The author reads her account of her time as a senior executive at Facebook with a mixture of dark humour and astonishment at the working culture in which she finds herself Sarah Wynn-Williams’s memoir documenting her seven years working at Facebook opens, unexpectedly, with a shark attack. The New Zealander was 13 years old and swimming in the sea when the shark bit her torso and shook her from side to side. She lived to tell the tale, but her near-death experience awakened in her a desire to leave the world better than she found it. Wynn-Williams went on to take a job at Facebook’s public policy department in 2011, having seen the potential of the platform as a global meeting place. But what she found was a senior staff high on power and untroubled by ethical concerns such as privacy or the dissemination of hate speech and misinformation. All were resistant to political interference and dedicated to rapid expansion, no matter the consequences, claims that Meta has called out of date and false. The author also encountered a working culture where employees enjoyed perks but had to be available around the clock – a situation that led to her responding to emails while in labour. Continue reading...

Peonies, padel rackets and a genuinely good low-alcohol wine … whatever your plans this bank holiday, we’ve rounded up our top spring essentials so you can make the most of it • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here The weather may or may not play ball, but a spring bank holiday is a reason to kick back, get outside and get together with friends. To help you make the most of the long weekend, we’ve rounded up some of our most-loved seasonal favourites. Whether it’s tools to spruce up your outdoor space, tipples to sip in the garden, a fake tan to jump-start your summer skin or fashion to take you from spring to summer, here are some of our favourite springtime products. Continue reading...

We are stuck in a deluge of meaningless content that threatens human creativity. Here’s a simple way to mitigate its harms As the US midterm elections approach, voters are voicing concern about AI. According to an NBC News poll of registered voters, 57% believe the risks of AI outweigh the benefits. A rising political cohort is particularly concerned. A Pew Research poll showed that 61% of adults under 30 say more AI in society will make people worse at creative thinking. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 74% of Americans think the government is not doing enough to regulate AI. Can you blame them? The CEOs of the largest AI companies chose a curious tactic: scaring their prospective users into submission. “Use it or get left behind” is the narrative, buttressed by gleeful proclamations that AI will destroy whole industries and cultural institutions. Continue reading...

A standoff between Gulf oil giants Saudi Arabia and the UAE could cause greater market volatility for years to come The conflict in the Middle East has claimed Opec as the latest casualty of war. The United Arab Emirates’ shock exit from the oil cartel on Tuesday after 60 years is expected to weaken the alliance, which under the leadership of Saudi Arabia has helped to soothe volatility in the global oil market for decades. Global oil prices reached the highest level in four years on Thursday, rising above $126 a barrel. But as the region grapples with the continuing conflict, a fresh war may be brewing in the international oil markets, which could lead to greater market volatility for years to come. Continue reading...

A Canadian social enterprise hopes to help solve the urgent need for retrofits and shortage of skilled workers John Mava was looking for work when a construction project started behind his house. When he visited the site and saw how different construction was in Canada compared with his native Nigeria, his interest was piqued. “I said it would be great for me to have knowledge about this,” said Mava, who learned that in Canada, construction uses timber rather than bricks and has a focus on the environment. Continue reading...

Luke Kennard, Sophie Ratcliffe and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments This is a really good year for new fiction. I don’t think anyone writes about contemporary Englishness as astutely, mercilessly and affectionately as Claire Powell, and her latest novel, All In, puts her perfectly observed characters in the pressure cooker of an all-inclusive holiday. It’s a kind of meta-beach read, and I loved it. Continue reading...

Since 2012, Mali has faced a security crisis fuelled by violence from groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State “The Grand Ball of Bamako,” as organisers tagged the Saturday evening soiree at the Hotel de l’Amitié in the Malian capital, was meant to provide one of the west African country’s biggest headlines last weekend. Many sponsors including Orange Mali, the local subsidiary of the French telecoms company, had bankrolled the show, which organisers hoped would demonstrate Mali’s capacity to put on big cultural events in the teeth of a security crisis raging on multiple fronts. On the eve of the concert, a convoy of over half a dozen cars picked up the main attraction, GrammyAward-winning Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, from the Modibo Keita international airport. Continue reading...

Experts estimate ‘accounting of the harm that was done’ by 200 years of chattel slavery would be US$2tn in damages Britain stole 25 million years of life and labour through slavery in Barbados, according to new research by a team of international experts. Their report concludes that Barbados’s population of African descent have suffered damages estimated at up to US$2tn (£1.5tn) from 200 years of chattel slavery. Continue reading...

Mojtaba Khamenei says Tehran will eliminate ‘enemy’s abuses of the waterway’ and guard its nuclear and missile programmes US politics live – latest updates Iran’s supreme leader has broken his recent silence with a defiant statement hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the strait of Hormuz and vowing to guard the country’s nuclear and missile programmes. “Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the strait of Hormuz,” Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement read by a state television anchor. Continue reading...

A new trailer depicts a normal meet-cute before setting it on the one night a year when single people can legally have sex For the most part, the trailer for the upcoming film One Night Only looks like the sweetest possible version of a romcom. A handsome, sensitive-looking man (played by Callum Turner) flirts relentlessly with a big-eyed oddball in a sexy dress (played by Monica Barbaro). They bump into each other, nudge each other, roll their eyes at each other. As a YouTube comment underneath the trailer (that has been liked more than 3,000 times) says: “Romantic comedies are back.” However, tucked away in this adorable little trailer is a premise that might just be the most confusing in living memory. As Turner’s character walks lovelorn through the streets of New York City, his voiceover says: “Finding love is hard enough. Try doing it on the one night of the year single people are legally allowed to have sex.” Continue reading...

First quarter output, driven by AI investment and government spending, rose as oil shock fuels inflation fears US gross domestic product (GDP) accelerated 2% in the first three months of 2026, though consumer spending is slowing as the war with Iran continues to impact energy prices. The last GDP reading for the fourth quarter of 2025 showed that US economic growth slowed to a 0.5% pace, largely due to a contraction in government spending after massive layoffs of federal workers last year. The federal government is down 355,000 workers, or 11.8% of the workforce, since October 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Continue reading...

Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, accused of mischief and public nuisance over alleged stunt in mall A French teenager has been charged with committing mischief and public nuisance in Singapore after posting a video on social media of himself licking a straw from an orange juice vending machine and then putting it back. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, was charged on 24 April and has not entered a plea, the city-state’s largest English-language newspaper, the Straits Times, reported. He allegedly committed the offence at a shopping mall on 12 March, and his video spread rapidly when it surfaced, the report said. Continue reading...

With the US blockade cutting off oil, the island’s healthcare has been wrecked, access to clean water lost and babies put at risk Four months into Cuba’s deepening energy crisis, the consequences are no longer abstract: they are visible in the rhythm of daily life. Streets fall silent before night has fully set in. Hospitals scale back operations. Small businesses close due to a lack of supplies. At dawn, exhaustion shows on people’s faces after long nights without electricity. But the most serious toll is measured not in inconvenience but in health. Continue reading...

Popular sentiment has been growing since 2017, when the US failed in providing disaster relief after Hurricane Maria “Mandarin hotel! Out of Puerto Rico!” was the refrain of dozens of demonstrators on 21 April 2025 as they took over the lobby of the tony Manhattan hotel. One protester walked around holding a Puerto Rican pro-independence flag, a sign of the anti-colonialist movement advocating for sovereignty from the United States. In the atrium of the nearby luxury mall, the Shops at Columbus Circle, organizers unfurled a long banner that read in Spanish “No to Esencia”. They scattered informational flyers on the mall’s floor about their opposition to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group project slated to open in 2028. The hotel group plans to partially operate the $2bn Esencia, luxury hotel rooms and a residential settlement, in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, and activists held the demonstration to spotlight the multinational hospitality group’s expansion into a fragile coastal area. Puerto Rican demonstrators and their allies from the group Juventud Unida por la Independencia (JUPI) say that the project would reap environmental disaster by destroying more than 1,500 acres (600 hectares) of protected land with archaeological sites. Continue reading...

Winston Marshall, former member of Mumford & Sons, says those crossing are ‘economic migrants’ not refugees The son of the Spectator owner, Paul Marshall, has said Britain should construct a mine-laden “floating wall” as a radical measure to stop Channel crossings. Winston Marshall, a former member of the band Mumford & Sons who is now establishing himself as a rightwing online influencer, said that while the idea “might sound ridiculous”, it should be explored because previous attempts to stop the crossings had failed. Continue reading...

Donmar Warehouse, London Two couples, both of whom have lost sons, meet in Fran Kranz’s unflinching look at restorative justice Fran Kranz’s 2021 film Mass, featuring two sets of parents whose sons have died in a high-school massacre, was originally written as a play. Restored as such, in Carrie Cracknell’s production, it takes place in the backroom of a church where their across-the-table encounter encapsulates a pained instance of restorative justice. Gail (Lyndsey Marshal) and Jay (Adeel Akhtar) are the parents of Evan, one of 10 children murdered by the teenage shooter, Hayden, the son of Richard (Paul Hilton) and Linda (Monica Dolan), who then killed himself. Continue reading...

Manager may have sought an edge with his fume after first-leg draw but Champions League semi remains in balance Mikel Arteta has felt the walls closing in on the domestic front in recent weeks. And it was surely a part of the reason why the Arsenal manager went on the offensive about refereeing decisions after his team’s Premier League win over Newcastle on Saturday. Arteta insisted that the Newcastle goalkeeper, Nick Pope, ought to have been sent off rather than booked for a foul on Viktor Gyökeres, which he argued represented the denial of a goalscoring opportunity. And, while he was at it, Arteta went back to the previous league game – the 2-1 defeat at Manchester City – and made a similar point: he believed the City defender Abdukodir Khusanov should have been dismissed for a last-man foul on Kai Havertz. Continue reading...

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

Recruited to Magnum Photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1977, the veteran photographer, who has died aged 83, made defining images of grand and intimate Indian life for five decades Continue reading...

FT branch of NUJ say there is not ‘compelling case’ for mandate for editorial staff to be in office four days a week Journalists at the Financial Times are at loggerheads with the publication’s management over plans to order staff back to the office four days a week by the end of the year. Members of the Financial Times’ union have unanimously voted to invoke the company’s dispute procedure over the proposals, arguing that management have “not made a compelling case” for the need to move from the current three office days. Continue reading...

Global Sumud Flotilla describes interception as ‘violent raid’ as IDF urges activists to deliver aid via ‘established channels’ Israeli forces have intercepted and detained the crews of at least 22 boats near the Greek island of Crete from a flotilla that is attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid. The Global Sumud Flotilla, consisting of about 58 vessels carrying people from across 70 countries, departed from Italy on Sunday. Continue reading...

What we inherit in the kitchen isn’t only a list of ingredients, but a living tradition – one that shifts with our lives, our fridges and the people we feed • Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast “Chicken, leek, flour, a few more ingredients.” That was it: my grandma’s WhatsApp response to me earnestly asking if she’d mind sharing her time-honoured chicken pie recipe. She wasn’t being obtuse – well, not deliberately. She had simply never before committed a dish that was second nature to paper, let alone an iPhone screen. It wasn’t how she’d learned it and it wasn’t how I’d go on to learn it, either. I knew I’d have to make her chicken pie many times to get it even close to her standard, that I’d have to learn by watching as well as by asking, and that even then there’d be elements I’d miss. Such is the nature of a family dish – indeed, of any dish that has taken time, repetition and love to master, and for which, even then, perfection remains ephemeral. There is more to their method, meaning and flavour than can ever be confined to and conveyed by a recipe. Continue reading...

As the actor turns 86, we rate his greatest screen performances and ask which Godfather was the best of the trilogy With greased-back hair, dainty spectacles and bristly chops, Pacino is a former Little League baseball coach turned locksmith. But – symbolism alert! – who holds the key to his clenched heart? One scene gives good cringe: over a would-be romantic dinner with a bank teller (Holly Hunter), he starts reminiscing about his great lost love, oblivious to his date’s escalating indignation. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency ATMs also face ban, after public inquiry found Canada lacked anti-money-laundering strategy Canada is to establish a new and powerful law enforcement agency to investigate financial crime, in stark contrast to the US, where weakened federal investigators have struggled to pursue fraudsters and the White House has pardoned convicted money launderers. A bill to create the Financial Crimes Agency (FCA) completed its first reading in parliament this week. The legislation was introduced by the governing Liberals and with their parliamentary majority, the party is likely to move the it through both levels of government quickly. Continue reading...

A Russian commander who led troops during the Bucha massacre in 2022 was said to be the blast’s intended target An explosion killed an army officer in a closed-off military town in Russia’s far east this week, in what appeared to be an attempt to target a more senior commander known as the “Butcher of Bucha”. Three sources familiar with the incident said the bomb detonated at about 9am on Tuesday in a residential block in Knyaze-Volkonskoye-1, the home of Maj Gen Azatbek Omurbekov, who commanded Russian troops during the occupation of Bucha. Continue reading...