Met Office issues yellow rain alerts in south-west, with 66 flood warnings – indicating expected flooding – in force Nearly 150 flood alerts remain in place across England as communities continue grappling with the aftermath of Storm Chandra. A yellow rain alert spanning from noon to midnight on Thursday has been issued for parts of south-west England, with the Met Office warning that more flooding could hit roads, homes and businesses. Continue reading...

The Oscar-nominated star of The King’s Speech will check in for the new season of hit comedy drama set in France Oscar-nominee Helena Bonham Carter has joined Steve Coogan for the fourth season of HBO’s comedy drama The White Lotus. Bonham Carter is one of three new cast members officially announced today alongside Chris Messina and Marissa Long. Messina is known for roles in Sharp Objects, The Mindy Project and Julie & Julia, while Long is a model with only a short film to her name as an actor. Continue reading...

The iPhone maker is set to report earnings after market close Big tech results show investor demand for payoffs from heavy AI spending Apple will release its first quarter earnings Thursday after market close, and all eyes will be on the company’s roadmap for integrating artificial intelligence into its products. The tech titan has shown steady financial growth as iPhone sales remain strong. Investors have worried that Apple is getting left behind when it comes to AI. To assuage Wall Street’s fears, Apple announced earlier this month that the rebooted version of its voice assistant, Siri, will be powered by Google’s Gemini AI models. Continue reading...

US president says he made appeal to Russian leader, but no ceasefire has been confirmed by Moscow or Kyiv Donald Trump has claimed Vladimir Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for one week after he issued a personal appeal to the Russian leader due to the extreme cold in Ukraine. The short-term ceasefire, which has not been confirmed by either Ukraine or Russia, was announced during a cabinet meeting of Trump’s top advisers at the White House on Thursday. Continue reading...

Avaaraq Olsen tells content creators to think before making jokes after German tried to raise Stars and Stripes in Nuuk The mayor of Greenland’s capital has called on media professionals and content creators to act responsibly after a German comedian’s failed attempt to hoist the US flag. Maxi Schafroth, 41, a Bavarian comic, tried to run up the Stars and Stripes on a flagpole near the cultural centre in Nuuk but was confronted by angry passersby. Continue reading...

Lawmaker from Estonia says photo celebrates ‘the greatest war criminal of the 21st century’ Donald Trump has apparently added a framed photo of himself standing with Vladimir Putin to the White House decor, prompting criticism from a senator, members of the media and beyond. Newly surfaced photos from the Palm Room, which connects the West Wing to the executive residence, shows a framed image of the US president and the Russian president at their summit in Alaska last August. Notably, that event marked the first in-person meeting between US and Russian leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. The meeting drew complaints from Democrats who accused him of “cozying up” to Putin, and rolling out “the red carpet” for the Russian leader “instead of “standing with Ukraine and our allies”. Continue reading...

Agency updates guidance after increase in reports of condition to the yellow card scheme Patients on weight-loss jabs should be aware there is a small risk of developing severe acute pancreatitis, the medicines regulator has said. About 1.6 million adults in England, Wales and Scotland used GLP-1 medication, such as semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro), between early 2024 and early 2025, to lose weight, according to recent research. Continue reading...

Order allows direct flights from US to Venezuela, as major US oil companies already on ground to assess potential operations Donald Trump has ordered the immediate reopening of commercial airspace over Venezuela, weeks after US military forces toppled dictator Nicolás Maduro. Speaking at the White House during his cabinet’s first meeting of the year, Trump said he had just concluded a telephone conversation with Venezuela’s acting president (and former vice-president), Delcy Rodríguez, in which he informed her of the decision to restore flight access. Continue reading...

Meta wowed Wall Street with improvements in ad targeting fueled by AI alongside huge investment. Microsoft had less to show for its billions spent Big tech earnings so far this week have sent a clear warning: investors are willing to overlook soaring spending on artificial intelligence if it fuels strong growth, but are quick to punish companies that fall short. The contrast was clear in Thursday’s stock market reaction to earnings from Microsoft and Meta, highlighting how dramatically the stakes have changed since the launch of ChatGPT started the AI boom more than three years ago. Continue reading...

Protesters need support following the bloody crackdown by a ‘zombie’ regime – not wild threats or worse from the US president The brutality of Iran’s crackdown on protesters is almost unfathomable. Despite the authorities cutting off communications and destroying evidence, it is clear that a regime never reluctant to shed its citizens’ blood has done so with unprecedented zeal, sensing an unprecedented threat from unrest across the country, challenging not only its policies but its very existence. Officials have reported 3,000 deaths, but human rights groups have tallied many more, and a network of medical professionals has estimated that 30,000 could have been killed. Security forces shot people dead as they fled a fire and are arresting doctors for helping the wounded. Continue reading...

A ground rent cap is a good start, but ministers need to go further in reforming an unjust system Changes to lease agreements, leading to steeply increasing ground rents over recent years, are an outrage. An estimated 18% of leaseholders in England and Wales – around 1m households – have a so-called “modern ground rent” lease, with escalating charges that make it impossible in many cases to remortgage or sell. Cost-of-living pressures, including food and energy price rises, make it all the more urgent that their situation is addressed. Angela Rayner was right to argue in the Guardian last week that ministers must pick a side. This market should never have been allowed to develop in the way that it has. An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority found no evidence that leaseholders get anything for these annual fees – which are separate from service charges that pay for the maintenance of common areas. Campaigners for leasehold abolition are right that the rent-seeking behaviour of freeholders is wrong. Mortgage lenders, as well as politicians, should have put their feet down years ago. Continue reading...

Star says seaside town ‘inhabited by creativity’ and shares love for a local restaurant after dropping in on Tracey Emin If you were to guess where Madonna goes on holiday, you might think Mustique or the Maldives – Margate probably wouldn’t make the list. But the pop superstar spent the weekend there and enthused on an Instagram post that “the whole town seems to be inhabited and energised by creativity”, and that “whenever I go there, I feel like I’ve entered a dream”. Continue reading...

New study into ‘heritability’ shows that 50% of the variation in human lifespan could be down to genetics Some people who live to a great age put it down to an evening tot of whisky, others to staying out of trouble. Now scientists think they may have unlocked a key secret to long life – quite simply, genetics. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers described how previous studies that had attempted to unpick the genetic component of human lifespan had not taken into account that some lives were cut short by accidents, murders, infectious diseases or other factors arising outside the body. Such “extrinsic mortality” increases with age, as people often become more frail. Continue reading...

International sporting events don’t often see teams refuse to participate for a cause – but when it’s happened, it hasn’t been effective It was probably fitting that the first call from someone with genuine power should emanate from Germany, long one of soccer’s moral centers. “The time has definitely come,” German soccer federation vice-president Oke Göttlich told the Hamburger Morgenpost, “to seriously consider and discuss” a boycott of the 2026 World Cup. “What were the justifications for the boycotts of the Olympic Games in the 1980s?” added Göttlich, who is also the president of FC St. Pauli, Hamburg’s earnestly countercultural club. “By my reckoning, the potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.” Continue reading...

Alberta activists’ covert meetings with US officials revealed, outlining group’s increasingly emboldened efforts Covert meetings between separatist activists in the Canadian province of Alberta and members of Donald Trump’s administration amount to “treason”, the premier of British Columbia said on Thursday. “To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” David Eby told reporters. Continue reading...

Sundance film festival: there are some effective early moments in this ultra low-budget, audio-first horror but deja vu soon replaces intrigue There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from. The debut feature from writer-director Ian Tuason, about horror podcasters who receive a set of mysterious recordings, has elements of Paranormal Activity, Session 9, Hereditary, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist, enough sighs of familiarity to give horror fans a scary case of deja vu. It’s not that total originality is expected at this particular moment (this weekend’s Send Help has been touted as Misery meets Castaway), but given the genre’s overcrowd, it’s hard to see what pushes Undertone above the noise. What it does do is make for an impressively resourceful use of a low budget, the whole thing costing about $500,000. It’s all shot in one house (Tuason’s actual home) and for the most part, any sinister goings on are restricted to audio footage, heard through the headphones of our lead Eva (Nina Kiri, who reminds me of a young Alice Eve). She’s living back home with her terminally ill mother, fending calls from a thoughtless boyfriend and patiently awaiting those from her friend, and maybe one that got away, Justin (the voice of White Lotus breakout Adam DiMarco, replacing the original voice after the A24 acquisition). The pair co-host a podcast that analyses creepy tales, Eva as the skeptic and Justin as the believer, the pair’s flirtatious pitter-patter positioning them as the Mulder and Scully of the audio world. Continue reading...

⚽ Updates from final round of the stage, 8pm GMT kick-off ⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Luke Welcome to the Union of European Football Associations Europa League Matchday 8. It’s all to play for this evening as 11 hungry teams compete for a paltry five remaining knockout phase places. Aston Villa v Salzburg, Nottingham Forest v Ferencvaros and Celtic v Utrecht will be among the fixtures that are uppermost in our thoughts among the feast of 18 matches. But we’ll try to stay across the mind-melting complexity of the league-phase finale in all its glory. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says ‘time is running out’ for Iran as the threat of war appears to loom closer. A huge US armada is being moved towards the country and is seen as the starkest indication yet that Trump intends to strike. The US president had called on the Iranian regime to negotiate a deal on the future of its nuclear programme, only weeks after he promised Iranian protesters ‘help was on the way’ before backtracking days later. Nosheen Iqbal talks to the Guardian’s deputy international news editor, Devika Bhat, about what Trump could do next Continue reading...

Critics worry as heckling, such as that at a recent Royal Opera performance, is becoming more common Opera audiences pride themselves on knowing when – and how – to make noise. Cries of “bravo”, “brava” and “bravi” have become a celebrated part of the tradition, with shouted approval seen as evidence of connoisseurship. Booing, too, has a long history, and as a brave stand-in at the Royal Opera House found out on Tuesday night, its impact may sometimes seem a little blunter. Continue reading...

Opponents of bill insist government should not give it special treatment as peers delay its passage Opponents of the assisted dying bill have accused its supporters of bullying after key backers said they would attempt to bypass the House of Lords if peers continue to block it. The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and the Labour peer Charles Falconer said the government had a duty to listen to the anger among supporters about how the bill had been handled in the Lords. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Branch of Iranian software company TSIT, which makes Gap Messenger, is registered in Sussex The creators of a messaging app accused of handing user data to the Iranian regime live on a windswept hill in a British coastal town, the Guardian can reveal. Hadi and Mahdi Anjidani are the cofounders of TS Information Technology, established in 2010 and now registered at the address of a tax accountancy in Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It is the UK branch of an Iranian software corporation, Towse’e Saman Information Technology (TSIT). Continue reading...

Experts say factors including Donald Trump’s aggressive policies and pressure on the dollar are pushing investors toward the ‘safe haven’ of precious metals Last year’s extraordinary run in precious metals has only intensified in 2026, as Donald Trump has continued to rip up the rules of the global economy. Gold has been on a tear since last summer, repeatedly breaking records. It has risen by more than a quarter this month and hit a new high of just under $5,595 (£4,060) an ounce on Thursday. Continue reading...

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Information tribunal rules Soil Association must disclose salmon farm inspection reports to WildFish campaigners Campaigners have forced the Soil Association to reveal its salmon farm inspection reports, amid claims that certifying the farmed fish as “organic” is misleading to consumers. The Soil Association’s Organic scheme, the UK’s oldest and most widely recognised organic certification, defines organic farming as “using methods that benefit our whole food system, from people to planet, plant health to animal welfare.” Continue reading...

Stephen Cottrell was criticised for renewing the contract of David Tudor, despite being aware of his past abuse The Church of England’s second most senior cleric has been cleared of misconduct over his handling of a priest who committed sexual abuse. Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, was criticised after he allowed the disgraced priest David Tudor to remain in ministry during his oversight from 2010, despite Tudor’s history of sexual abuse. Continue reading...