Officers said to be granted extra powers as marches through capital set for same day as FA Cup final British police are preparing to mount one of their largest scale operations in recent memory with more than 100,000 protesters set to march through the streets of London on the same day as the FA Cup final in Wembley. The Guardian understands that officers in vast swathes of central London will be granted extra powers in order to police the far-right Unite the Kingdom march organised by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. Continue reading...

Researchers say daily exposure to cold activates brown fat and could help speed up body’s burning of calories Wearing an ice vest or taking daily cold showers could help people lose weight, according to researchers. Despite the growing popularity of cold-water swimming and freezing plunges, to date there is minimal data on the health benefits of cold exposure. But a study of 47 adults with obesity or overweight has found that regular exposure to cold temperatures led to fat loss. Continue reading...

⚽ Premier League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off ⚽ Live scores | Table | Who should be player of the year? How do you do? Welcome to live, minute-by-minute coverage of Aston Villa v Liverpool at Villa Park. In recent weeks, these two have looked nailed-on to qualify for next season’s Champions League. That’s still the likeliest outcome, but it’s far from a done deal and there is a credible scenario in which one of them misses out. It involves Villa losing next week’s Europa League to Freiburg and in-form Bournemouth (or possibly Brighton) leapfrogging either Villa or Liverpool to finish in the top five. Improbable, sure, but not inconceivable, which means there’s plenty riding on tonight – even more so given the noise and heat surrounding Arne Slot. Continue reading...

The president’s meeting with Xi Jinping was superficially cordial, extending a truce borne of necessity “American strength back on the world stage,” crowed the White House social media post: a curious remark, when the attached video showed the stars and stripes fluttering beneath a long row of Chinese flags, and People’s Liberation Army soldiers marching in unison. This week’s visit to Beijing offered the kind of style that Donald Trump enjoys – parading troops, a banquet and a polite if not markedly enthusiastic welcome from a strongman he called “really a friend” – but little apparent substance. The public account of the encounter will be partial: Mr Trump’s former adviser John Bolton has claimed that in previous conversations the US president begged Xi Jinping for help to win re-election and urged him to “go ahead” with internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang. But this meeting appears to have been about stabilising the relationship, not shifting it. Continue reading...

Official under watch after personal details leaked online Hearts manager called Celtic decision ‘disgusting’ The Scottish Football Association has vehemently criticised a “hysterical media narrative” and taken a swipe at the Hearts manager, Derek McInnes, while revealing one of its match officials and his family spent Thursday night under police protection after controversial incidents which have dominated the conclusion to the Premiership season. McInnes called the stoppage-time award of a penalty to Celtic in Wednesday’s win at Motherwell “disgusting”, with that, plus the denial of a spot-kick for Hearts during their fixture at the same stadium days earlier, dominating discussion. Hearts visit Celtic on Saturday needing a draw to become the first non-Old Firm title winners in 41 years. Continue reading...

Readers respond to a long read article by editor-in-chief Katharine Viner on surviving the information crisis Katharine Viner’s long read is excellent in its analysis of the challenges posed by unscrupulous leaders and rampant technology, and in its account of the good work being done by the Guardian (How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake’, 6 May). But I can’t help thinking that it is preaching to the converted: it is not Guardian readers, but those who might hold very different views, who need to be convinced of the arguments put forward. Reading the article, I was hoping to hear more about efforts being made to reach out to those unlikely to share the values espoused by the Guardian. How can these values be communicated, for example, to Maga followers or, dare I say, readers of the Daily Mail? Here, a leaf can be taken out of the Guardian’s own “Dining across the divide” feature. Continue reading...

Salley Vickers and Carrie Eckersley respond to a letter on Richard Dawkins and his chats with AI bots I was delighted to read Dr Simon Nieder’s cogent rebuttal of Richard Dawkins’s attribution of consciousness to the responses engendered by AI (Letters, 10 May). That human consciousness appears to have an innate tendency to project itself on to various othernesses has long been understood – John Ruskin termed it the pathetic fallacy – and that children animate their loved toys is readily observable. But Wordsworth’s attribution of emotion to a mountain or my granddaughter’s lively conversations with Spice, her toy sloth, are, happily, unlikely to be dangerous. The conclusion that a widely harvested body of data on human response is equivalent to consciousness is naive and rather shocking in someone such as Prof Dawkins, who has founded his reputation and criticism of religious beliefs on a stringent rationalism. Salley Vickers London Continue reading...

Maggie Rylance deployed a red spotted handkerchief in memory of her dad, while Terry O’Hara was tempted by the Parthenon The letter (8 May) responding to Zoe Williams’ article about scattering her mum’s ashes brought back fond memories of Dad. He was a farmer and always carried a red spotted handkerchief in his pocket. When he was muck-spreading, he would get out of the tractor cab, hold the handkerchief up to check which way the wind was blowing, and make sure he drove in a direction that protected the cab from being covered in muck. It was a family joke that we should use the same method when spreading his and Mum’s ashes. We saved a red spotted handkerchief and did exactly that. It worked well and no one got covered in ash. Maggie Rylance Winchester Continue reading...

Denis Hodžić was surprised to see a photograph of his favourite childhood hobby in his favourite paper Your lovely article about Panini football stickers (Writers on their World Cup Panini collecting days: ‘We all remember the playground twerp’, 9 May) reminded me of my own sticker albums from the 70s and 80s. My favourite album and World Cup was Spain 1982. I watched the games in Yugoslavia, where I grew up. We excitedly followed our own team, which in the end failed to live up to its reputation as the “European Brazilians”. The Brazilian Brazilians, meanwhile, had a fabulous team of their own, full of charismatic superstars who looked great on stickers and were the most valuable currency in the playground. Continue reading...

Property portfolio in spotlight as Reform UK leader faces official inquiry over money accepted from billionaire A week ago, Nigel Farage was toasting Reform UK’s successes in the May elections, and bragging about his prospects of becoming prime minister. But there is a saying about a week in politics – and it has been a long seven days for the party leader, who is now facing questions over a £5m gift and his extensive property portfolio. Continue reading...

Cannes film festival: This lively documentary about everyone’s favourite hot-headed footballer/unlikely Ken Loach star will give more than just fans a kick Here is a fervent, but repetitive fan-service documentary, perpetually re-using iconic “bad behaviour” clips, all about the tempestuous king of Manchester United (formerly and briefly the tempestuous king of Leeds United). Eric Cantona was the Frenchman who won the hearts of English football fans in the 90s for his stunning skills, filling the silverware cabinet to bursting having been picked up cheap by Man U having effectively flounced out of French football. He was mentored in those days by that kindly teddy-bear of a man, Sir Alex Ferguson, who is interviewed extensively here, along with David Beckham, Eric’s elderly parents Albert and Éléonore, and of course the gloweringly pugnacious man himself, appearing in what appears to be a deserted church and gnomically quoting Baudelaire. Continue reading...

Saffron Cole-Nottage became stuck headfirst and might have lived had ambulance service alerted fire service immediately, coroner says A woman who drowned after getting stuck headfirst in sea defence rocks might have been saved if the ambulance service had alerted the fire service quicker, a coroner has said. Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, was with her daughter, walking their dog at the seafront in Lowestoft, Suffolk, when she fell as the tide was coming in on 2 February 2025. Continue reading...

German chancellor says he no longer views US as land of opportunity amid ‘deeply polarising’ social climate Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor already embroiled in a row with US president Donald Trump over the Iran war, has said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate. Speaking to a conference of young Catholics in Würzburg, the conservative leader, viewed by many as a transatlanticist, said he no longer saw the US as the land of opportunity. Continue reading...

Brendon McCullum will have to adapt to a new environment as Test set-up looks to move on from thrashing In selecting Emilio Gay and James Rew for their Test squad to face New Zealand, England have in one sense been true to their word. The Ashes mea culpa included a promise to give more weight to domestic performances. Both men tick that box. And yet as the team picks up the pieces after the 4-1 defeat in Australia, wounds licked and lessons learned, perhaps the question is whether they are staying true to themselves more broadly – or even, who actually are they these days? Continue reading...

If he stands in Makerfield there will also need to be a mayoral contest to replace him in Greater Manchester Labour’s national executive committee has approved Andy Burnham’s request to stand in the candidate selection process for the upcoming Makerfield byelection. The Greater Manchester mayor still has two more years of his term, meaning that if he stands there will need to be a mayoral byelection. Under Labour rules, sitting mayors need NEC approval to stand for Westminster. He would also need to be formally selected Continue reading...

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Muscat silent about plans – opposed by US – to charge fee and demand details on nationality of all transiting ships Oman has been caught in geopolitical crossfire after Iran said it was coordinating with Muscat over the future management of the strait of Hormuz, including Tehran’s plans – opposed by the US – for fees to be paid by commercial shipping to a new Iranian government agency. The Omani exclave of Musandam lies to the south of the contested waterway, which normally carries a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil traffic but has been blockaded for 10 weeks since since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February. Continue reading...

Manchester City defender led Crystal Palace to Wembley triumph last season and is back to take on Chelsea Marc Guéhi’s whirlwind 12 months in the FA Cup: captaining Crystal Palace to glory at Wembley last season, experiencing the competition’s greatest shock via the holders’ third-round elimination at sixth-tier Macclesfield and, on Saturday, aiming to claim the trophy again when Manchester City face Chelsea. In a story-rich competition the defender’s is one of the more intriguing, particularly as Palace’s triumph was their first trophy and City, who he joined nine days after the Macclesfield reverse, were their scalps in the final, beaten 1-0 by Eberechi Eze’s 16th-minute strike. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Sometimes they were enough to send our music critics and readers straight back out the door again – but mostly just noisy enough to make their clothes shake Bowel-shuddering basslines. Drum fills that bounce off the walls like gunfire. Guitars resembling a pneumatic drill drilling into another pneumatic drill. A truly loud gig stays with you, figuratively and literally, as anyone who has spent the days after one accompanied by a troubling ringing in their ears can confirm. Last week, prompted, strangely enough, by an old Alistair Cooke column suggesting that Janis Joplin’s group Big Brother and the Holding Company was noisy enough to cause permanent hearing damage in guinea pigs, we asked Guide readers to share their own loudest gig experiences. We had a huge response, with tons of you sharing memories of eardrum-piercing encounters with all manner of bands and artists, across genres and decades. So we thought we’d devote this week’s newsletter to your stories of extreme noise terror, along with a few from the Guardian’s music critics, who are often on the frontlines when it comes to aural assault. Continue reading...

The MP for Ealing North has not run a major department before, but has a reputation as one of the few politicians ‘nobody hates’ The softly spoken former Treasury minister who has replaced Wes Streeting has spent most of his parliamentary career toeing the party line, staying out of the headlines and quietly burnishing his credentials as a reliable cabinet colleague. At the age of 42, James Murray, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Ealing North, now has one of the biggest jobs in government. He arrives as the new health secretary as one of the least divisive figures in government, and arguably one of the least publicly tested. Continue reading...

Doctors and nurses say hit drama paints a mostly realistic picture of the frontline of emergency medicine It’s the hospital drama that is adored by critics and fans alike, with its hard-hitting, action-packed episodes binged the moment they’re released by HBO Max. The Pitt depicts events in the Pittsburgh trauma medical centre, where the waiting room is always overloaded, cases are more complicated than they first seem and the medical consequences of America’s many ills – fentanyl, shootings, vaccine denial – need urgent attention. While medical dramas are much loved by the lay viewer, clinicians who are used to seeing fictionalised versions of their daily grind are notoriously hard to please. This, notably, is where The Pitt stands apart. In fact, doctors and nurses in UK A&E units are among some of the show’s most committed devotees. Continue reading...

Dane goes for broke 5km from top for stage seven win Decathlon’s Felix Gall is only other rider to get close Jonas Vingegaard, the pre-race favourite, proved his Giro d’Italia credentials by going alone to conquer the Blockhaus summit finish and win stage seven on Friday as the Dane made his first telling move of this year’s race. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider, on his Giro debut, went for broke with just over 5km to the top, with the Austrian Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) the only rider to get close as he came in 13 seconds behind the winner. Continue reading...

Canada’s Intact Financial Corp is said to be exploring offer, as London-listed Tate & Lyle attracts US suitor Shares in Hiscox surged to record highs on Friday as it became the latest UK takeover target after a flurry of overseas bids for British businesses this week. Canada’s Intact Financial Corp, which provides property and casualty insurance, is said to be exploring a potential takeover of Lloyd’s of London insurer Hiscox, according to a report by the Insurance Post. Continue reading...

Labour must rise to a historic responsibility by choosing a leader who can win over the nation. The alternative is Farage on the steps of No 10 They’re looking like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Labour’s upper echelon, both the prime minister and his rivals, have served up a performance of such political ineptitude, walking into doors and tripping over their own feet, that it’s hard to argue with the cabinet minister who glumly told me this was the week when the government did itself damage that can never be repaired, if not the week that Labour confirmed its defeat at the next general election. As so often, the lead was set from the top. Keir Starmer’s allies had billed his speech on Monday as a major address, one that would meet the scale of the moment and recognise the need for Labour to chart a new course, given the shellacking the party had suffered at the hands of voters in England, Scotland and Wales on 7 May. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Innovative and award-winning science-fiction writer whose novels extended to horror, fantasy and the Warhammer franchise The author Ian Watson, who has died aged 82 after suffering from oesophageal cancer, established his reputation as an exhilarating, intellectually adventurous writer of science fiction with his first novel, The Embedding (1973), winner of the Prix Apollo in France. It was followed by The Jonah Kit (1975), winner of the British Science Fiction Association award. Reviewing his third novel, The Martian Inca (1977), JG Ballard described the author as “the most interesting British SF writer of ideas – or, more accurately, the only British SF writer of ideas”. Many of Ian’s novels dealt with dauntingly complex, even unanswerable, questions about communication, language, perception and consciousness (human, animal, even alien minds), but others were lighter. Though he was always identified with science fiction, his range as a writer expanded to include horror, fantasy and “the great, lurid, Gothic fun” of the Warhammer franchise books. Continue reading...