos’s damning interim report on the state of England’s NHS maternity care Once again, we are faced with a report detailing the failures in maternity services (Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report, 26 February, 26 February), highlighting deficiencies in both clinical staffing and care environments. Maternity services in the NHS are in crisis, but this is not new information. As clinicians, we have been aware of these systemic pressures for many years. Reports from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, now Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations, along with numerous other inquiries, have already identified the core issues. Collectively, they have produced some 748 recommendations that, if properly implemented, could meaningfully improve care. Instead of directing funding towards implementing these recommendations, resources are being diverted into commissioning yet another review – one that is likely to reiterate what we already know. It is time to redirect investment to where it will make a tangible difference. We must return maternity services to strong, safe foundations: high-quality support, meaningful training and sustainable staffing levels for hardworking clinicians who continue to deliver care in chronically underresourced environments. These professionals strive daily to meet increasingly complex and often unrealistic expectations, frequently shaped by social media narratives that do not reflect the realities and risks inherent in maternity care. Continue reading...