The Guardian

After a harsh winter and suffering from corns, calluses and dry feet, a ‘medi pedi’ treatment came to my rescue My feet were screaming for mercy. Apologies for the following description, but after New York City’s deep-freeze winter, I had corns between my toes, thick callus pads beneath my big toes, and scaly dry lines all around my foot and up my leg. Both my heels had split, with deep cracks in…

Two-month-old Elmer, painstakingly saved by canola oil baths, finds home with volunteer Leah Owens, 72 A two-month-old kitten whose life was saved when he was rescued from a bucket of glue has bonded with the foster parent who helped him to recover – and is sticking with her permanently. Staff at the Humane Society of North Texas say they were swamped with applications to adopt tiny Elmer after t…

Chats with AI bots have convinced the evolutionary biologist but most experts say he is being misled by mimicry When Richard Dawkins met Claudia it was like a whirlwind romance. Over three days last week, a conversation bounced between the evolutionary biologist and the AI bot he called Claudia. “She” wrote poems for him in the manner of Keats and Betjeman and laughed at his “delightful” jokes. D…

We need the mess of it all. Without it, what remains are sentences that are technically flawless but emotionally vacant Some people are naturally drawn to writing – scribbling notes in the margins, jotting poems and little stories, mostly for themselves, sometimes to entertain others. I’ve always been one of them. Every Christmas, I asked for a new journal. At first, they came with cute illustrat…

Tropic Death – 10 blistering, astonishing stories about racist, exploitative outrages in Caribbean ‘paradises’ – won him a Guggenheim award. Why did this star of the Harlem Renaissance die such a sad and lonely death? How does a writer disappear? This year marks six decades since the death of Eric Walrond, a Guyana-born writer who cut his literary teeth amid the Harlem Renaissance, kept company w…

Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers breakout, will play legendary chef in a 70s-set drama from BlackBerry’s director The first trailer for the Anthony Bourdain biopic, Tony, has been released giving us a sweary look at the late food icon’s younger years. Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers breakout, plays 19-year-old Bourdain as he gets his first job in a kitchen in mid-70s Cape Cod. Continue reading...

Nominations also include recognitions for actors including Nathan Lane and Luke Evans while stars such as Lea Michele and Ayo Edebiri were snubbed The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead this year’s Tony nominations with 12 nods each. The original musicals, based on the 80s vampire movie and cancelled Apple TV comedy respectively, will face off against each other in the category of original musical u…

A new initiative aims to repair broken and inadequate street lighting to help prevent crime During the 19th century, American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson penned the expression “gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal police” in his essay Worship. With regard to public lighting in American cities today, the phrase can have a double meaning – security or surveillance. Beyond simply making it s…

Civil rights inquiry claims policy may breach Title IX as administration escalates attacks on trans rights Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email The US education department is investigating one of the country’s largest women’s colleges over its admittance of transgender women in another escalation of the Trump administration ’s attacks on trans people. The department’s office of civil…

Sightline Intelligence sent AI-supported tool to company that provides drones to Israeli military, research group says Anti-war activists in Portland , Oregon , are pushing city authorities to ensure no local resources, tax breaks or investments support a local company that appears to be supplying artificial intelligence software to the Israeli military. The company, Sightline Intelligence, manuf…

Minnesota star returns from knee injury Wembanyama makes NBA playoff record 12 blocks Knicks keep on rolling with huge win over 76ers Anthony Edwards announced to the San Antonio Spurs he had returned – not that anyone in the sold-out Frost Bank Center needed to be told. The Timberwolves guard made an unexpected return 10 days after hyperextending his left knee, leading Minnesota to a 104-102 vic…

Over one million entries received from UK runners London also sets record with 1.3m total applications The London Marathon has set yet more records with organisers announcing that 1.8% of the UK adult population – more than one million people – have applied to run in next year’s race. Running’s boom was also reflected in a world record 1,338,544 global application for the 2027 London Marathon – u…

The supreme court has kicked the can down the road after a federal court sought to ban the mailing of mifepristone An event that ruined lives, degraded the citizenship of hundreds of millions, and permanently lowered the status of American women came and went four years ago, and American politics seems to have largely moved on. When the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022’s Dobbs decision…

UConn coach attracted widespread criticism for actions Auriemma says he felt ‘dumb’ after altercation Six weeks after his team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said on Monday that he felt “dumb” for how his postgame exchange with Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley played out in front of a national audience. “When I walked into the locker room afterward with the coaches…

The Frenchman believes the rule change will make the game more open and exciting. If it succeeds in the Canadian Premier League it could go global When Alejandro Díaz scored, he did not realize he was making history. It was only hours after his club’s 2-2 draw with the Halifax Wanderers – a hard-fought match in which the Pacific FC striker grabbed the opener with a left-footed volley – that he le…

Proposal from group that worked with AOC and Bernie Sanders seeks to counter claim that climate policy is politically toxic Americans do not care about the climate crisis, only economic issues: that’s the message some wonks have put forth in the past year, as the Trump administration has dismantled environmental protections. But the shift away from climate is misguided, an influential group of pr…

As the US sees rapidly housing costs, nomads flock to the public lands of Quartzsite, Arizona, where a person can legally live for more than half a year This story was produced in partnership with R e:P ublic Lands Media , an independent, non-profit news organization. Sign up for R e:P ublic’s newsletter . *** Continue reading...

Fahad Ansari says it was ‘chilling’ that police ‘equated him with his client’ after he was stopped on return from family holiday in Ireland A lawyer who filed Hamas’s challenge to proscription in the UK was recorded by police as being a member of the banned group, “equating him with his client”. On a risk assessment form, a detective inspector, who authorised the detention of Fahad Ansari under t…

State expected to play major role in deciding whether Republicans maintain control of Congress in his final two years Voters in Ohio on Tuesday are selecting candidates ahead of November’s midterm elections. The state is expected to play a major role in deciding whether Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans maintain control of Congress for the final two years of his term. The race with the highest na…

Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle had only just met when the crew snapped cuffs on their wrists – and made them do roly-polys. The stars of Sky drama Prisoner talk bravery, breast milk and Denzel Washington Few devices in film and television are as enduring as the “odd couple handcuffed together”. Think Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, or Bob Hoskins sawing …