The Guardian

Academics and youth workers say cuts to services and lack of public space help explain recent unrest in south London It started with a flyer sent around on Snapchat. Teenagers were invited to gather at a south London basketball court to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays. They were told to bring their own weed and laughing gas because it was going to be a late one. What followed in the ho…

Grandson of Reese’s cups inventor claims Hershey faked a pledge to switch back to original chocolate recipes The grandson of HB Reese , the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, has accused the chocolate giant Hershey of faking a pledge to investors to switch back the recipes of its popular products – including KitKat – to the original milk and dark chocolate ones. A confectionary-focused dust-…

Democrats rebuke White House’s ‘bleak and unacceptable’ view of priorities after 10% cuts proposed to other programs US politics live – latest updates Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Defense spending would surge to its highest level in decades under a budget proposal put forward by the Trump administration on Friday, while other government programs would face cuts totaling 10%. …

Effort to curb grade inflation, by limiting top marks to 20% of students in a course, is opposed by most students Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Harvard’s faculty is set to vote next week on a faculty committee proposal to cap the number of A grades per course in an effort to curb grade inflation. The proposal, which was first reported earlier this y…

Downing of fighter plane – the first shot down over Iran since start of war – prompts frantic US rescue effort Middle East crisis – live updates A US F-15E fighter has been shot down over Iran, prompting a frantic US search and rescue effort for its two-strong crew, in the first such incident since the start of the war. Iranian state media released images of a tail fin and other debris early on F…

The telco’s sweeping price changes and the closure of its cheaper ‘starter’ plan risk putting off many of its loyal customers Telstra has long traded on its claim to have better – and far more expansive – mobile coverage than its rivals to justify a steep pricing premium that has accelerated in recent years. But the telco’s latest changes, which include steep price hikes and the closure of its ch…

Petrol has risen 19% and diesel 35%, while in England the north has had the sharpest increases Fuel prices have risen faster in Northern Ireland than in any other UK region since the beginning of the Iran war . Analysis of official data shows petrol has jumped by 19% in Northern Ireland since the end of February, and diesel is now 35% more expensive. The rises are among the largest in Europe. Con…

Proposal, a win for RFK Jr’s Maha movement, is a ‘first step’ toward tackling plastic pollution, advocates say The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities. Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, s…

NASUWT says full entitlement should be increased from four weeks to 26 and paternity pay also improved Full maternity pay for teachers across the UK should be increased to 26 weeks to help stem the exodus of women in their 30s from classrooms, a union leader has said. Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said it was a “national scandal” that so many teachers who quit said …

Fourteen-, 16- and 18-year-olds arrested on suspicion of murder after incident near Woolwich Dockyard station Police have launched a murder investigation after a 14-year-old boy was fatally shot in Woolwich, south-east London. Three teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Officers received reports of a shooting on Lord Warwick Street, Woolwich, at about 3.40pm on Thursday, the Metrop…

International law experts ‘seriously concerned’ about ‘strikes on schools, health centres and homes’ in contravention of Geneva conventions Donald Trump, other senior US officials and their cheerleaders appear to be embracing attacks – and threats of attacks – on Iranian civilian infrastructure, which legal experts say appears to constitute serious war crimes under international law. In his rambl…

Body that funds Alan Turing Institute says it should offer better strategy and more value for money The UK’s leading AI research institute has been told to make “significant” changes by its main source of taxpayer funding. The warning comes after the Guardian revealed the board of the Alan Turing Institute was reminded of its legal duties last month by the charity watchdog after a whistleblower c…

Havana calls releases a Holy Week humanitarian gesture as Russian tanker is allowed to reach oil-starved island Cuba has announced plans to pardon 2,010 prisoners as a “humanitarian” gesture during Holy Week, amid heightened US pressure on the government in Havana. The announcement on Thursday came days after Donald Trump eased a de facto oil blockade of Cuba by allowing a Russian tanker to deliv…

Trump announced deputy attorney general, who was his former personal attorney, would act up until permanent replacement is confirmed Sign up for the Breaking News US email Pam Bondi was Trump’s chief enforcer when it came to going after his perceived political foes. As my colleague Sam Levine writes, she “ oversaw purges of career employees who had been assigned to work on the criminal cases agai…

Country is torn between those who hope for end to Tehran’s influence and those loyal to Islamic republic Of all the countries being pulled into the US-Israeli war on Iran, it is Iraq – a country that still bears the emotional and physical scars of the last time the Americans tried to reshape the region by force – where the conflict has exposed some of the deepest rifts. The war is dividing those …