The expansion of this summer’s 48-team tournament mean Tuesday’s games will be the best we see until the round of 16 Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here Live in a World Cup host city? Tell us your stories There is always a slightly odd rhythm to the World Cup. The final round of qualifying games is almost invariably more exciting than the early games at the tournament itself, and now with 32 teams making it through the group stage and into the knockout rounds, that is likely to be even more true for the 2026 edition. Those final qualifiers in November were thrilling and meaningful – Troy Parrott’s hat-trick! Scotland scoring two absurdly good goals in the same game! DR Congo beating Nigeria on penalties as bottles rained down from the stands! Honduras failing to score against Costa Rica! – and Tuesday will be too as 12 teams battle for the six remaining slots. But for those not involved in World Cup playoffs, there is an unsatisfying phoniness to the friendlies they must play instead, with experimental line-ups and weary players going through glorified training exercises. While it’s never good to be letting in five goals, neither the USA nor Ghana should be too concerned about the defeats to Belgium or Austria. Continue reading...

Devotees who paid $450 for a fun-filled “experience” in Florida last weekend were met with a concrete-floored warehouse and a $1 Barbie-branded hand sanitiser. Could this top the notorious Willy Wonka Experience? Name: Barbie Dream Fest. Age: Barbie has been around since 1959, so technically of pensionable age, even if she doesn’t look it. Barbie Dream Fest took place last weekend, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Continue reading...

Stand By Me co-stars Wil Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell joined Billy Crystal and a dozen other stars on stage at the Academy Awards to pay tribute to the film’s director Stand By Me star Corey Feldman has said he was sorry to be omitted from the tribute to Rob Reiner at the Oscars earlier this month. At the start of the Academy Awards’ in memoriam section, Billy Crystal took to the stage to pay extended tribute to the writer and director and his wife, photographer Michele, who were killed in December. Continue reading...

‘The string section we got in thought I was the tea boy. When I asked for a psychedelic improvisation like A Day in the Life, they went: “Why is this guy telling us what to play?”’ We’d made our first album and were waiting for it to come out. But we wanted to carry on writing more stuff while we were in the mood. I even cut Christmas dinner short at my uncle’s in Brixton, London, so we could get back to the studio. We would work until we passed out, then I’d sleep underneath the mixing desk with my head in the bass drum, as that’s where the pillow was. Continue reading...

The next racing at the famous venue will be in October after work is done around a sinkhole that appeared in January If you were planning a day at Cheltenham before the end of the jumps campaign, think again. The home of National Hunt racing said on Monday it will not stage another fixture until autumn, having taken the unprecedented decision to cancel its three remaining meetings in order to start major drainage works on the home straight over the summer months. The two-day meeting scheduled for 15-16 April and the track’s traditional season finale, a hunter-chase fixture and concert on 1 May, attracted a combined total of nearly 25k spectators in 2025. That is a long way short of the 56k daily average at the festival this month, but will still represent a significant loss in ticket sales and race day revenue from food, drinks and betting. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Like a Christmas day can of John West tuna chunks for one with an accompanying bottle of champagne and war movie triple-bill chez Richard Keys, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is the gift that keeps on giving. Like Gregory Peck’s crack commando unit attempting to silence the eponymous guns of Navarone, Spurs currently find themselves in an extremely high-stakes race against time only to be repeatedly thwarted at every turn by a mixture of internal sabotage, the at times unbearable burden of leadership and immense dissatisfaction among the rank and file. The mission? To escape an ignominious, financially ruinous slide into the Championship. The plan? A chaotic improvisation that suggests the club hierarchy are just making things up as they go along, one ill-judged managerial appointment at a time. I’m delighted to hear of Mr Roy’s return to the touchline but it raises a question for me. As a philistine who only learned of his TBOF (two banks or four) in Friday’s Football Daily, I’m compelled to ask how it differs from fellow England alumnus Mike Bassett’s FFFR (four, four, flippin’ two)“ – Simon Riley. A double doff of the cap to Big Paper’s Jonathan Wilson this weekend. Firstly, for pointing out that ‘in the 2018 World Cup semi-final, the clearest signal England were done for was Jordan Henderson gamely running shuttles as Luka Modric, Marcelo Brozovic and Ivan Rakitic knocked the ball round him’ a whole eight years before Tommy Tuchel picked him for the game against Uruguay. And, secondly, for hoping that most readers would know, or could be bothered to Google, what the ‘Gaia hypothesis’ is, in the very same piece. Never change, Wilson, never change” – Noble Francis. So Tudor lasted 44 days at Spurs (with some compassionate extension). Bloody hell, that was shorter than Liz Truss’s tenure in charge of the government. At least he didn’t spaff £65bn in the process, so the experiment might be deemed a success if one sets the bar very very low” – Nigel Sanders. I was playing Football Manager earlier today when I got offered the Tottenham job. I thanked them but declined the offer, hung up the phone and then returned to playing my game” – James Vortkamp-Tong. This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...

At campaign launch, PM acknowledges concern over events in Ukraine and Iran as well as over rising cost of living UK politics live – latest updates The 7 May elections are taking place against a backdrop of “war on two fronts”, Keir Starmer has said, as he pledged action to tackle the resurgent cost of living crisis. Launching the Labour party’s English local elections campaign in Wolverhampton on Monday, the prime minister said: “We’re facing a war on two fronts – the Ukraine war, now four and a bit years in … and now the Iran war, which I know is causing huge concern. Continue reading...

As Iran war continues, ministers debate several options for extending support to households Business live – latest news Families hardest hit by the looming energy crisis caused by the conflict in the Middle East could be given funds dispensed by local councils, under plans being considered by UK ministers keen to keep a lid on costs. As concerns increase about the impact of rising fuel and energy costs in response to a drawn-out war in Iran, a government official said several options for extending support were being debated inside Whitehall. Continue reading...

The Maseratis are borrowed, the helicopters rented by the hour. But deep down Dubai is a lonely place, built by oppressed people For people living in close proximity to a war zone, the lack of sympathy for Australian and British expats and influencers in Dubai has been, on the face of it, curious. Since their adopted home was bombed in the initial days of the war, they have faced mostly ridicule and contempt in their home countries. Continue reading...

Spring has officially sprung, but your March favourites tell us you’ve still got one cosily socked foot in bed • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here March claims to be spring – and some of it even reckons it’s British summertime – but even the sunniest days are “summer in the sunshine, winter in the shade”. Judging by the products you loved most, you haven’t decided whether to emerge from hibernation yet, either. Pillows and bed socks accounted for a quarter of all your favourite things this month, and your fashion must-have was a snuggly hoodie. But your enthusiasm for a glow-up eye cream and a legendary hot brush suggests you’re harbouring an itch to get out. Continue reading...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky says Russian security services may seek to create a ‘sense of vulnerability’ in Britain Vladimir Putin is likely to stage another Salisbury-style attack on UK soil unless the government adopts more aggressive tactics against the Kremlin, the exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has said. The former oil tycoon has emerged as a leading figure in Russian diaspora opposition circles and claims to be well-informed about current thinking and developments among Moscow’s elite. Continue reading...

Redress programme for 14m motor finance agreements will be set out by regulator on Monday afternoon Business live – latest updates Millions of drivers will discover how much can they claim over the car finance scandal on Monday, as the City regulator sets out the final terms of its compensation scheme. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will release the details of its redress programme for 14m motor finance agreements after 4.30pm, ensuring that the information comes out after stock markets close for trading. Continue reading...

By far the biggest musician to have joined the membership-based platform, Dylan’s posts have so far been puzzling – and therefore entirely in character A couple of years back, the august music writer David Hepworth came up with a great line about Bob Dylan. Dylan, he averred, “is like China: we can see what he’s doing, but never quite work out why he’s doing it”. That’s certainly true about the unexpected launch of the 84-year-old singer-songwriter’s Patreon. Everything about it is confusing. For one, there’s the choice of platform. Plenty of major music stars have flocked to the newsletter provider Substack in recent years to share their thoughts or show their workings and, perhaps, earn a little cash on the side: everyone from Patti Smith and Dolly Parton to Charli xcx and Rosalía. But Patreon, where fans pay monthly subscriptions for exclusive content from all sorts of creators – podcasters, visual artists – has never really taken off with big rock and pop musicians: the biggest name it could boast, until now, was Ben Folds. Continue reading...

Vice-president promises ‘to get to the bottom of’ reports of US government files about unidentified flying objects Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox JD Vance, the vice-president of the United States, said this weekend that he considers aliens to be “demons”. As the war in Iran continues, petrol and grocery prices soar and chaos continues at US airports as a partial government shutdown endures, Vance appeared on the conservative Benny Show podcast, released Saturday, to promise that he would spend time looking into what he called his “obsession” with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors. Continue reading...

As one in six children worldwide is affected by war, a UK charity is providing children in refugee communities from Ukraine to Ethiopia with flatpack timber climbing frames Like many new parents, photographer Alexander Meininger found his world changed after he had kids. “You end up spending a lot of time observing them in playgrounds – whether you want to or not,” he says. Meininger, who grew up in Germany but now lives in London, likes making things. So when he saw how much his young sons enjoyed the jungle gym and play forts at the local park, he made an indoor treehouse for them. That was as far as it went – until the Ukraine war. Watching the destruction of infrastructure on television, Meininger wondered what he could do to help Ukrainian children, and alighted on the idea of playgrounds. This was his first step towards creating Playrise, a charity he launched this week in London that makes flatpack play equipment and furniture for displaced families living in disaster relief zones. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff Moving from Schubert through Chopin to Liszt, the young pianist brought deep interpretative insights Moving from Schubert through Chopin to Liszt, this recital by Alim Beisembayev – the Kazakh-born winner of 2021’s Leeds international piano competition – described an arc delineating the passionate surge of Romanticism over the span of 30 or so years from the 1820s to 1853. Beisembayev’s approach to Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, D780, was calm and understated, perhaps as a way of underlining the vast contrast with the Liszt yet to come. Using the fine acoustic of the Dora Stoutzker hall to his advantage, he created an intimacy where Schubert’s characteristic slipping in and out of major and minor modes was quietly evocative. Tellingly, the two Moments in F minor – No 3 where sadness and insouciance dance together and No 5 with its more dramatic outbursts – presaged the key of Chopin’s Fantaisie, Op49. Continue reading...

Five miles from their former city zoo, seven gorillas are exploring their new ‘African forest’ home It has been an eventful few months for Bristol’s gorillas. The troop made headlines across the world when an urban explorer snapped pictures of them looking downbeat in their old, almost deserted home near the city centre. Then they were moved – under armed police escort – to a new out-of-town base and promptly suffered a shock bereavement. On Monday, in warm spring sunshine, the western lowland gorillas were to be found exploring a new woodland habitat at Bristol Zoo Project, five miles from their former city home. Continue reading...

French court rules against Welsh club in damages claim Sala died in 2019 plane crash when travelling to new club A commercial court in France has dismissed Cardiff City’s claim for more than £100m compensation following the death of Emiliano Sala. Seven years after the plane crash that killed Sala, Cardiff were seeking €120m (£104m) for loss of income and other damages from the player’s former team Nantes after a series of previous legal setbacks for the Welsh club. Continue reading...

Home to one of the largest deposits of freshwater on the planet, the Great Lakes region will soon host next-generation tidal-powered generators – just as prices are being hiked across the US Submersible hydroelectric technology deployed across the Great Lakes could become a key cog in clean energy efforts, supporters say, amid surging electricity demand and costs. Home to one of the largest deposits of freshwater on the planet, the Great Lakes region has on its shores some of the largest cities in North America in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Detroit, where electricity demand is growing. While none of the five Great Lakes have significant tides or currents to fuel hydropower, several of the waterways that link the lakes do. Continue reading...

Radicalised by the inventiveness of groups such as the Harlem Renaissance, the LA-based musician is determined to reclaim the radical possibilities of culture in an age of institutional and algorithmic exploitation ‘For many years, I’ve called myself a surrealist blues poet,” says Aja Monet in her warm, deep voice. Sitting in a London cafe, the Los Angeles-based artist looks striking, with her blue braids woven up in an intricate style. She was up late uploading the final master recordings for her new album, The Color of Rain, which she says was heavily influenced by her reading around how “surrealism was a real intentional device that artists used in response to the rise of fascism throughout history”. High-minded and yet invested in the cut-and-thrust of our lives today, it’s a typical comment from Monet. With themes around love, resistance and the absurdity of our current times, her performance, poetry and music offers a balm for the suffering and abuse meted out by establishment power. Already in 2026, her second poetry book Florida Water was nominated for an award by the foundational US civil rights organisation the NAACP, and she performed alongside Stevie Wonder at Time magazine’s event celebrating Martin Luther King Day. Continue reading...

For decades, there was no record of Andrena rehni exisiting in the US. In 2018 it was found in Maryland and five years later I found it in New York State I’ve loved insects ever since I was a kid and spent summers looking for them. My mum would always tell me that from the age of one – even before I could walk – I would happily sit outside, watching ants and trying to follow them back to their colony. As an adult, I take people out to meadows with nets to catch insects and take a close look at them. It’s about trying to cultivate a childlike curiosity that people have lost or forgotten in daily life. Continue reading...

F1 has five weeks before the next race in Miami and they will need every minute to fix a hugely complicated problem Oliver Bearman emerging unhurt from a huge accident at the Japanese Grand Prix was considered a lucky escape. Formula One must think it is catching a break given there is a full month to work out how best to mitigate against it happening again. It is going to need every minute of that time given the complexity of the problem. Bearman’s Haas car was travelling at 307kmh (191mph) when he was forced to veer off track as he came up behind the relatively slow-moving Alpine of Franco Colapinto. The closing speed between the two cars was 50kmh, a frightening pace. The scenario was one many had been warning about before the season had even begun. With the deployment of electrical energy, and its subsequent recovery now an integral part of F1, Bearman was using his boost mode while Colapinto was recovering energy, hence the big difference in speed. Continue reading...

Human rights group says US is facing an ‘emergency’ ICE director said agency will play ‘key part’ at tournament Amnesty International has warned that the World Cup, spread across three North American countries, risks becoming a “stage for repression”. The human rights organisation published a report on Monday – “Humanity Must Win” – calling on Fifa and the host countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, to take urgent action to protect fans, players and other communities. Fifa has promised a tournament where everyone “feels safe, included and free to exercise their rights”. But Amnesty said that pledge sat in “stark contrast” to conditions in all three host nations, especially the US, which hosts three-quarters of the 104 matches. Continue reading...

Soft Opening, London Deadpan 90s photographs of seemingly ordinary buildings only hint at the queer bacchanalia within – and stand as a record of lost and beloved safe spaces At first, they look like ordinary buildings, photographed in an ordinary manner. Each is shot formally from across the street, framed by thick black utility cables and poles, barbed wire fences, graffiti and flyposters carving horizontal and vertical planes, with glimpses of cerulean California sky and Arcadian palms beyond. It’s the city, but there are no people in sight, and the streets are clean of debris and dirt, except for a few oil stains left behind in a parking lot. The pictures are strangely silent. None of these buildings have windows – if they do, they are boarded up, shuttered, blacked out. In only one photograph, the door is left mysteriously open – inside, I can just make out a security door, latticed iron bars, and beyond it a neon arrow sign directing the way in. These are photographs to tease your deepest voyeuristic desires. Only the titles direct you to what’s going on inside these locations – “12 stalls, 1 leather bunk bed, outdoor garden, 1 water fountain, 1 barber’s chair, glory-hole platform, Chinese decor” reads one. Continue reading...