Former footballer detained after incident outside Huyton and Prescot golf club on Sunday evening Joey Barton has been arrested on suspicion of attacking a man near a golf club in Liverpool. The former footballer was detained by police following the incident outside Huyton and Prescot golf club at 9pm on Sunday. Continue reading...

Only two vessels not linked to Iran or Russia have braved ‘chicken run’ since US president’s promise on Friday Middle East crisis – live updates Only two vessels not linked to Iran or Russia have made the “chicken run” through the strait of Hormuz since Donald Trump said he would “ensure the free flow of energy to the world”, according to maritime records. One of those that braved the journey since the US president’s announcement of emergency measures on Friday went “dark” by switching off its transponder and a second signalled it was Chinese owned and crewed. Continue reading...

Travel operators say Chinese and North Koreans can now buy tickets for services leaving this week Passenger train services between China and North Korea are to resume this week, six years after their suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, travel operators have said. Train journeys between the two countries were halted in 2020 as they imposed strict border closures to prevent the virus spreading. Continue reading...

Trump is wielding imperial powers created by a decades-long master plan. The only way to stop his war is to cut off the money Donald Trump has now ordered military attacks on more countries than any prior president. These assaults do not merely betray his campaign promises. Launched without congressional authorization, Trump’s bombings and incursions also betray the constitution – an inherently anti-monarch document that exclusively vests warmaking powers in the legislative branch in order to prevent such grave decisions from being made by any one person determined to become a king. Trump clearly perceives himself in such royal terms – he’s said as much. But as we show in the new season of our investigative podcast series Master Plan: The Kingmakers, Trump did not create the kingly authority he is now employing. He is exercising powers concentrated in the executive branch by previous presidents and courts. And if history is any guide, the only weapon that can stop a mad king is Congress’s power of the purse – a power that Democrats once effectively wielded, but today seem hesitant to brandish, even amid a wildly unpopular Iran incursion that some fear is a precursor to the second world war. Continue reading...

Remember the iPod? How about the Pippin? In the half-century since it launched its first PC, Apple has given us some amazing innovations. We round up its biggest triumphs and flops Fifty years after Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded the company in Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, Apple has become a behemoth, and billions of us use its products every day. From the first successful home computers with colour screens, to the iPod, to the smartphone that set the template for the modern mobile era, the company has repeatedly reset consumer expectations. As a result, the firm occupies a central position in the tech world, initiating trends and popularising products. Here are five of its most influential products from the past half-century – alongside some unusually big misses. Continue reading...

José Antonio Kast, who voted against legalising divorce in 2004, has pushed for return to total abortion ban Women’s rights activists in Chile are bracing as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship prepares to take office on Wednesday. José Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old ultra Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked progressive bids for women’s rights and equality across his three-decade career in politics. Continue reading...

Election will be a test of Trump’s sway and may provide a rare opportunity for Democrats in the southern state Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox A special election for the successor to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s congressional district in Georgia on Tuesday will be a test of Donald Trump’s sway, and may provide a rare opportunity for Democrats in a deep-red pocket of the southern state. Republican former prosecutor Clay Fuller is likely to come out of Tuesday’s jungle primary, in which the top two candidates go to a runoff regardless of party, alongside retired army general Shawn Harris, a Democrat. The two would face a run-off election on 7 April. Continue reading...

‘Resistance is futile’, wrote one AI product manager for the Associated Press in internal messages to colleagues No one wants a soulless sermon – that defeats the purpose – and Pope Leo XIV has taken steps to ensure that Roman Catholic priests don’t deliver one. Artificial intelligence, the new pontiff said in a recent meeting with clergy, “will never be able to share faith”, which is what giving a homily is all about. Resist the temptation and write your own words, he urged. Continue reading...

Growing fears that elevated interest rates will continue, as Barclays finds worries that war will push up inflation Business live – latest updates A leading British housebuilder has warned the Iran conflict could knock homebuyer sentiment, amid growing fears of a jump in inflation and a prolonged period of elevated interest rates. Persimmon said it was “monitoring the impact the conflict with Iran could have on our markets in 2026”, but noted that consumer sentiment could be sensitive amid more financial uncertainty. Continue reading...

A shocking new Apple series goes behind the yoga camps where women alleged criminal behaviour from a guru wanted for sexual exploitation charges Practicing yoga has its benefits: the meditative calm, grounded-ness and balance. The devoted pursue transformative spiritual journeys, through poses, chants and breath work. Some followers of tantra yoga take things even further, using sensuality to channel their energy and reach beyond themselves, seeking out of body liberation and enlightenment. But it’s that very pursuit that has also left hundreds vulnerable to alleged rape and trafficking. Continue reading...

War is always in the background, but the focus is on a kindly father, his long-suffering wife and young sons struggling to make a profit from working the land Georgian film-maker Elene Mikaberidze’s first feature-length work is a gentle, sweet-natured and deeply embedded documentary that observes a working-class family over a year and a half as they start a blueberry plantation. The opening text informs us that Soso, father of the family, was originally an engineer but has chosen to pack in his profession and take up farming partly because the Georgian government is offering attractive credit incentives, particularly for those who work the land near the border with Abkhazia, once part of Georgia but effectively a puppet state of Russia since the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. The film starts tracking the family from April 2021, so war is very much on the minds of everyone here, even Soso’s irrepressible 10-year-old son, Lazare, who proudly shows off his pictures of soldiers and explosions in a school art show. Elsewhere, Lazare, his older brother, Giorgi, and another kid chat about the region’s politics and history after a Christmas-meal, speculating on how great it would have been if the Germans had killed Putin’s mother during the second world war. Continue reading...

A teenage girl dreams of escaping her controlling father, in this sparkling coming-of-age romp haunted by trauma Alex Kadis establishes a jaunty tone from the very first pages of her debut about Connie Costa, a music-loving teenager stuck at home in east London in the mid-1970s, longing to break free from her smothering Greek Cypriot extended family, and in particular her restrictive father. Dubbing him “the fat murderer”, she has dreamed endlessly about killing him ever since the car accident a year before that took the lives of her mother and younger brothers. Lively, opinionated, and slightly chubby in her groovy 70s gear, Connie has two imaginary friends in the form of Marc Bolan and “bloody David Bowie”, with whom she communes via the posters on her bedroom wall. Marc she adores, but Bowie can be a bit snide, as well as having dubious taste in fashion. She’s starting to develop a keen interest in the male trouser region (Marc’s is placed at eye level). In the case of her father’s friend, Peter Pervy Roy, who wears “trousers so eye-wateringly tight that they squashed his knob and bollocks into a weird flat patty”, actual proximity can be off-putting. Far more appetising is her childhood friend Vas, similarly suffering from growing up while Greek. Vas displays his willy on demand: “It’s definitely getting bigger.” Everyone else assumes he’s gay because he reads poetry. Continue reading...

Government facing prospect of most serious backbench revolt yet over proposals for England and Wales Plans to curtail the number of jury trials in England and Wales have been described as “unpopular, untested and poorly evidenced” by thousands of lawyers who have written to the prime minister. The letter to Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, from 3,200 lawyers, including 300 senior barristers, comes as his government faces the prospect of one of its most serious backbench revolts since coming to power. Continue reading...

Paul Thomas Anderson’s capering clash between a demented repressive regime and ragtag freedom fighters is both cartoonish and deadly serious – and perfectly tuned to its times Viva la revolution and don’t forget your password, your pronouns, your plaid gown and your gun. One Battle After Another, from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, is the brawling rebel insider of this year’s Oscar race; a state-of-the-nation Hollywood spectacular that feels as disunited and unstable as the country it depicts. The film hates America and it loves it, too. It’s on the side of the angels even when it’s not quite sure who they are. It lights a candle to curse the darkness, and prays to God it hasn’t picked up a stick of dynamite by mistake. “We have to stay out of politics,” Wim Wenders advised his fellow directors at last month’s Berlin film festival, and yet One Battle After Another is political to its fingertips, hard-wired to the here and now and perfectly anticipating the tenor of Donald Trump’s second term. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, the one-time firebrand turned burnt-out stoner, who belatedly hauls himself off the couch when his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) is captured. Freely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, the film updates the book’s jaundiced post-60s hangover for the ICE-age 2020s as the plot careens from the migrant detention camp to the sanctuary city to uncover a Christian Nationalist cell within the US federal government. The self-styled “Christmas Adventurers” are on a heaven-sent mission to make America great again. They say, “If you want to save the planet, you always start with immigration.” Continue reading...

More than 200 applicants fear they will lose places after home secretary suspends study visas from four countries Sudanese scientists who have been promised research posts at leading UK universities have spoken of their “shock” and “sadness” that their hopes have been dashed after Shabana Mahmood’s decision to end study visas for people from their country. More than 200 Sudanese postgraduates and undergraduates fear they will no longer be permitted to take up places at 46 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, with some claiming that their lives have been torn apart by the home secretary’s “blunt” intervention. Continue reading...

Club’s former owner leads the polls in spiky mayoral race but is accused of putting forward ‘nothing of substance’ Karim Benzema doesn’t often involve himself in French politics. At the end of January, though, the striker gave a glowing endorsement of Jean-Michel Aulas, the former Lyon president who is leading the city’s mayoral race. “He has everything it takes to do well,” Benzema said in a video played on the news channel LCI as Aulas was being interviewed. “He’s someone who people listen to, he knows where he wants to go and he has a lot of experience,” the former Real Madrid player added. The Lyon-born striker was later joined by Bafétimbi Gomis in showing support for their former boss. Continue reading...

Regulator fined the multimillionaire £1.8m and banned him from the financial services industry last year Crispin Odey, the multimillionaire financier fighting various lawsuits relating to allegations of sexual misconduct, is to launch a case against the financial services regulator over his exile from the City. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Odey £1.8m and banned him from the financial services industry last year. Continue reading...

Logical situation of losing to get a better pick has led to big fines but June’s superstar draft created a ‘perfect storm’ Imagine you are the director of football at a crisis-stricken Premier League club in a world where relegation doesn’t exist and the planet’s best teenagers become available for free in a draft every June. In this alternate universe, you are also aware of something else: the 2026 Premier League draft is one for the ages. Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí are in it. So are Bayern Munich’s Lennart Karl and Real Madrid’s Franco Mastantuono. Sign one of them and the glory days will suddenly beckon again. Continue reading...

It’s been a troubling season at Tottenham and while there is a slim chance it will end in glory, ignominy is looking more likely How do you solve a problem such as Tottenham Hotspur? They’re the ninth-richest club in the world, who pride themselves on a thrilling style of play – “To dare is to do” – and have been blessed through the years with a pantheon of household names: Blanchflower, Hoddle, Ardíles, Gascoigne, Bale, Kane, Son. Last August they were seconds from beating Paris Saint-Germain to win the Uefa Super Cup, which would have made them – tenuously – the best team in Europe. Seven months later they’ve wilted into a shell-shocked laughing stock careering towards the Championship. They’re the club that launched a thousand memes. In this most Spursy of seasons, hiring Mr Fixit Igor Tudor as interim manager looks like being the biggest misstep yet. The Croatian hard man has taken a squad who needed an arm round the shoulder and stuck them in a vice-like headlock. He has openly suggested there’s only three things wrong with them: they can’t run, they can’t score and they can’t defend. You could count the number of fans who backed his appointment on the fingers of Captain Hook’s bad hand, and if three crushing defeats are anything to go by, his shock treatment is going down like a cup of cold West Ham lasagne. Is there any way out? Continue reading...

If anyone can convince politicians and public of the need to pay for a national care service, it’s Louise Casey. With her involved, I now have hope No government in my lifetime has been dealt a worse hand than Keir Starmer’s. Austerity-broken public services, an empty Treasury, a jittery bond market freaked out by Liz Truss and then stricken by the arrival of Trump 2.0 with his bully-tariffs. Now Britain’s ally is setting the Middle East on fire in a murderous war, exploding oil and gas prices. This needs repeating regularly, lest anyone forgets the obstacles blocking this government’s best intentions for change. One of those good intentions in the Labour manifesto was the creation of a national care service. Louise Casey, respected troubleshooter, was given a commission to review adult social care and solve its impossible dilemmas. She showed her thinking in a blistering speech last week. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink? On Thursday 30 April, ahead of May elections, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss the threat to Labour from the Greens and Reform – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.live Continue reading...

Experts argue sensor and satellite data reveal targeted attacks on farming communities by the Rapid Support Forces were intended to prevent villages producing food There is strong evidence that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed a war crime by depriving the villagers of north Darfur of the means to produce food, legal experts argue in a new analysis published today calling for the Humanitarian Research Lab’s (HRL) revelations to be used in international courts. The destruction of the villages, farming equipment and infrastructure all provide strong evidence of a “starvation strategy” against a population already struggling with food insecurity because of the war, says Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at Stanford Law School and a leading expert on the use of starvation in war. Continue reading...

An exhibition of rare photographs by the Italian photographer highlights the abstraction and poetry of his lesser-known works Continue reading...

This sappy and ill-conceived tale about a father, his autistic son and a lifesize toy bear suffers from sanctimonious religious messaging and dreadful dialogue Anyone with autism or close to someone with the condition might feel inclined to be forbearing of this family drama about a father and his autistic son, given its plea for acceptance and love. But yikes – it is so sappy, ill-conceived and bloated with sanctimonious religious messaging, it is a slog to get through. If, however, you feel that watching it is almost an act of charity in itself (apparently some of the proceeds will go toward supporting carers), admire this at least for being one of the few feature films that tries to depict more challenged autistic people who need support (also known by the now-contested label of “low functioning”). Also to its credit, the film opens with a disclaimer that acknowledges that “the autism spectrum is wide and varied” and that “this film reflects the individual experiences of two characters and is not intended to represent every autistic story”. The main character here is Elijah (played as a child by Reece Turley and then as an adult by Caleb Milby), a young man first met just after a violent meltdown that has ravaged the family’s Christmas decorations. Elijah’s father Ty (John Wells) attempts to comfort the distraught teen, with help from Elijah’s favourite stuffed toy, polar bear Nook. Flashforward seven years, and Elijah is now in some kind of secure hospital, barely distinguishable from a jail, partly because his mother Pam (Layla Cushman), divorced from Ty, just wants to offload him on the state and wash her hands of him while Ty struggles to maintain his career as an architect. Continue reading...

Airline has refused refund after our flight was diverted because of bad weather and we were left on the plane for six hours I was on a Ryanair flight from Bristol to Dublin that took off during Storm Amy in October last year. It was unable to land at Dublin after two abortive attempts and was diverted to Manchester, where we sat on the plane for six hours, with no complimentary refreshments, before being unceremoniously ejected at nearly midnight. We were told Ryanair staff would organise taxis and hotels, but no crew disembarked with us, and the terminal was deserted. Continue reading...

From jazz in Rotterdam and hip-hop in Paris to brass bands on the beach in Blackpool, the Guardian’s music editor chooses the best European festivals that can be reached by rail Paris has some great festivals, such as Cercle (22-24 May), with dance music stars against the backdrop of planes and rockets in an outdoor aerospace museum, but the most accessible and democratic is Fête de la musique, which began in Paris in 1982 but is now popular across the country. It is a loose event encompassing dozens of free, semi-impromptu outdoor performances all over each host city, including plenty in Lille, which is even cheaper and quicker to get to than Paris on the Eurostar from London. Continue reading...