Table of contents for 3 April 2026 in Guardian Weekly

1 UNITED STATES President threatens energy grid in bid for Iran ceasefire Donald Trump threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power stations and fresh water plants if Tehran does not agree to peace terms “shortly”, even as he claimed diplomatic progress in ending the war instigated by the US and Israel. In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump said if a deal was not struck, US forces would destroy “all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)”. Destroying civilian infrastructure such as power facilities would be illegal under international humanitarian law and would probably constitute a war crime. Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, on Monday acknowledged Tehran had received a 15-point proposal from the Trump administration after talks on Sunday…

In March last year, a Paris court found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement and barred her from running in the 2027 presidential race. The far-right figurehead took to the airwaves to denounce a “political decision” and “denial of democracy”. Le Pen, who has appealed against the ruling, said she had been subjected to a “tyranny of judges” and a “political assassination”. The “system” had dropped “a nuclear bomb” on her. The presiding judge was then threatened by others on social media and her home address was shared online. Six months later, Nicolas Sarkozy, the rightwing former president, was handed a five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy. He criticised a decision “of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law and for people’s trust in the justice system”. A…

In the embattled harbours of Odesa, a scientific vessel lists at its mooring. No one has been able to take a look at the damage to the Boris Alexander from Russian drones and shelling that have hit the port city over the past four years of war in Ukraine. It is too dangerous, just as no one has been able to fully monitor the damage the war is doing to the Black Sea. “We can only wait,” said Dr Jaroslav Slobodnik, the director of the Environmental Institute, headquartered in Slovakia. “The biodiversity landscape is completely altered. A number of species seem to have disappeared, but we need more data, which the war makes it impossible to collect.” Three species of dolphins were living in the Black Sea before the war.…

In March, graffiti appeared on the promenade in Sea Point, on Cape Town’s wealthy Atlantic Seaboard: “Digital nomads go home! Now!” Social media is full of complaints about the abundance of American and German accents, foreign property buyers, and properties being listed on Airbnb, all of which are being blamed for soaring housing costs. In the past five years, property prices have risen 31%, according to official data. That was double the rise across South Africa’s seven other metropolitan municipalities. Rents grew 5-7% last year, also above the national average, according to property research firm The Africanvestor. Cape Town was suffering from a housing crisis long before middle-class residents started feeling the pinch. As in most of South Africa, the geographic inequality of apartheid persists, more than 30 years since…

More than 8 million people protested against the Trump administration at more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US and in more than a dozen countries last Saturday, according to organisers. It’s the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history, said Britt Jacovich, the deputy communications director for Move On, one of the organisers behind No Kings. The protest was the third No Kings, organised by a coalition that also includes “anti-authoritarian” groups Indivisible and 50501, labour unions and other grassroots organisations. The last one, in October, drew 7 million people nationwide. Many issues attracted protesters across issues, from ICE raids to the war in Iran to voting rights. “Since the last No Kings, we’re seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there’s an…

Nature famously abhors a vacuum. So when Morgan McSweeney departed government, leaving a hole where much of Keir Starmer’s thinking used to be, it was always going to be filled eventually. And increasingly, that filling looks Ed Miliband-shaped. The energy secretary’s influence has visibly grown, and not just because of a spiralling energy crisis in the Gulf. The idea that he is the real prime minister now – the one supposedly calling the shots over everything from whether Britain should join the war on Iran to how far it should pursue its “fatwa against fossil fuels”, as Michael Gove, the former Tory minister turned Spectator editor-in-chief, huffed – is on one level just another attempt by the opposition to humiliate Starmer, painting him as a lame-duck leader. But if the…

In September 1940, Henry Moore and his wife, Irina, left London to escape wartime bombing, ending up in the bucolic hamlet of Perry Green, where Hertfordshire meets Essex. What was envisaged as a temporary refuge eventually became permanent, and the array of buildings in which Moore lived and worked is now a kind of cultural ecosystem dedicated to his genius. Part minor stately home, part sculpture park and part archive – one of the largest devoted to a single artist – it’s now overseen by his eponymous foundation, established in 1977. Today, it comprises a constellation of studios and workspaces dispersed a cross an Arcadian landscape. Sheep graze in far fields and colossal sculptures loom on the horizon. Moore’s house, Hoglands, is preserved just as he left it, replete with…

After an online shopping blunder, I now have six jars of mint sauce. How can I make use of them apart from serving roast lamb every Sunday from now until the crack of doom? John, by email As is often the case, it all starts with a shift in mindset. “When you see a jar of sauce, there’s a tendency to think, ‘I must use this as a sauce,’” says Kate Young, author of Dinner at Mine? Start treating that surplus mint sauce as an ingredient instead. “If John is using chopped fresh mint with, say, meat, cheese or veg, then consider how you might use mint sauce in its place,” Young adds. Case in point: pea and mint soup, says Sally Abé of the recently opened Teal by Sally…

* All solutions published next week Across 1 Efforts made to have tin glaze initially added to artworks (9) 6 Love to get two degrees? Yes we can, he said (5) 9 Bother first lady after exercise (5) 10 Betray apparent leader seen on the street (4,5) 11 Pangram will regularly display this range (3) 12 A man like Trump that devastates the environment (5,6) 14 Managed to rest after tension in crossing (7) 15 Stops son joining uncaring god worshippers (7) 16 Small change as regularly spotted on the beat (7) 19 Servant retains half of treats for one overseeing service (6,1) 22 Titanic orchestra perhaps, and what they didn’t do (7,4) 23 Runner should keep improving from the start (3) 24 No hope revolutionary writer is preferring old…

ECONOMICS Government looks to help households in energy crisis Families hardest hit by an energy crisis caused by the Iran war could be given funds dispensed by local councils, under plans being considered by UK ministers. As concerns increase about the impact of rising fuel and energy costs in response to a drawn-out conflict in the Middle East, a government official said several options for extending support were being debated. Under one plan, extra cash could be injected into the crisis and resilience fund, a £1bn-a-year ($1.3bn) council-run scheme in England that was due to take effect from Wednesday “to provide preventative support to communities, as well as assisting people when faced with a financial crisis”. It is understood that the fund could be topped up to help cushion households…

Amid tentative White House efforts at diplomacy to end the war in Iran, US troops have been arriving in the region to deliver what Donald Trump has hoped could be a knockout blow if he can’t negotiate a ceasefire with Tehran. Thousands of US marines on Navy amphibious ships from the 31st and 11th expeditionary units have been deployed to the Middle East from Asia. Another 2,000-odd paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are also being sent to the theatre – they are tasked with being able to deploy worldwide within 18 hours of notification and execute a parachute assault, including against a “defended airfield” to prepare for further ground operations. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, repeated last Friday that the US believed it would be able to achieve its…

Concern is justifiably growing that a cornered Donald Trump will send US ground troops into combat on Iranian soil to avoid being humiliated in a war he started, mismanaged and cannot end. Yet such a self serving escalation, even if ostensibly limited in duration and scope, could itself prove catastrophic for him and the American people. Think what happened in previous US military interventions. In sum, he’s caught in a modern-day catch-22. Pick your own metaphor for dumb. Trump’s stumped, hoist by his own petard, stuck between a rock and a hard place, and up the creek without a paddle. The creek in question is, of course, the strait of Hormuz. Firmly ensconced in his weird parallel universe, Trump insists the war is all but won, Iran is suing for…

An “emergency brake” could be put on the number of people coming to the UK from Europe as part of a new youth experience scheme, under terms being offered to Britain by EU negotiators. Britain wants an outright cap, but the EU opposes this on the basis that the scheme is supposed to be a positive one aimed at celebrating and preserving links with the EU. Keir Starmer’s government agreed to work towards a “youth experience scheme” with the EU in May last year, but the specifics are still being negotiated. The scheme is part of talks in which the EU hopes to “reset” relations with the UK amid fears negotiations have been foundering before a planned July summit. The forthcoming talks are viewed in Brussels as the start of…

When 80-year-old Gilda Olinto was given a prize at work recently, she felt as if she was being told “nothing more is expected of you”. It reminded her of The Blue Trail (O Último Azul in Portuguese), a film set in a near-future Brazil where an authoritarian government honours elderly people with golden laurels before stripping them of their autonomy and sending them to live out their days in a remote housing colony. After being bestowed with the accolade, the film’s 77-year-old protagonist Tereza realises she is going to be exiled – but is determined to pursue a lifelong dream first, which takes her on a journey of discovery through the Amazon. Part dystopia, part coming-of-(old)-age, the feature film was inspired by director and screenwriter Gabriel Mascaro’s grandmother, who took…

By any measure, it amounts to one of the most astonishing U-turns from a governing body in modern times. Four and a half years ago, the International Olympic Committee was lauding the appearance of the first transgender weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, at an Olympics, and saying that transgender women “should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage” over biological women. Now it has ripped up that guidance and performed a spectacular 180-degree turn. The IOC now says the female category must be protected for fairness and safety reasons, and makes it clear that SRY screening – a sex test using saliva or a cheek-swab – will be used to determine biological sex. It means transgender women and athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), who were reported…

On a warm March weekend in the US border town of Lewiston, New York, bakery owner Aimee Loughran is putting the finishing touches on a special order. It should be the last task of a busy Saturday at her Just Desserts shop, which is 20 minutes away from Niagara Falls. Dotted with cafes, restaurants and historic buildings, the Lewiston strip is usually catnip for tourists, including the Canadians whose homes can be seen from the banks of the nearby Niagara River. Local demand for Loughran’s cakes, however, has not made up for a dramatic slump in tourist spending triggered by a now year-long boycott by Lewiston’s northern neighbours. Angered by Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats – and compounded by fears of border detentions and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)…

Good news is so rare these days, you don’t quite know how to take it. You want to celebrate, but a rival instinct tells you it’ll be pulled back somehow, the same feeling you get when your team scores a late winner, but you’re filled with instant dread that the goal will be overturned on a video replay. I confess that is how I responded to the double legal blow dealt last week to Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, when two US juries on successive days found against it in a pair of landmark cases. First came a verdict in New Mexico, fining the company $375m for enabling harm, including child sexual exploitation, on its platforms and for misleading consumers about their safety. Twenty-four hours later, jurors…

Classical music’s battle for relevance and impact continues to find new nadirs, from tired experiments with formats to bathetic look-at-me clickbait. But what if there was an answer – a joyous, creative and positive one – staring at us with irresistibly big eyes? There really might be, in the shape of a blue heeler puppy. I’m talking, of course, about Bluey, the Australian cartoon for children of all ages. The numbers are huge: it was the most streamed show in the US last year, with more than 45 bn minutes watched, and a billion streams and counting across the world for Bluey’s albums and soundtracks, all written by Joff Bush, the Australian musician who has led the composition of the music for each of the 154 episodes so far. It…

When the founder of Panasonic, Kōnosuke Matsushita, was asked what quality he valued most in job candidates, his answer baffled everyone: whether they were lucky. This struck me as the kind of thing a titan of industry gets away with because nobody around them dares to laugh. Then I began studying the neuroscience of fortunate people, and I stopped laughing, too. What my research has revealed is that luck operates through identifiable patterns of brain chemistry and behaviour. The consistently lucky are running different neurological software – and remarkably, this software can be installed. Consider what happens when someone declares : “I am a lucky person.” It sounds like wishful thinking. But brain imaging tells a different story. That declaration activates the prefrontal cortex in a way that shifts perception…

Love locks ‘A selection of the locks on Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne, Germany. The practice of couples attaching locks to the bridge to symbolise their connection began in 2008. The number of locks is thought to be well into the hundreds of thousands.’ Do you have a recently taken picture you’d like to share with Guardian Weekly? Scan the QR code or visit theguardian.com/pictures-guardian-weekly and we’ll print your best submissions…

To some it was the moment the mask slipped. Wearing an open-necked white shirt, Mohsen Rafighdoost, former minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was filmed in March 2025 reminiscing with an interviewer from the Tehran-based Didban Iran news website about the assassinations he had organised around Europe. There was Prince Shahriar Shafiq, 34, the last Shah of Iran’s nephew, who was shot twice in the head outside his mother’s home in Paris in 1979. Then there was the Shah’s last commander-in-chief, Gen Gholam Ali Oveissi, also shot dead in Paris in 1984. Rafighdoost explained with a chuckle he had also ordered the murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, the Shah’s final prime minister, who was killed in his Parisian home in 1991; and the stabbing to death a year later…

The young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry’s “big tobacco” moment was on YouTube at the age of six and Instagram when she was nine. More than a decade later, she says she still can’t live without the social media she became addicted to. “I can’t, it’s too hard to be without it,” Kaley, 20, told a jury at Los Angeles’s superior court. Last week five men and seven women handed down a verdict on the design of two of the world’s most popular apps that supported Kaley’s position. It sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and prompted hope in families and among child safety campaigners that change might finally be coming to social media. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Google’s YouTube were found liable for…

Death-defying thrills are not what draws Lutz Leif Linden to zip down the autobahn. Instead, the feeling of freedom and an appreciation of technological mastery play a part in his “almost loving relationship” with driving cars faster than most people can imagine. The top speed he has reached on the road in Germany, the world’s only democracy without a blanket speed limit on motorways, is an astonishing 400km/h. “It’s like an airplane,” said Linden, the president of the Automobile Club of Germany (AvD). “You are faster than an Airbus at start.” The German need for speed has weathered decades of pressure to hit the brakes as environmental and political crises have mounted. Last month, the International Energy Agency appealed for drivers to slow down as it urged countries to cushion…

Soledad Nívoli was four months old when plainclothes police burst into the family home in Córdoba. They were looking for her father, Mario Alberto Nívoli, 28, an electrician and leftwing activist. The men beat Mario and tied his wrists. They stole all but a handful of the photos in the house, and dragged Mario away to a waiting car. He was never seen again. After seizing power on 24 March 1976, Argentina’s armed forces set about crushing armed leftwing groups and political opposition. They established a network of clandestine detention centres, and forcibly disappeared 30,000 people – workers, students, teachers and political activists. The fate of the desaparecidos became the defining cause for human rights groups which, throughout the dictatorship and the country’s subsequent return to democracy in 1983, have…

I felt something akin to devastation reading that the actor Barry Keoghan sometimes “doesn’t want to go outside” because of the scale of online abuse about his appearance. It’s not just the abuse, but how difficult it must have been for him to articulate, as well as what was not said – which parts of his face he’s likely had to obsess over and scrutinise. As a man, it is often hard to say out loud that you have been made to feel insecure, or that there are things that you do not like about your physical appearance. Keoghan’s vulnerability as a grown man is striking, but I have also been thinking about how much harder it is to articulate this as a teenager or boy. I was well versed…

Looking south from the low cliffs of Gwbert, the steep rock stacks beyond the mouth of the Afon Teifi are blurred by an early haze. Below me, a fishing boat heads out to check on the crab pots, pursued by an intent gathering of gulls. To the west, as the shadows harden, the low whale back of Cardigan Island is marked by curved bands of tightly folded rock – the ancient, resilient Ordovician geology that forms the spine of this coast. Somewhere above me, a skylark burbles in the morning sun. Heading north, the high coastal plain drops suddenly away to reveal the beach at Mwnt, backed by the steep, isolated hill which gives it its name. Today the blue sky, so rarely seen in recent weeks, hangs like a…

Across 1 Unkempt – Scooby Doo associate (6) 4 Tie accompanier, usually (5) 7 Rummage about (for wild food?) (6) 8 One who’s under canvas – more affected (6) 9 Metal drawn out to narrow flexible strand or thread (4) 10 Plastic-covered 9ac (5,3) 12 It’ll smash your bulbs (6,5) 17 Order (8) 19 Draped S Asian garment (4) 20 Come to (6) 21 Catch fire (6) 22 Sharp blows (5) 23 Bars turning on supports or fulcrums (6) Down 1 Noisily annoying one’s bedmate, perhaps (7) 2 No pro (7) 3 London event of 1666 (5,4) 4 Loses it – photographs (5) 5 Stimulus (7) 6 Bullseye locale (6) 11 Imperturbable (9) 13 Palindromic term for a middle-class tale (3,4) 14 ___ of bergamot (7) 15 Low horizontal cloud…