Discussion aleans more towards infiltration than attacka says anonymous Iranian official as US says Israel has carried out military operation

• Full report: Israel has carried out airstrikes on Iran, US officials say
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

Itas 7:24am in Tehran and 6:54 In Tel Aviv. Letas get a reminder of what we know so far:

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out military operations against Iran but did not describe those operations.

The Israeli military has told news agencies including Agence France-Presse and Associated Press: aWe donat have a comment at this time.a

Iranas state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan Friday

Air defence systems over several Iranian cities were activated, state media reported, after the countryas official broadcaster said explosions were heard near the city of Isfahan.

Iranas Fars news agency reported athree explosionsa were heard near the Shekari army airbase in the north-west of Isfahan province, while Iranas space agency spokesperson Hossein Dalirian said aseverala drones had been asuccessfully shot downa.

Nuclear facilities in Isfahan were reported to be acompletely securea, Iranas Tasnim news agency reported, citing areliable sourcesa.

Flights were suspended across swathes of Iran on Friday. aIranas air defence has been activated in the skies of several provinces of the country,a Tehranas official IRNA news agency said.

Mehr news agency reported that aflights to Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, and airports in the west, northwest and southwest have been suspended.a

Flight-tracking software showed commercial flights avoiding western Iran, including Isfahan, and skirting Tehran to the north and east.

There was no immediate comment from Dubaias Emirates airline, which was operating several of the planes.

Blasts were also reported in southern Syria, according to a local activist group. aThere were strikes on a Syrian army radar position,a said Rayan Maarouf, who runs the Suwayda24 anti-government website that covers news from Sweida province in the south, reports AFP.

Oil prices surged more than three per cent in early Asian trade on Friday after the reports of explosions.

Iranian official indicates no aimmediatea plan for retaliation after explosions reported in sky over Isfahan and Tabriz

• Middle East crisis: live updates
• What we know so far
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out airstrikes against Iran, as explosions were reported in the sky over the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, while the Iranian government sought to play down the scale of the attack.

As an Iranian official indicated that it had no aimmediatea plan for retaliation, calls mounted internationally a including from the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen a for Israel and Iran to de-escalate their confrontation.

Reported Israeli drone strike on Isfahan may signal that this widening conflict has become more dynamic

• Middle East crisis a live updates
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran

While the details remain vague, and Iranian denials strong, it seems very likely, given past history and strong comments from US officials, that a limited Israeli drone strike was launched against the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning.

Isfahan is significant for its military-industrial facilities, the presence of an important facility in Iranas nuclear programme and a major airbase hosting the Islamic Republicas ageing fleet of F-14 aTomcatsa, making the importance of any strike, whether carried out from beyond Iranas borders or from within but backed by Israel, more than symbolic.

Estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide leaked from Exxon pipeline in Louisiana on 3 April, triggering alarm among residents

A major leak of CO2 from an ExxonMobil pipeline in Louisiana exposes dangerous safety gaps that should halt the planned multibillion-dollar carbon capture industry, environmental advocates say.

An estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide (CO2) leaked from the Exxon pipeline in Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish on 3 April, triggering an emergency response and alarm among residents who live in close proximity to scores of polluting pipelines, petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities.

Prospective jurors were grilled on myriad facets of their life, with one raising concerns her identity had been discovered

Donald Trump is set to appear in court for the fourth day of his hush-money trial on Friday, with 12 jurors and one alternate already selected and five more alternates to be chosen before jury selection wraps up.

The process had proved complicated because of the polarizing and high-profile defendant. Prospective juror had been grilled on their political leanings, their social media posts and many other facets of their lives.

Presidentas suggestion that his aUncle Bosiea was eaten by cannibals harms US efforts to build Pacific ties, say local experts

Joe Bidenas suggestion that his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea during world war two has been met with a mixture of bemusement and criticism in the country.

Biden spoke about his uncle, 2nd Lt Ambrose J Finnegan Jr, while campaigning in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, describing how aUncle Bosiea had flown single engine planes as reconnaissance flights during the war. Biden said he agot shot down in New Guineaa, adding athey never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.a

Swifties take to social media to dissect lyrics and celebrate Swiftas 11th album on Friday as the musician releases 15 more songs

• Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside The Tortured Poets Department
• The Tortured Poets Department review a fame, fans and former flames in the line of fire

The Tortured Poets Department is just out but it is already splitting Taylor Swift fans a between those who have already listened to it after it leaked online early, and those who refused to listen out of loyalty to their favourite singer.

Swiftas 11th studio album was released on Friday but all 16 tracks and lyrics began appearing on social media on Wednesday. Some fans a known as Swifties a refused to listen to the leaked album, insisting that atrue fansa would wait for the official release, while others shared false links to the leak in attempts to stop people finding it.

In a joint statement released by G7 foreign ministers say they are exploring aavenues to aid Ukraine in obtaining compensation from Russiaa

aRussia must be held accountable. Ukraine urgently requires more air defence support!a wrote the EUas ambassador in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraineas president, visited the Donetsk region today.

Research into release of aforever chemicalsa raises concerns about contamination and human exposure along worldas coastlines

Ocean waves crashing on the worldas shores emit more PFAS into the air than the worldas industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics

A flagship UN report on livestock emissions is facing calls for retraction from two key experts it cited who say that the paper aseriously distorteda their work.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) misused their research to underestimate the potential of reduced meat intake to cut agricultural emissions, according to a letter sent to the FAO by the two academics, which the Guardian has seen.

State revealed as Americaas overwhelming emitter of sulfuryl fluoride, used by $4.2bn pest-control industry to kill termites

Levels of a potent greenhouse gas are quietly spiking in the atmosphere and increasingly worrying environmental groups that say its use needs to be reined in if the US is to avoid climate catastrophe.

Furthermore, recent research has found the vast majority of the little-known gas, known as sulfuryl fluoride, is attributable to a state typically known for its climate-forward policies: California.

Andy Leek, creator of Notes to Strangers, made the move after finding himself unable to afford rising rents in UK capital

An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent is so much cheaper that it covers the cost of air fare.

Andy Leek, 38, whose Notes to Strangers works are pasted on to walls and junction boxes across more than 20 British and European cities, has moved to Buenos Aires where the rents are several times cheaper and he travels back to the UK roughly every two months for work. The flight costs less than a monthly train season ticket between Bristol and London.

New research suggests some 16th-century writers were confident Shakespeare was the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Scholars often say that no one doubted Shakespeareas authorship until the 19th century. The response is a rote way of brushing off persistent questions about the attribution of the worldas most famous plays and poems a but it may not be true.

New scholarship suggests that doubts about Shakespeareas authorship first arose during his lifetime a in a book called Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, published in 1598 by the theologian Francis Meres.

Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is challenging incumbent Rick Scott and highlighting his aunapologetic and prouda support for the stateas six-week ban

A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Floridaas Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.

The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.

Process has coincided with a rise in price in the past and is due to take place again on Saturday

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, still has an influence on the cryptocurrency nearly 14 years after disappearing.

This week the protocol designed by Nakamoto a an individual or group of individuals who went silent in December 2010 a will trigger what is known as a abitcoin halvinga, a process that has coincided with price increases in the past. The latest halving is expected to take place on Saturday.

This was not Donald Trump the business mogul or Donald Trump the 45th president a it was Donald Trump the defendant

With Donald Trump just a few feet away, a potential juror in the criminal case against him summed up the experience in just three words. aThis is bizarre,a she said, with just a slight hint of a seasoned New York accent.

Bizarre it was. There was a potential juror who once spent the night at one of Trumpas lawyersa homes more than a decade ago (Trumpas team used one of its peremptory strikes to remove the juror). The microphones didnat work. The proceedings had to start over when Judge Juan Merchan realized that a court reporter hadnat been present first thing. And the temperature in the courthouse was so frigid that Todd Blanche, one of Trumpas lawyers, asked Merchan if it would be possible to turn up the temperature ajust one degreea.

What are the big takeaways from Swiftas new album? Sheas refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation

aC/ Read Alexis Petridisas four-star review of the album

Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010as Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But sheas never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Whoas Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: aYou taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,a she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.

Iall tell you something right now
Iad rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
Iall tell you something about my good name
Itas mine alone to disgrace

As the scrap metal touched the power line, everything went black

In 2010, Iad been working in Colorado, in one of the worldas most dangerous professions. As a lineman, it was my job to maintain and repair electrical power lines. I knew the risks, and had already witnessed them when my brother, who worked in the same field, lost his right arm in 2008. That same accident saw a colleague lose his life. I began to question whether it was a career I should stay in. I told myself I wasnat a quitter, but after 13 December 2010, everything changed for me.

On that day, I was standing on a platform, working on a power line. I was cutting a wire to size and wanted to throw some scrap on to the ground. My colleague was down below me, and I didnat want to hit him in the head, so I spun around to throw the piece elsewhere. The power line above was protected by a plastic insulating cover, I was being very careful, but in that tiny second the wire touched a part that wasnat wrapped up. Then 14,400 volts charged through my body. Everything went black.

The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril

aStrong women are not easy women,a says Jennifer Lawrence, aand a womanas life is lonely. So much of our experience cannot be shared or understood by men, and our rights are in their hands. Thatas why we need each other.a

The two other people on our video call nod in agreement. One is Malala Yousafzai, who, with Lawrence, has produced a new documentary about the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban after US troops withdrew in 2021. The other is Sahra Mani, who directed it.

A show in which women competed to date a royal lookalike was panned at the time as afodder for the braindeada. But the contestants had been duped, as a new podcast reveals a|

Next month marks a decade since one of the most ridiculous reality shows ever aired on television. I Wanna Marry aHarrya was a dating show in which 12 American women dated Prince Harry, then the worldas most eligible bachelor. Only, obviously, it wasnat him at all. The aHarrya in question was a lookalike: according to the show, a a99% lookalikea (I will let you be the judge).

Airing on Fox in the US before making its way to ITV2, the reality show consisted of the dozen potential girlfriends being whisked to a secluded mansion in the Berkshire countryside, then going on a series of dates with the fake prince. It was constantly implied by the production team that they were in the presence of royalty: Harry was even referred to as asira, when really he was plain old Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant from Exeter who had had his hair dyed ginger. The stunts for the ruse were quite something: from asira being whisked away by men in sunglasses after a asecurity incidenta, to fake paparazzi invading a date before being tackled to the ground. Fake Harry was even Photoshopped into an image alongside the real Prince William for a potential date to stumble across while Hicks went to the bathroom.

More than 50% of the planetas species live in the earth below our feet, but only a fraction have been identified a so far

Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent

The sound of an earthworm is a distinctive rasping and scrunching. Ants sound like the soothing patter of rain. A passing, tunnelling vole makes a noise like a squeaky dogas toy repeatedly being chewed.

On a spring day at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research institution in Hertfordshire, singing skylarks and the M1 motorway are competing for the airways. But the attention here is on the soundscapes underfoot: a rich ecosystem with its own alien sounds. More than half of the planetas species live in the soil, and we are just starting to tune into what they are up to. Beetle larvae, millipedes, centipedes and woodlice have other sound signatures, and scientists are trying to decipher which sounds come from which creatures.

The divisive directoras sci-fi follow-up is both original and derivative and will be unlikely to convert anyone, but thereas something charming about its sincerity

Is there a contemporary Hollywood film-maker who better epitomizes the modern commerce-v-art quagmire than Zack Snyder? Snyder has an instantly recognizable style and a deathless dedication to his singular vision; he also, at the behest of various studios, volunteers to think almost entirely in terms of franchises, comic books and self-conscious myth-making a whether heas trying to interrogate those myths or just build them up so he can smash them down with maximum mayhem.

Rebel Moon, his sci-fi/fantasy franchise for Netflix, pulls both sides of his career to further extremes. Itas a multimillion-dollar two-parter (for now) thatas technically original and highly derivative, with Snyderas fanboy obsessions taken so far around the bend that they become niche again. Even his hordes of online fans donat seem to care that much about it. Rebel Moon a Part 2: The Scargiver, following last yearas A Child of Fire kickoff, is supposed to be an explosive finale. But with expanded R-rated cuts of both movies definitely on the way, and ideas rattling around in Snyderas brain for even more sequels, the whole project feels like one long, never-ending middle.

Cinemovel is screening Oscar-nominated Io Capitano to packed houses around the country, highlighting the perils migrants face on the journey to Europe

At about 1pm on Monday a 35-seater bus arrived in Pikine, a city east of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. A portable screen, projector, sound system and generator were unpacked to set up a temporary cinema in a lively neighbourhood where the scent of hibiscus and orange blossom fill the air.

Pikineas cultural centre was the first stop for Cinemovel, a travelling cinema that is showing the Oscar-nominated Italian film Io Capitano in the streets and villages of Senegal. It is part of an initiative run by the Cinemovel Foundation, an Italian group that has been bringing a touring cinema to remote parts of Africa since 2001.

Mina confronts Tom, but little sister Layla would rather keep the peace. You decide whoas right in this sister act?

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Confronting Tomas toxic attitudes is good practice for my sister and will boost her confidence

Mina wants to make a stand, but after a row, itas me who has to deal with the aftershocks at home

In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protestors, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

The students sat on the ground and sang as police in riot gear approached them. Eventually, more than 100 of them would be arrested; their tents, protest signs and Palestinian flags were gathered into trash bags by the police and thrown away. One video showed officers and university maintenance workers destroying food that had been donated to the encampment, making sure it would be inedible. According to student journalists reporting from WKCR, Columbia Universityas student radio station, one arrested student protestor asked the police to be allowed to go to their dorm to collect medication and was denied; as a result, they went into shock. The arrested students were charged with atrespassinga on the campus that they are charged more than $60,000 a year to attend.

The day before her administration asked the New York police department to storm their campus and arrest their students, Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, testified before Congress, saying that she wanted her university to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. But Shafik, who was called to testify after missing a hearing last year where the presidents of Penn and Harvard were each grilled on their insufficient hostility to pro-Palestinian students, appeared eager to please the Republican-controlled committee. The Penn and Harvard presidents who had testified each lost their jobs soon thereafter; Shafik clearly entered the hearing room determined to keep her own.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Richard Nixon infected the modern Republican party with a sickness that would kill it a Donald Trump has finished the job

Last Sunday, on ABCas This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Chris Sununu, New Hampshireas Republican governor, about his recent switch from supporting Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting former president Donald Trump.

aYour words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,a Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. aYou said that President Trumpas rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.a

Did [Lt] Gerald Ford meet the enemy head-on [in the second world war] because he thought he wouldnat get killed? No. He did it despite that possibility. This executive committee, on the other hand, bolted before any shots were fired. You arenat alone. Many foundations, organizations, corporations and other entities are caught up in this tidal wave of timidity and fear thatas sweeping this country. I mistakenly thought we were better than that. This is the kind of acquiescent behavior that leads to authoritarianism. President Ford most likely would have come out even tougher and said that it leads directly to fascism.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse sheas suffered simply for being a modern black woman

Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliveras children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussexas new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.

In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. Itas only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, itas goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.

Bad actors know that factchecking sites are a vital democratic tool a thatas why theyave launched their own dishonest versions

Asked by sociologists about his views on the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian in his early 70s shifted the conversation to the massacre in Bucha a one of the worst atrocities committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. Evidence of Russian war crimes was fake, he said: aTake Busha or Bucha or wherever it may be. The way they filmed it, the way the bodies were arranged: it was clearly a fake!a

Two things stand out from this. He parroted, word for word, statements of Russian propaganda about bodies being actors aarranged on the grounda, echoing the claims of War on Fakes, the Kremlinas imitation of a factchecking organisation. Yet despite his certainty, he did not know anything about the town, to the extent that he could not pronounce its name correctly. Relying on an aanti-fakea outlet modelled on western factchecking, he was not interested in facts but rather in shielding Russia from accusations.

Maxim Alyukov is a political sociologist who is a Leverhulme early career research fellow at the University of Manchester

I fear we are forgetting lessons from that terrible history

I donat usually talk about my great-uncle Walter. Gen Walter Warlimont, as my grandfatheras brother was formally known, was head of the national defence department in the high command of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Only two people were between him and the FA1/4hrer in the chain of command. Walter worked so closely with Hitler that the failed assassination attempt in July 1944 injured his arm. The orders he signed during wartime a about who to shoot to kill, about how to treat prisoners a meant he had hundreds of thousands of lives on his conscience.

Not that Uncle Walter was the only one in the family who facilitated the Third Reich and the Holocaust. My paternal grandparents were very proud to have been among the very earliest members of Hitleras party. My maternal grandfather a Walteras brother a was the head of a factory in Vienna that made the guidance systems for the V2 rocket, a factory that was staffed by Russian and Ukrainian slave labourers.

Our writers pick the winner, key players and dark horses as the NBA postseason gets into full swing

Golden State Warriors. It feels flat-out wrong to have a postseason without Stephen Curry, but regardless of how good he still is, thatas the way the cookie crumbles when you donat give him an adequate supporting cast. Hopefully the Warriors will take the summer to retool a clearly insufficient roster. CDL

Discussion aleans more towards infiltration than attacka says anonymous Iranian official as US says Israel has carried out military operation

• Full report: Israel has carried out airstrikes on Iran, US officials say
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

Itas 7:24am in Tehran and 6:54 In Tel Aviv. Letas get a reminder of what we know so far:

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out military operations against Iran but did not describe those operations.

The Israeli military has told news agencies including Agence France-Presse and Associated Press: aWe donat have a comment at this time.a

Iranas state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan Friday

Air defence systems over several Iranian cities were activated, state media reported, after the countryas official broadcaster said explosions were heard near the city of Isfahan.

Iranas Fars news agency reported athree explosionsa were heard near the Shekari army airbase in the north-west of Isfahan province, while Iranas space agency spokesperson Hossein Dalirian said aseverala drones had been asuccessfully shot downa.

Nuclear facilities in Isfahan were reported to be acompletely securea, Iranas Tasnim news agency reported, citing areliable sourcesa.

Flights were suspended across swathes of Iran on Friday. aIranas air defence has been activated in the skies of several provinces of the country,a Tehranas official IRNA news agency said.

Mehr news agency reported that aflights to Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, and airports in the west, northwest and southwest have been suspended.a

Flight-tracking software showed commercial flights avoiding western Iran, including Isfahan, and skirting Tehran to the north and east.

There was no immediate comment from Dubaias Emirates airline, which was operating several of the planes.

Blasts were also reported in southern Syria, according to a local activist group. aThere were strikes on a Syrian army radar position,a said Rayan Maarouf, who runs the Suwayda24 anti-government website that covers news from Sweida province in the south, reports AFP.

Oil prices surged more than three per cent in early Asian trade on Friday after the reports of explosions.

Iranian official indicates no aimmediatea plan for retaliation after explosions reported in sky over Isfahan and Tabriz

• Middle East crisis: live updates
• What we know so far
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out airstrikes against Iran, as explosions were reported in the sky over the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, while the Iranian government sought to play down the scale of the attack.

As an Iranian official indicated that it had no aimmediatea plan for retaliation, calls mounted internationally a including from the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen a for Israel and Iran to de-escalate their confrontation.

Reported Israeli drone strike on Isfahan may signal that this widening conflict has become more dynamic

• Middle East crisis a live updates
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran

While the details remain vague, and Iranian denials strong, it seems very likely, given past history and strong comments from US officials, that a limited Israeli drone strike was launched against the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning.

Isfahan is significant for its military-industrial facilities, the presence of an important facility in Iranas nuclear programme and a major airbase hosting the Islamic Republicas ageing fleet of F-14 aTomcatsa, making the importance of any strike, whether carried out from beyond Iranas borders or from within but backed by Israel, more than symbolic.

Estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide leaked from Exxon pipeline in Louisiana on 3 April, triggering alarm among residents

A major leak of CO2 from an ExxonMobil pipeline in Louisiana exposes dangerous safety gaps that should halt the planned multibillion-dollar carbon capture industry, environmental advocates say.

An estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide (CO2) leaked from the Exxon pipeline in Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish on 3 April, triggering an emergency response and alarm among residents who live in close proximity to scores of polluting pipelines, petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities.

Prospective jurors were grilled on myriad facets of their life, with one raising concerns her identity had been discovered

Donald Trump is set to appear in court for the fourth day of his hush-money trial on Friday, with 12 jurors and one alternate already selected and five more alternates to be chosen before jury selection wraps up.

The process had proved complicated because of the polarizing and high-profile defendant. Prospective juror had been grilled on their political leanings, their social media posts and many other facets of their lives.

Presidentas suggestion that his aUncle Bosiea was eaten by cannibals harms US efforts to build Pacific ties, say local experts

Joe Bidenas suggestion that his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea during world war two has been met with a mixture of bemusement and criticism in the country.

Biden spoke about his uncle, 2nd Lt Ambrose J Finnegan Jr, while campaigning in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, describing how aUncle Bosiea had flown single engine planes as reconnaissance flights during the war. Biden said he agot shot down in New Guineaa, adding athey never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.a

Swifties take to social media to dissect lyrics and celebrate Swiftas 11th album on Friday as the musician releases 15 more songs

• Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside The Tortured Poets Department
• The Tortured Poets Department review a fame, fans and former flames in the line of fire

The Tortured Poets Department is just out but it is already splitting Taylor Swift fans a between those who have already listened to it after it leaked online early, and those who refused to listen out of loyalty to their favourite singer.

Swiftas 11th studio album was released on Friday but all 16 tracks and lyrics began appearing on social media on Wednesday. Some fans a known as Swifties a refused to listen to the leaked album, insisting that atrue fansa would wait for the official release, while others shared false links to the leak in attempts to stop people finding it.

In a joint statement released by G7 foreign ministers say they are exploring aavenues to aid Ukraine in obtaining compensation from Russiaa

aRussia must be held accountable. Ukraine urgently requires more air defence support!a wrote the EUas ambassador in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraineas president, visited the Donetsk region today.

Research into release of aforever chemicalsa raises concerns about contamination and human exposure along worldas coastlines

Ocean waves crashing on the worldas shores emit more PFAS into the air than the worldas industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics

A flagship UN report on livestock emissions is facing calls for retraction from two key experts it cited who say that the paper aseriously distorteda their work.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) misused their research to underestimate the potential of reduced meat intake to cut agricultural emissions, according to a letter sent to the FAO by the two academics, which the Guardian has seen.

State revealed as Americaas overwhelming emitter of sulfuryl fluoride, used by $4.2bn pest-control industry to kill termites

Levels of a potent greenhouse gas are quietly spiking in the atmosphere and increasingly worrying environmental groups that say its use needs to be reined in if the US is to avoid climate catastrophe.

Furthermore, recent research has found the vast majority of the little-known gas, known as sulfuryl fluoride, is attributable to a state typically known for its climate-forward policies: California.

Andy Leek, creator of Notes to Strangers, made the move after finding himself unable to afford rising rents in UK capital

An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent is so much cheaper that it covers the cost of air fare.

Andy Leek, 38, whose Notes to Strangers works are pasted on to walls and junction boxes across more than 20 British and European cities, has moved to Buenos Aires where the rents are several times cheaper and he travels back to the UK roughly every two months for work. The flight costs less than a monthly train season ticket between Bristol and London.

New research suggests some 16th-century writers were confident Shakespeare was the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Scholars often say that no one doubted Shakespeareas authorship until the 19th century. The response is a rote way of brushing off persistent questions about the attribution of the worldas most famous plays and poems a but it may not be true.

New scholarship suggests that doubts about Shakespeareas authorship first arose during his lifetime a in a book called Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, published in 1598 by the theologian Francis Meres.

Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is challenging incumbent Rick Scott and highlighting his aunapologetic and prouda support for the stateas six-week ban

A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Floridaas Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.

The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.

Process has coincided with a rise in price in the past and is due to take place again on Saturday

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, still has an influence on the cryptocurrency nearly 14 years after disappearing.

This week the protocol designed by Nakamoto a an individual or group of individuals who went silent in December 2010 a will trigger what is known as a abitcoin halvinga, a process that has coincided with price increases in the past. The latest halving is expected to take place on Saturday.

This was not Donald Trump the business mogul or Donald Trump the 45th president a it was Donald Trump the defendant

With Donald Trump just a few feet away, a potential juror in the criminal case against him summed up the experience in just three words. aThis is bizarre,a she said, with just a slight hint of a seasoned New York accent.

Bizarre it was. There was a potential juror who once spent the night at one of Trumpas lawyersa homes more than a decade ago (Trumpas team used one of its peremptory strikes to remove the juror). The microphones didnat work. The proceedings had to start over when Judge Juan Merchan realized that a court reporter hadnat been present first thing. And the temperature in the courthouse was so frigid that Todd Blanche, one of Trumpas lawyers, asked Merchan if it would be possible to turn up the temperature ajust one degreea.

What are the big takeaways from Swiftas new album? Sheas refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation

aC/ Read Alexis Petridisas four-star review of the album

Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010as Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But sheas never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Whoas Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: aYou taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,a she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.

Iall tell you something right now
Iad rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
Iall tell you something about my good name
Itas mine alone to disgrace

As the scrap metal touched the power line, everything went black

In 2010, Iad been working in Colorado, in one of the worldas most dangerous professions. As a lineman, it was my job to maintain and repair electrical power lines. I knew the risks, and had already witnessed them when my brother, who worked in the same field, lost his right arm in 2008. That same accident saw a colleague lose his life. I began to question whether it was a career I should stay in. I told myself I wasnat a quitter, but after 13 December 2010, everything changed for me.

On that day, I was standing on a platform, working on a power line. I was cutting a wire to size and wanted to throw some scrap on to the ground. My colleague was down below me, and I didnat want to hit him in the head, so I spun around to throw the piece elsewhere. The power line above was protected by a plastic insulating cover, I was being very careful, but in that tiny second the wire touched a part that wasnat wrapped up. Then 14,400 volts charged through my body. Everything went black.

The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril

aStrong women are not easy women,a says Jennifer Lawrence, aand a womanas life is lonely. So much of our experience cannot be shared or understood by men, and our rights are in their hands. Thatas why we need each other.a

The two other people on our video call nod in agreement. One is Malala Yousafzai, who, with Lawrence, has produced a new documentary about the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban after US troops withdrew in 2021. The other is Sahra Mani, who directed it.

A show in which women competed to date a royal lookalike was panned at the time as afodder for the braindeada. But the contestants had been duped, as a new podcast reveals a|

Next month marks a decade since one of the most ridiculous reality shows ever aired on television. I Wanna Marry aHarrya was a dating show in which 12 American women dated Prince Harry, then the worldas most eligible bachelor. Only, obviously, it wasnat him at all. The aHarrya in question was a lookalike: according to the show, a a99% lookalikea (I will let you be the judge).

Airing on Fox in the US before making its way to ITV2, the reality show consisted of the dozen potential girlfriends being whisked to a secluded mansion in the Berkshire countryside, then going on a series of dates with the fake prince. It was constantly implied by the production team that they were in the presence of royalty: Harry was even referred to as asira, when really he was plain old Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant from Exeter who had had his hair dyed ginger. The stunts for the ruse were quite something: from asira being whisked away by men in sunglasses after a asecurity incidenta, to fake paparazzi invading a date before being tackled to the ground. Fake Harry was even Photoshopped into an image alongside the real Prince William for a potential date to stumble across while Hicks went to the bathroom.

More than 50% of the planetas species live in the earth below our feet, but only a fraction have been identified a so far

Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent

The sound of an earthworm is a distinctive rasping and scrunching. Ants sound like the soothing patter of rain. A passing, tunnelling vole makes a noise like a squeaky dogas toy repeatedly being chewed.

On a spring day at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research institution in Hertfordshire, singing skylarks and the M1 motorway are competing for the airways. But the attention here is on the soundscapes underfoot: a rich ecosystem with its own alien sounds. More than half of the planetas species live in the soil, and we are just starting to tune into what they are up to. Beetle larvae, millipedes, centipedes and woodlice have other sound signatures, and scientists are trying to decipher which sounds come from which creatures.

The divisive directoras sci-fi follow-up is both original and derivative and will be unlikely to convert anyone, but thereas something charming about its sincerity

Is there a contemporary Hollywood film-maker who better epitomizes the modern commerce-v-art quagmire than Zack Snyder? Snyder has an instantly recognizable style and a deathless dedication to his singular vision; he also, at the behest of various studios, volunteers to think almost entirely in terms of franchises, comic books and self-conscious myth-making a whether heas trying to interrogate those myths or just build them up so he can smash them down with maximum mayhem.

Rebel Moon, his sci-fi/fantasy franchise for Netflix, pulls both sides of his career to further extremes. Itas a multimillion-dollar two-parter (for now) thatas technically original and highly derivative, with Snyderas fanboy obsessions taken so far around the bend that they become niche again. Even his hordes of online fans donat seem to care that much about it. Rebel Moon a Part 2: The Scargiver, following last yearas A Child of Fire kickoff, is supposed to be an explosive finale. But with expanded R-rated cuts of both movies definitely on the way, and ideas rattling around in Snyderas brain for even more sequels, the whole project feels like one long, never-ending middle.

Cinemovel is screening Oscar-nominated Io Capitano to packed houses around the country, highlighting the perils migrants face on the journey to Europe

At about 1pm on Monday a 35-seater bus arrived in Pikine, a city east of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. A portable screen, projector, sound system and generator were unpacked to set up a temporary cinema in a lively neighbourhood where the scent of hibiscus and orange blossom fill the air.

Pikineas cultural centre was the first stop for Cinemovel, a travelling cinema that is showing the Oscar-nominated Italian film Io Capitano in the streets and villages of Senegal. It is part of an initiative run by the Cinemovel Foundation, an Italian group that has been bringing a touring cinema to remote parts of Africa since 2001.

Mina confronts Tom, but little sister Layla would rather keep the peace. You decide whoas right in this sister act?

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Confronting Tomas toxic attitudes is good practice for my sister and will boost her confidence

Mina wants to make a stand, but after a row, itas me who has to deal with the aftershocks at home

In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protestors, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

The students sat on the ground and sang as police in riot gear approached them. Eventually, more than 100 of them would be arrested; their tents, protest signs and Palestinian flags were gathered into trash bags by the police and thrown away. One video showed officers and university maintenance workers destroying food that had been donated to the encampment, making sure it would be inedible. According to student journalists reporting from WKCR, Columbia Universityas student radio station, one arrested student protestor asked the police to be allowed to go to their dorm to collect medication and was denied; as a result, they went into shock. The arrested students were charged with atrespassinga on the campus that they are charged more than $60,000 a year to attend.

The day before her administration asked the New York police department to storm their campus and arrest their students, Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, testified before Congress, saying that she wanted her university to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. But Shafik, who was called to testify after missing a hearing last year where the presidents of Penn and Harvard were each grilled on their insufficient hostility to pro-Palestinian students, appeared eager to please the Republican-controlled committee. The Penn and Harvard presidents who had testified each lost their jobs soon thereafter; Shafik clearly entered the hearing room determined to keep her own.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Richard Nixon infected the modern Republican party with a sickness that would kill it a Donald Trump has finished the job

Last Sunday, on ABCas This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Chris Sununu, New Hampshireas Republican governor, about his recent switch from supporting Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting former president Donald Trump.

aYour words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,a Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. aYou said that President Trumpas rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.a

Did [Lt] Gerald Ford meet the enemy head-on [in the second world war] because he thought he wouldnat get killed? No. He did it despite that possibility. This executive committee, on the other hand, bolted before any shots were fired. You arenat alone. Many foundations, organizations, corporations and other entities are caught up in this tidal wave of timidity and fear thatas sweeping this country. I mistakenly thought we were better than that. This is the kind of acquiescent behavior that leads to authoritarianism. President Ford most likely would have come out even tougher and said that it leads directly to fascism.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse sheas suffered simply for being a modern black woman

Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliveras children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussexas new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.

In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. Itas only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, itas goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.

Bad actors know that factchecking sites are a vital democratic tool a thatas why theyave launched their own dishonest versions

Asked by sociologists about his views on the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian in his early 70s shifted the conversation to the massacre in Bucha a one of the worst atrocities committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. Evidence of Russian war crimes was fake, he said: aTake Busha or Bucha or wherever it may be. The way they filmed it, the way the bodies were arranged: it was clearly a fake!a

Two things stand out from this. He parroted, word for word, statements of Russian propaganda about bodies being actors aarranged on the grounda, echoing the claims of War on Fakes, the Kremlinas imitation of a factchecking organisation. Yet despite his certainty, he did not know anything about the town, to the extent that he could not pronounce its name correctly. Relying on an aanti-fakea outlet modelled on western factchecking, he was not interested in facts but rather in shielding Russia from accusations.

Maxim Alyukov is a political sociologist who is a Leverhulme early career research fellow at the University of Manchester

I fear we are forgetting lessons from that terrible history

I donat usually talk about my great-uncle Walter. Gen Walter Warlimont, as my grandfatheras brother was formally known, was head of the national defence department in the high command of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Only two people were between him and the FA1/4hrer in the chain of command. Walter worked so closely with Hitler that the failed assassination attempt in July 1944 injured his arm. The orders he signed during wartime a about who to shoot to kill, about how to treat prisoners a meant he had hundreds of thousands of lives on his conscience.

Not that Uncle Walter was the only one in the family who facilitated the Third Reich and the Holocaust. My paternal grandparents were very proud to have been among the very earliest members of Hitleras party. My maternal grandfather a Walteras brother a was the head of a factory in Vienna that made the guidance systems for the V2 rocket, a factory that was staffed by Russian and Ukrainian slave labourers.