The great photographer documented black family life in postwar Alabama – and the dignity and resilience people showed under discriminatory Jim Crow laws Continue reading...

No-fault evictions made up one in three reports made to renters’ union Acorn in January Increasing numbers of landlords are evicting tenants at the last minute before the law changes to outlaw the practice in next month, charities have said. The renters’ union Acorn told the Guardian that no-fault evictions made up one in five of the reports they received from members in October, rising to nearly one in three by January. Continue reading...

A magisterial history of one of the worst ever pandemics focuses on the individuals caught up in the horror In Venice, authorities tried to enforce social distancing by closing all the bars, and banning the sale of wine by merchant boats plying the canals. In Gloucester, the powers that be attempted to lock down the city by banning anyone travelling to and from Bristol, 40 miles south. But fights broke out among thirsty Italians, and Gloucester’s quarantine was broken – whether it was by people simply going on a trip to check their eyesight has, alas, gone unrecorded. In London, there was a dramatic rise in the sale of personal protective equipment, in the form of gloves. The story of the Black Death, as historian Thomas Asbridge shows in this magisterial survey, contains many such echoes of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also shows just how relatively lucky we were a few years ago. The plague was far more lethal, and in the areas it spread between 1346 and 1353 it killed half the population. About 100m died: it was, Asbridge remarks, “the most lethal natural disaster in human history”. If a pathogen with a similar case fatality rate were to erupt worldwide today, billions might die. Continue reading...

England’s largest forest has an aura reminiscent of parts of Canada or Finland. This year it celebrates its centenary with new trails and dark sky events Deep in Kielder Forest, on the northern side of the vast Kielder Water stands Silvas Capitalis, a giant, two-storey timber head, one of the most striking of the 20 sculptures tucked between the pines. It’s an eerie sight, almost shocking; its mouth ajar, as if astounded by all it sees. It’s my first visit to Kielder, and my face has been wearing a similar expression since I stepped out of the car at the lakeside trying to take in the scale of the landscapes unfolding around me. Kielder doesn’t look like England – at least, not the England I know. For a start, it’s vast; 250 sq miles (648 sq km), with 158m trees, mostly sitka spruce conifers planted by hand. And even though it’s a plantation, there’s a wilderness feel that reminds me of Finland or Canada; a great swathe of nature at its most intense. It’s a working forest, involving 500 full-time jobs (not including tourism) and 2026 marks the centenary of the very first plantings, when the UK was in need of timber reserves after the demands of the first world war. Continue reading...

Don’t be fooled by the lighter tone of Margaret Atwood’s follow-on. June’s daughter is now grown up in Gilead, where daily horrors are still in full swing – and Aunt Lydia is back I had to give up on the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale quite early on – the mass mock execution scene did for me – because it was too relentlessly bleak, too full of dread, too awful, too true. Margaret Atwood’s future-dystopia tale, published in 1985, drew on nothing that had not already occurred in totalitarian and tyrannical regimes around the world. Translated to the screen, the visceral terror of it all was almost too much from the very beginning. Now, the sequel Atwood published in 2019, The Testaments, has come for us, created by The Handmaid’s Tale’s showrunner, Bruce Miller. Brace yourselves. Continue reading...

A fabulously wealthy teen girl with lupus makes a new friend who pulls her out of plush isolation and toward some dark discoveries It’s been a long, slow slog but after years of market research and audience studies, as well as the success of films like The Substance, those who bankroll horror movies have finally accepted an incontrovertible fact: that women consume the genre not just because they’re along for the ride, but as a primary audience who want to see their own fears and anxieties at the dead centre. And we’re here for it, as the kids say, although this inevitably means there will be a fair amount of shonky, slapdash gynocentric horror on offer, often with generous side portions of eat-the-rich resentment. This teen-focused feature film, like recent hot-mess TV series The Beauty, is a case in point. Directed by Nancy Leopardi and written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer (who wrote Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane), The Cure is a fable of poor little rich girl loneliness that has lots of smart ideas, but cuts its narrative corners a little too tightly to take it up to the next level. Continue reading...

Larger than any dog, let alone a house cat, the beast swaggered through the Dartmoor mist. My schoolfriends and I were entranced – until the adults who had slept through everything told us we were lying I was 11, with a handful of friends on a school trip to Dartmoor. We’d set up our tents near the edge of a camp, which was mostly empty. The first morning, our tent woke before the teachers. We stole out to find another group of boys already on the dewy grass, standing hands in pockets, together in nature. The sun was just coming up. The last of the night-time mist was peeling away. Continue reading...

W1A’s bumbling head of BBC values is back – this time as head of integrity on the World Cup team. Plus: new thriller, The Copenhagen Test. Here’s what to watch this evening 10pm, BBC Two Is the mood music around this summer’s World Cup compatible with a sitcom? After all, the main host nation is threatening to turn the event into an apocalyptic drama. Enter bumbling Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) in his new role as director of integrity for a (redacted) sporting body, whose relationship with the concept is already a punchline. While the tone is subtly different from that of W1A and Twenty Twelve – in those shows, no one really said anything; here, everyone shouts at once – the satirical intent is similar. David Tennant’s narration adds a satisfying extra layer of snark as issues of staging and environmental impact are tossed into the corporate meat grinder. Phil Harrison Continue reading...

If the president’s first term didn’t inoculate the American body politic against tyranny, there is no guarantee that a second dose will work Donald Trump is a despot and the US is a democracy. These things can be true simultaneously but not indefinitely. There is now deadlock in the struggle between a president who would be king and a constitution drafted in repudiation of monarchy. But it is a battle to the death. Tyranny will either break the spirit of the republic or be quelled by it. Since the US is the world’s paramount power, the outcome of this contest has epic consequences for countries, such as the UK, that depend on Washington for security. Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Our writer travels to the eastern Andes in search of one of Ecuador’s most elusive birds I’m out of breath – and not just because I’m desperate to see one of Ecuador’s most elusive birds, the rufous-bellied seedsnipe. To have any chance of success, I’ve come to Cayambe Coca national park in the eastern Andes. At 4,400 metres (14,400 feet), this is the highest altitude I have ever experienced. Fortunately the skies are clear, the sun is shining, and my guide, Juan Carlos, is optimistic. I don’t tell him I have a track record of missing nailed-on certainties. Continue reading...

Charlie Taylor, inspector of prisons for England and Wales, says dealers should be isolated and ‘assertively managed’ Jailed criminals who are flooding prisons with drugs should be isolated like radical extremists and “assertively managed”, the England and Wales prisons watchdog has said. Charlie Taylor, HM inspector of prisons, said major dealers were living “consequence-free” in jail when they should be separated from the majority of inmates, subjected to regular searches for phones, and punished and rewarded according to their behaviour. Continue reading...

Mariam Sabbah, 10, to get specialist care in Britain instead of US, after Trump halted visitor visas for Palestinians A Palestinian child who lost her arm during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza arrived in the UK for specialist treatment on Tuesday, amid ongoing pressure on the British government to step up efforts to help evacuate critically ill and injured children from the territory. Mariam Sabbah arrived at Heathrow airport with her mother, Fatma Salman, and two brothers. They were met by a small crowd bearing gifts, balloons and bouquets. Continue reading...

Beloved characters reinvented in graphic novel coming later this year – just as interest rockets in all things space Sufferin’ satellites! The quintessential British space hero Dan Dare is back, 76 years after he first appeared in iconic comic magazine the Eagle. With all eyes on Nasa’s Artemis II moon mission, and with the big-screen adaptation of Andy Weir’s science fiction novel Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling, going stratospheric at the box office, our love affair with space has been reignited. Continue reading...

Senior climate figures warn North Sea drilling would encourage fossil fuel exploitation by developing countries Opening new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would “send a shock wave around the world”, imperilling international climate targets, undermining the UK’s climate leadership and encouraging developing countries to exploit their own fossil fuel reserves, experts have warned. The UK government is under stiff pressure from the oil industry, the Conservatives, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, some trade unions and parts of the Treasury to give the green light to new oil and gas fields, despite clear evidence that doing so would not cut prices and would have almost no effect on imports. Continue reading...

Woolton Hill, Hampshire: I visit an old friend in an old haunt, where a small herd of Shetlands has been set to work Thirty years on from the impassioned action of the road protests, the Newbury bypass soars above us on the old railway embankment. I can’t entirely accept it even now, having been part of the campaign. Today, walking in The Chase, the nature reserve that lies adjacent, the roar of traffic slips into a background hum, aided by other memories I’ve built up here. Many of those have been with my dearest friend, Sarah. She volunteers as a “cow watcher” for the National Trust, and I’ve come with her as she checks their whereabouts and wellbeing. They are conservation grazers; keeping coarser scrub in check, spreading seed and poaching areas, and encouraging greater biodiversity and plantlife. Continue reading...

More than 80% of the UK’s tradespeople have had tools stolen. Some have lost months of work as a result. With thefts up 16% in a year, can the police and the government do anything to protect them? If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and has millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram. He’s in demand, highly skilled, generous in sharing tips from his many years of experience and even has his own range of products on sale in the UK and the US. But even with his social media army and branded brushes, he’s still not immune to the biggest threat faced by British tradespeople: tool theft. “It was Boxing Day morning,” Tingley says. “I was still in bed, my wife was on her way to the gym. She came running back in and told me that all the doors of my van were open.” Continue reading...

Richard Hewett, who was forced to sleep in his car when his relationship broke down, is one of many in the UK hit by rising costs and a lack of social housing When Richard Hewett’s relationship broke down, he was forced to leave his partner’s council house – but found his disability benefits didn’t stretch far enough to get him his own flat in his Essex home town. He resorted to the next best option: sleeping in his car. It wasn’t what he had expected, aged 59. At 6ft 2in, he squeezed into a Ford Focus and struggled to sleep. When he broke his ankle, he couldn’t look after it properly, contracted sepsis and had his leg amputated. Continue reading...

As the extraordinary superhero satires comes to an end, a mighty showdown has terrifying parallels with modern America. What a horrifying pleasure it has been to watch The Boys is back in town, for its fifth and final season. There’s too much to recap in full for those who have not yet had the pleasure of the satirical superhero show created by Eric Kripke from the comic books written by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Or who have not yet been horrified by the gory splatterfest (courtesy of all kinds of body fluids) of the preceding 32 episodes, which have seen orifices and appendages put to extraordinary use, and some of which have rightly entered what we will very carefully spell as the annals of TV history. So, let’s just say that the new season finds us set for a showdown between an increasingly power-mad (“Have you seen the memes about me? Posting them should be a crime”) – or, as the voices of angels start speaking to him, possibly just mad – Homelander (Antony Starr) and the Butcher crew. The former is now overlord of the US, with the president and, apparently, Sage (Susan Heyward) at his beck and call. But the gang has just succeeded in screening – in front of a Maga … I mean, Homelander-loving … rally – the long-buried footage of him leaving the passengers on Flight 37 (as he did all the way back in season one when he was just a little baby villain) to die. Continue reading...

The UK and EU countries who abstained when Ghana’s UN resolution was adopted may soon find it harder to sustain the same old script on reparations The most revealing thing about Ghana’s UN resolution was not that it passed. It was who could not bring themselves to stand with it. On 25 March, the UN general assembly adopted the Ghana-led resolution by 123 votes to three, with 52 abstentions. It declared that the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans was “the gravest crime against humanity” and urged steps including formal apologies, reparatory justice and the return of looted cultural property. The three states that voted no were the US, Israel and Argentina; the UK and all EU member states abstained. Continue reading...

More than 33GW of battery capacity approved for Turkish grid since 2022 compared with 12-13GW in Germany Turkey has given the green light to more batteries to buffer its electricity grid than any EU member state, a report has found, in a further sign of rich countries losing steam in the race to a clean economy. More than 33GW of battery capacity have been approved in Turkey since 2022, according to the climate thinktank Ember, while the total planned and operational capacity in European frontrunners that started deploying them earlier, such as Germany and Italy, is 12-13GW. Continue reading...

The former chancellor was the chief architect of Germany’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and cuts to defence spending. Both haunt the country today The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is enjoying a curious political revival. Not so long ago, his reputation seemed in tatters. In light of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many came to regard his longstanding ties to Russia and personal friendship with Vladimir Putin as self-serving. Fellow Social Democrats (SPD) tried to expel him from the party, and as recently as last year the government defunded the ex-chancellor’s office. And yet a veritable Schröder nostalgia is now seeping into German political discourse, a phenomenon that’s less to do with a reappraisal of his chancellorship than with a desperate identity crisis on the centre-left. Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. She is the author of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990. Her latest book, Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, comes out in May Continue reading...

Pakistan’s PM had said the ceasefire would cover Lebanon; Iran says passage through the strait of Hormuz will be allowed for the next 2 weeks. Follow the latest news US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen strait of Hormuz Iran war ceasefire announcement – what we know so far Israel supports Donald Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the ceasefire does not include Lebanon, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday. The office said Israel backed the US move, provided Tehran immediately opens the strait of Hormuz and stops attacks against the United States, Israel and countries in the region. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it had conditionally accepted a two-week ceasefire if attacks agains Iran are halted. Iran’s foreign minister said passage through the strait of Hormuz will be allowed for the next 2 weeks under Iranian military management. Iranian state media said negotiations with the US would be held in Islamabad to finalise details of an agreement, with the aim of “confirming Iran’s battlefield achievements”. Talks will begin on Friday 10 April and may be extended, state media reported. State media also reported that talks with the US do not amount to the end of the war. Pakistani prime minister Shebaz Sharif announced that Iran, the US and their allies agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon. Sharif has been a key figure in attempting to reach a diplomatic solution between the two warring parties. In his statement, Sharif invited delegations to Islamabad on “Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes”. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli welcomed the ceasefire but said fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon was not part of it. Trump said Iran had proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan. According to Iranian state media, the ten-point proposal includes a number of conditions that the US has in the past rejected. Among them are controlled transit through strait of Hormuz coordinated with Iranian armed forces and withdrawal of all US forces from regional bases. The plan would also require the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, payment of full compensation to Iran and release of all frozen Iranian assets. Iranian state media also said the 10-point plan for securing an end to the war would require Washington to accept its uranium enrichment program, a previous red line for the Trump administration. Even as the ceasefire was proposed, missile alerts continued in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Israel. Continue reading...

Two-week ceasefire comes after Trump spoke to Pakistan’s leaders, with China also believed to be exerting influence over Tehran Middle East crisis – live updates US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen strait of Hormuz The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday barely an hour before Donald Trump’s deadline to obliterate Iran was set to expire, with Tehran agreeing to temporarily reopen the strait of Hormuz. Israel also agreed to the ceasefire, the White House said. As Trump announced he was suspending his plans to escalate attacks across Iran, the US president said he had received a “workable” ceasefire proposal from Iran. Continue reading...

When it’s hard or impossible to identify trustworthy sources, you can choose to believe whatever you find comforting, invigorating or infuriating In early March, a week after the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the White House posted a video of real American attacks mixed with clips from popular movies, television series, video games and anime. Iran and its sympathisers responded to the strikes by flooding social media with outdated war footage allegedly from the current conflict alongside AI-generated content depicting attacks on Tel Aviv and US bases in the Persian Gulf. Continue reading...

Chuck Schumer attacks president’s ‘ridiculous bluster’ while Republicans cast decision as shrewd tactical move US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire Middle East crisis – live updates Political leaders and many Americans breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday evening, after Donald Trump announced a provisional ceasefire deal following threats to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” if Tehran failed to reopen the strait of Hormuz by a self-imposed deadline. The announcement of the agreement, mediated by Pakistan, came roughly 90 minutes before the 8pm ET deadline by which Trump pledged to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges in a move legal and military scholars said would be considered a war crime. Continue reading...