The teen birth rate continues its decades-long downward trend. Researchers say many factors are at play, including less sexual activity and more access to contraception and abortion. (Image credit: Kena Betancur)
The teen birth rate continues its decades-long downward trend. Researchers say many factors are at play, including less sexual activity and more access to contraception and abortion. (Image credit: Kena Betancur)
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act One morning in May 2025, I walked briskly down Bayswater Road along the northern edge of London’s Kensington Gardens until I reached the gates of the Russian embassy. Its formidable outer wall, already topped with razor wire, now had the additional protection of a crowd contr...
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act One morning in May 2025, I walked briskly down Bayswater Road along the northern edge of London’s Kensington Gardens until I reached the gates of the Russian embassy. Its formidable outer wall, already topped with razor wire, now had the additional protection of a crowd control barrier. But there was no crowd, just a lone man feebly protesting from the other side of the road. In the early days of the war, the embassy was besieged by angry protesters. Back then, you couldn’t walk down a British street without spotting the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. That time was long gone. Feeling uneasy, I was ushered inside by a guard who patted me down and checked the contents of my backpack before pointing the way inside. I knew this routine from my previous visits. Even the guard – a friendly Nepali man who knew about three words of Russian – hadn’t changed in years. I used to come here to renew my Russian passport and, on one noteworthy occasion, in March 2000, to vote in the Russian presidential elections. This time, I had an altogether different purpose: I was here to renounce my Russian citizenship. Continue reading...
At the peak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, 10 children a day were losing one or both legs. For those who cross the border for medical help, physical recovery is only the start of their struggle Ola Jamal, 36, was breastfeeding her two-month-old son, Zain, when the missile struck al-Nasr hospital in Gaza in November 2023. When the explosion hit the building, the shrapnel went through Jamal’s arm whil...
At the peak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, 10 children a day were losing one or both legs. For those who cross the border for medical help, physical recovery is only the start of their struggle Ola Jamal, 36, was breastfeeding her two-month-old son, Zain, when the missile struck al-Nasr hospital in Gaza in November 2023. When the explosion hit the building, the shrapnel went through Jamal’s arm while she held her infant. “I ran with my family to the hospital and stayed there to hide,” she says at a prosthetic centre in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. “We thought it would be safe because it’s a children’s hospital.” A row of customised prosthetic limbs, labelled with the names of patients, lined up in a clinic wall Continue reading...
Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page flirt their way through expected genre tropes in a watchable, if a little unspecific, slice of formulaic fantasy You, Me & Tuscany is a perfectly wholesome and harmless meet-cute that starts by asking: “What if the Little Mermaid had a Lady and the Tramp-style hookup with the season one heart-throb from Bridgerton, spaghetti and all?” Halle Bailey is Anna, hopelessl...
Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page flirt their way through expected genre tropes in a watchable, if a little unspecific, slice of formulaic fantasy You, Me & Tuscany is a perfectly wholesome and harmless meet-cute that starts by asking: “What if the Little Mermaid had a Lady and the Tramp-style hookup with the season one heart-throb from Bridgerton, spaghetti and all?” Halle Bailey is Anna, hopelessly navigating life after the death of her mother, torn between the worlds of adult responsibility and inner child whimsy. A freelance hustle as a house sitter helps make ends meet, but her impulse to fully inhabit her clients’ lives constantly threatens her livelihood. A gig watching over a spectacular Central Park West apartment seems out of a dream. But it quickly goes awry when the lady of the house (Nia Vardalos in a sly cameo) returns early and catches Anna cosplaying as a Park Avenue princess in her premium lingerie. Embarrassed, Anna retreats into the arms of her bestie Claire (Aziza Scott of One of Them Days), the luxury hotel clerk whose barbed sisterly advice is well worth enduring for the one-liners and the potential discount on a short-term residency. Continue reading...
Marine Conservation Society warns that fish numbers have reached dangerous point of decline Consumers should “completely avoid” buying UK-caught cod, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has said, as it warned that populations have reached a dangerous point of decline despite zero-catch recommendations. The MCS, an environmental charity, publishes a Good Fish Guide to help consumers and businesse...
Marine Conservation Society warns that fish numbers have reached dangerous point of decline Consumers should “completely avoid” buying UK-caught cod, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has said, as it warned that populations have reached a dangerous point of decline despite zero-catch recommendations. The MCS, an environmental charity, publishes a Good Fish Guide to help consumers and businesses make sustainable seafood choices. Continue reading...
Proposal to help people heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances without incurring more debt In order to cut rising bills all UK households should receive a minimum amount of energy at rates subsidised by the government through North Sea taxes, a thinktank has suggested . Providing all homes with enough energy to heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances such as a fr...
Proposal to help people heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances without incurring more debt In order to cut rising bills all UK households should receive a minimum amount of energy at rates subsidised by the government through North Sea taxes, a thinktank has suggested . Providing all homes with enough energy to heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances such as a fridge and washing machine, at rates frozen at current levels, would require a subsidy of about £4.5bn, according to the New Economics Foundation . Continue reading...
‘After every tour, I hate the sound of my voice,’ the actor and comedian says. Yet here he is, working on a new standup act and about to host Saturday Night Live. What does he have to talk about this time, apart from his stag do, fatherhood, the remake of The ’Burbs … ? The day I meet Jack Whitehall in central London, it has just been announced that he will be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) thi...
‘After every tour, I hate the sound of my voice,’ the actor and comedian says. Yet here he is, working on a new standup act and about to host Saturday Night Live. What does he have to talk about this time, apart from his stag do, fatherhood, the remake of The ’Burbs … ? The day I meet Jack Whitehall in central London, it has just been announced that he will be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) this Saturday. He is also about to get married and his stag do, which was two days before our interview, has been meticulously documented by the tabloids. It feels like a lot, so his immaculate appearance – even his beard looks polished; you wouldn’t believe this man had ever been fall-over drunk – is baffling. He is 37, but doesn’t look markedly different from the baby-faced man of 23 who appeared on our screens in Jesse Armstrong’s and Sam Bain’s stinging student satire Fresh Meat. That series sealed his place as the country’s posh mascot on panel shows including Would I Lie to You?, Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats. His last comedy tour ended in 2024 and the wait for his next, at the start of 2027, is his longest hiatus yet. “After every tour, I hate the sound of my own voice,” he says. From 2017 to 2024, “I did tours back to back. I’d run out of life experience. I’d talked about every fucking thing that had ever happened to me, I’d done every possible iteration of joke about my dad. In the interim three or four years, I’ve got engaged, I’m planning a wedding, I’ll have had some time in married life, I’ve had a daughter, I’m now the father of a toddler. It felt as if I had stuff to talk about again.” Continue reading...
This week Artemis II’s four-astronaut crew broke Apollo 13’s distance record, becoming the humans to travel the farthest from Earth. Now on their way home, the team has experienced tech malfunctions, views like no other and moments of intense emotion, all in under 10 days. To find out about all the highs and lows of the mission, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample...
This week Artemis II’s four-astronaut crew broke Apollo 13’s distance record, becoming the humans to travel the farthest from Earth. Now on their way home, the team has experienced tech malfunctions, views like no other and moments of intense emotion, all in under 10 days. To find out about all the highs and lows of the mission, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample Artemis II crew describe ‘overwhelming’ emotions after soaring past the moon Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...
The US president’s cry-wolf threats are losing their effect while European leaders are, at last, shifting from sycophancy to opposition Europeans are on what might be called “a journey” when it comes to the US-Israel war against Iran, now apparently in a ceasefire after Donald Trump’s 11th-hour U-turn, calling off, for the time being, his threat to annihilate Iranian civilisation. The crisis in th...
The US president’s cry-wolf threats are losing their effect while European leaders are, at last, shifting from sycophancy to opposition Europeans are on what might be called “a journey” when it comes to the US-Israel war against Iran, now apparently in a ceasefire after Donald Trump’s 11th-hour U-turn, calling off, for the time being, his threat to annihilate Iranian civilisation. The crisis in the Middle East marks the latest painful step, after the shock of the US’s betrayal of Ukraine and Trump’s threat to seize Greenland, in Europe’s emancipation from Washington. The journey is not linear, and it is dreaded by most European leaders. But the direction of travel is undeniable. Initially, most European politicians in power all but endorsed the illegal US and Israeli attack against Iran. If the sycophantic Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, stood at one end of the spectrum of European opinion and Pedro Sánchez at the other, most European governments were tacitly closer to Rutte’s embrace of Trump than to the Spanish prime minister’s principled opposition. Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...
In the final week of Rhik Samadder’s diary, he basked in the rosy glow – literally – after AI’s wall paint suggestion Sometimes, when the hose of my vacuum cleaner knocks over a potted plant, adding a layer of drudgery to an already miserable chore, I feel ground down by domesticity. Futurity once promised us robot butlers. What happened? The despair led me to this week’s quest. Can AI actually tr...
In the final week of Rhik Samadder’s diary, he basked in the rosy glow – literally – after AI’s wall paint suggestion Sometimes, when the hose of my vacuum cleaner knocks over a potted plant, adding a layer of drudgery to an already miserable chore, I feel ground down by domesticity. Futurity once promised us robot butlers. What happened? The despair led me to this week’s quest. Can AI actually transform my day-to-day existence? Continue reading...
Peng Xiao started the year riding high. G42, the Abu Dhabi technology conglomerate he runs, had just won approval to import thousands of the latest artificial intelligence chips and begun talks to buy many more. Xiao was also gearing up for global expansion, taking his company to new markets and aiming to make a splash in the US. Most immediately, G42 was preparing to break ground on one of the wo...
Peng Xiao started the year riding high. G42, the Abu Dhabi technology conglomerate he runs, had just won approval to import thousands of the latest artificial intelligence chips and begun talks to buy many more. Xiao was also gearing up for global expansion, taking his company to new markets and aiming to make a splash in the US. Most immediately, G42 was preparing to break ground on one of the world’s largest AI data center projects: a five-gigawatt campus in the United Arab Emirates that would host OpenAI and other Silicon Valley titans. “There’s a reason that everyone from Sam Altman to Elon Musk comes to this region and talks to us,” Xiao said during a January interview at his beachfront office. “The US, as a home base, cannot provide everything they need.” Weeks later the US and Israel began bombing Iran, touching off a regional war that quickly spilled into the UAE. Since the conflict began, Iran has hit airports, ports and at least one data center there. Suddenly G42, the UAE’s AI national champion, looked vulnerable. While the US and Iran have agreed to a two-week ceasefire, the conflict’s repercussions will probably echo for some time — potentially impeding the UAE’s multibillion-dollar plans to transform itself from petrostate to global AI powerhouse. G42 didn’t make Xiao available for a follow-up interview but maintains the regional tensions won’t derail its plans. “Our direction is unchanged and our pace has accelerated,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Moments like these reinforce that what we are building matters. Our responsibility is to continue operating with discipline, serving our customers and advancing infrastructure that strengthens the societies we work in.” Some US officials have also projected optimism. “Once this conflict winds down, I actually have an enormous amount of confidence in the business climate in the UAE,” Jacob Helberg , the US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, said at a briefing in London in ...
To get John Authers’ newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here . Today’s Points: Global markets sighed with relief: world stocks up 3.26%, Brent crude down 12.1%. Emerging markets had their best day since 2022. Iran is complaining that the ceasefire hasn’t been observed. Earnings season will get underway with the Magnificent Seven looking cheap. AND: More Songs to Dance by the Ligh...
To get John Authers’ newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here . Today’s Points: Global markets sighed with relief: world stocks up 3.26%, Brent crude down 12.1%. Emerging markets had their best day since 2022. Iran is complaining that the ceasefire hasn’t been observed. Earnings season will get underway with the Magnificent Seven looking cheap. AND: More Songs to Dance by the Light of the Moon . Relief Is Spelt H.O.R.M.U.Z. It’s not clear that the ceasefire in Iran is such a good deal, or whether all parties are holding to it . It seems to enshrine the principle that Iran can charge ships to use an international waterway , which would have been dismissed as unconscionable a month ago. None of this has stopped global markets. After about 24 hours to ponder the ramifications of the pause in hostilities announced by President Donald Trump, it’s still regarded as cause for celebration and for buying any risk asset that moves. Stock markets enjoyed one of their best days in years — while Asian markets opened Thursday with only minor falls — and now largely price the conflict as over: By implication, market hopes for growth are also back on course. The war caused a brief dip in the long-running upward trend for US stocks compared to bonds (proxied below by the most popular exchange-traded funds tracking the S&P 500 and long-dated Treasuries). That’s done: But hopes for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve haven’t been instantly reinstated, because the impact of the ongoing disruption to the supply of oil and other basic materials is still unclear. The swaps market still expects inflation of more than 3% over the next year (it was below 2.25% at the start of 2026), and futures are priced for the Fed to take no action on rates this year — two cuts had been fully priced before hostilities broke out: Put this together, and the Wednesday rally is a straightforward reaction to the big reduction in “left-tail risk,” meaning the worst possible outcomes are much les...
Aeryn Buttolph is painting miniature replicas of the tea-rooms and florists that dot the high street in the quaint English town of Holt. Missing from her collection are the big supermarkets now eyeing up the neighborhood. An affluent area surrounded by farmland about 110 miles (180 kilometers) northeast of London, Holt has become an unlikely battleground for Britain’s biggest discount grocers. Bot...
Aeryn Buttolph is painting miniature replicas of the tea-rooms and florists that dot the high street in the quaint English town of Holt. Missing from her collection are the big supermarkets now eyeing up the neighborhood. An affluent area surrounded by farmland about 110 miles (180 kilometers) northeast of London, Holt has become an unlikely battleground for Britain’s biggest discount grocers. Both Aldi and Lidl , the German chains that upended the UK grocery market since arriving in the early 1990s, want to open in the town. Getting both would be a dramatic change for the 4,000 or so people in Holt. It would also show how after years of rapid growth, Aldi and Lidl are increasingly in direct competition for new areas to open. That’s happening as Tesco Plc , J Sainsbury Plc and others fight back against the discounters’ advances. “As they expand they’re no longer just competing with the big supermarkets, they’re competing directly with each other,” said Steph Briggs at consultancy Retail Champion. “That means overlap in locations, suppliers and customers, and that starts to erode the efficiency that made them so powerful.” The two sites in Holt are just over half a mile apart. Aldi applied in January to open in a residential area about five minutes’ walk from where Buttolph works in the Mindful Atelier pottery gallery. At the same time, it objected to Lidl’s application from last July to open on the edge of Holt, arguing that allowing both would have a “significant adverse impact” on the town center. “It’s a lovely, cute town but you can definitely tell it’s for a higher price range,” Buttolph said of the current shopping options that include the relatively upmarket Budgens . Lidl could become a stop-off on her way to work, she said, before expressing surprise that Holt could get an Aldi as well. It’s not just in Holt that the discounters are getting closer. For the 39 stores Aldi opened in 2025, the average distance to the nearest Lidl was 3.7 kilometers, according ...
China looks set to claim another coup in its mission to build AI talent, with one of the world’s top scholars in artificial intelligence for robots listed among PhD supervisors at a Shanghai university. Su Hao, who holds two doctorates – one in mathematics and one in computer science – has appeared on Fudan University’s faculty list as a professor in electronic information specialising in AI. The ...
China looks set to claim another coup in its mission to build AI talent, with one of the world’s top scholars in artificial intelligence for robots listed among PhD supervisors at a Shanghai university. Su Hao, who holds two doctorates – one in mathematics and one in computer science – has appeared on Fudan University’s faculty list as a professor in electronic information specialising in AI. The list, published on March 31, names 322 PhD supervisors appointed this year. Previously, Su was a...
Everyone else is doing mergers and acquisitions so why shouldn’t I? The simple answer to a corporate boss with FOMO is that M&A can seriously harm your share price. Data showing a strong first quarter for dealmaking may fuel a sense that companies risk being left behind if they sit pat. Sometimes what they are missing out on is a stubborn drop in their market capitalization. Just look at the big c...
Everyone else is doing mergers and acquisitions so why shouldn’t I? The simple answer to a corporate boss with FOMO is that M&A can seriously harm your share price. Data showing a strong first quarter for dealmaking may fuel a sense that companies risk being left behind if they sit pat. Sometimes what they are missing out on is a stubborn drop in their market capitalization. Just look at the big consumer-industry deals that have landed over the last eight months. Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.’s August agreement to buy JDE Peet’s NV at a $23 billion enterprise value vastly expands the buyer’s existing coffee business so it can then be spun off as as a large, global company and leave behind a soft-drinks firm with brands such as Snapple. On paper, the idea has strategic logic: The separate lines of business gain focus and, in coffee, scale. That ought to drive organic growth — the holy grail for all chief executive officers. But investors have recoiled because Peet’s has a poor track record and the all-cash deal pushes KDP’s debt up sharply, even after enlisting private-capital giants Apollo Global Management Inc. and KKR & Co. as equity partners. The share price is far below where it was pre-deal. Elsewhere, Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s $49 billion acquisition of Kenvue Inc. takes the diaper-maker into consumer health, an area that’s related to its core personal-hygiene business though which is nevertheless a strategic departure. That might not matter so much if Kenvue were fighting fit. But it’s in turnround mode and brings a history of litigation. It’s also embroiled in a row with US President Donald Trump over the safety of Tylenol (though health bodies continue to endorse the painkiller). Kimberly-Clark’s debt will go up in the short term, even though paying mainly in stock will keep that in check. Once more, the market is unimpressed. The shares are down about 20% since just before the deal was announced. Recent deals — such as Sysco Corp.’s March agreement to pay $29 billion...
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The A2A (Agent-to-Agent) Protocol project, hosted by the Linux Foundation, today announced major adoption milestones at its one-year mark, with more than 150 organizations supporting the standard, deep integration across Google, Microsoft and AWS platforms, and active production deployments across multiple industries.
The A2A (Agent-to-Agent) Protocol project, hosted by the Linux Foundation, today announced major adoption milestones at its one-year mark, with more than 150 organizations supporting the standard, deep integration across Google, Microsoft and AWS platforms, and active production deployments across multiple industries.
A stock doesn't necessarily need to be a component of the S&P 500 index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) to be worth owning. Inclusion in the well-known barometer of the U.S. equity market, however, is still a great sign that a company has grown into a well-established name with real staying power. It also doesn't hurt that being added to the index dramatically increases a stock's institutional ownership, which ...
A stock doesn't necessarily need to be a component of the S&P 500 index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) to be worth owning. Inclusion in the well-known barometer of the U.S. equity market, however, is still a great sign that a company has grown into a well-established name with real staying power. It also doesn't hurt that being added to the index dramatically increases a stock's institutional ownership, which is bullish in its own right. To this end, there's one curious company that's not yet a part of the S&P 500, but very well could be before the end of the year. That company is artificial intelligence (AI) robotics outfit Symbotic (NASDAQ: SYM) . Here's what you need to know about it. Continue reading
Poland is expected to hold interest rates unchanged as a two-week ceasefire in the US-led war in Iran sent energy costs sharply lower, reducing concerns over a revival in inflation. All 32 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast the Monetary Policy Council to keep its benchmark at 3.75% on Thursday. At the panel’s previous meeting just after the Iran war started, it ordered a bold cut in ra...
Poland is expected to hold interest rates unchanged as a two-week ceasefire in the US-led war in Iran sent energy costs sharply lower, reducing concerns over a revival in inflation. All 32 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast the Monetary Policy Council to keep its benchmark at 3.75% on Thursday. At the panel’s previous meeting just after the Iran war started, it ordered a bold cut in rates and switched to a wait-and-see stance regarding future moves. While it remains unclear whether the ceasefire marks a temporary halt to hostilities or a longer term truce, the development is alleviating pressure on Governor Adam Glapinski and fellow policymakers to tighten monetary conditions to prevent a new spike in inflation. Derivatives indicate bets on Polish rate levels declined on Wednesday in the wake of the truce announcement but still showed that a hike is more likely than further easing over the next months. Importantly for inflation prospects of the oil and gas importer, energy prices slumped on the Iran agreement while the zloty currency strengthened. “It would be surprising if the Governor made any specific rate declarations – about a cut or even a hike,” said Monika Kurtek , chief economist at Bank Pocztowy SA. “There is lots of uncertainty about the truce, so a wait-and-see stance remains appropriate.” Inflation jumped in March to 3% from 2.1% in February, driven by a spike in fuel prices. Nevertheless, the government cut taxes on fuel and set a cap on such costs, lowering prices at the pump from last month’s highs. “Glapinski will maintain a cautious tone and indicate that the MPC’s future decisions will depend largely on the persistence of the commodity shock and its impact on the domestic inflation,” said Credit Agricole Bank Polska SA analysts, led by Jakub Borowski . They expect interest rates to remain unchanged until the end of the year. Breaking with its recent practice, the central bank will announce its rates decision on the same day as Glapinsk...