Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry has said it has intercepted and destroyed ten drones over the past hours, and eight missiles launched towards the Riyadh area and the country’s eastern region. Early this morning Kuwait said its air defences were responding to hostile missile and drone attacks. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Kuwait said where the drones or missiles came from.
Good morning. On 7 May, voters in England will go to the polls for a series of local elections, on the same day that Scotland and Wales vote for new governments. It promises to be a torrid time for Keir Starmer and his governing Labour party, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Zack Polanski’s Green party and Rhun ap Iorwerth’s Plaid Cymru expected to make breakthroughs. Recent polling, though, suggests that the overall balance between those on the right and those on the left has barely shifted – rather, previously loyal Conservative voters are moving towards Farage’s party, while Labour voters are deserting to other progressive options. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s deputy political editor, about what we can expect to see in England’s local elections, and what the consequences of the vote could be. First, the headlines. Five big stories Middle East crisis | Donald Trump has threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power stations and fresh water plants if Tehran does not agree to peace terms “shortly”. Israel | Israel’s parliament has passed a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks, a measure sharply criticised as discriminatory by European countries and rights groups. BBC | The BBC has sacked the Radio 2 presenter Scott Mills after allegations about his personal conduct. The corporation said that “while we do not comment on matters relating to individuals, we can confirm Scott Mills is no longer contracted and has left the BBC”. Politics | Zack Polanski has kicked off a charm offensive designed to convince trade unions to stop funding Labour and throw their weight behind the Green party, as he delivered the first in a series of speeches to union conferences. Travelodge | A woman who was sexually assaulted by an employee at a Travelodge has said she was shocked to learn the hotel chain’s boss cancelled a meeting with a group of MPs seeking to discuss concerns about the case. In depth: ‘Unfamiliar territory for British politics’ In England, there are just over 5,000 council seats up for grabs on 7 May, with elections spanning all 32 London borough councils, 32 metropolitan boroughs, 18 unitary authorities, six county councils, 48 district councils and six directly elected mayors in England. “There was always an expectation in Labour HQ that these elections would function like a midterm referendum on the government,” Jessica Elgot tells me. “What wasn’t anticipated was quite how perilous Keir Starmer’s position would look among his own MPs by this point – and just how many different directions Labour’s vote is now being pulled in.” *** Why these elections are unusually hard to read The increasingly fragmented, multiparty landscape makes these elections particularly difficult to judge, says Jess. “Normally, you can map out best-case and worst-case scenarios for a party,” she says. “This time, with so many parties competing across different parts of the country, you could end up with a very confusing, mixed picture.” Labour, she says, isn’t losing support in just one direction – it’s potentially losing it to parties across the spectrum. “There’s a much bigger story here about how new and unfamiliar this territory is for British politics.” One important note: even if you are an elections geek, it is probably not worth pulling an all-nighter on the day of the elections. Most councils in England won’t start counting until the next day, and some results won’t come through until the Saturday. *** What is Labour’s pitch to the voters? Starmer’s central argument to the electorate is essentially: stick with us, don’t take a risk on alternatives. Labour is framing the election as a choice between stability and volatility, arguing that switching to Reform or other parties would jeopardise progress on tackling the cost of living. Ministers are pointing to measures to address energy bills, wages, childcare and pensions as evidence that things are beginning to improve, urging voters to “stay the course”. Alongside that economic message is a broader appeal to security and values. In what Starmer is casting as an increasingly unstable world, Labour’s pitch is that “a Britain built for all” based on the “fairness we stand for” at home and stability abroad are linked – and that rival parties represent poor judgment. Reform and the Conservatives are being portrayed as reckless, particularly on foreign policy, while the Greens are dismissed as offering the “wrong answers”. The underlying strategy is to consolidate Labour’s vote by presenting it as the only credible, responsible option in a fragmented political landscape. None of which, of course, is about what local councils do – get the bins emptied, potholes filled and cover the costs of social care. *** Who is best placed to benefit from Labour’s unpopularity? “With Reform, you’d expect gains from Labour and the Conservatives,” Jess says. “Some of their council wins are likely to come directly at the Conservatives’ expense – particularly in places such as Essex and outer London. But they’re also targeting Labour heartlands in the north and the Midlands – places such as Sunderland and Barnsley – where they could make significant inroads.” The Greens, by contrast, are targeting dissatisfied Labour voters. “You could see them make real advances in parts of London that have traditionally been very safe for Labour – places such as Hackney, Newham, Lambeth or Waltham Forest.” The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, “are operating in a very different lane to the Greens”, Jess says. Their strategy has been to target disaffected Conservative voters, particularly in more affluent areas. “That’s why you can walk from Land’s End to London without going through a Tory constituency.” For Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, the best hope of good news may come in traditional London bellwethers – Westminster, Barnet and Wandsworth – where they could claw back some ground. This past weekend, my colleague Peter Walker reported that, perhaps contrary to expectations, many of Badenoch’s MPs are “relative to their mood in recent years, quite cheery”. *** What does it mean for Starmer? In her analysis last week, Guardian political editor Pippa Crerar suggested a clash of animosities was likely to define the vote as people opt for “anyone but Labour” or “anyone but Reform”. “Local elections are often a kind of ‘free hit’ for voters,” Jess says. “People don’t always feel they have to think about the national picture in the same way, or vote tactically. That can make them a space where frustration is expressed more freely.” London and the north-east will be critical for Labour. Many of its MPs are in London, and “what happens in their own back yard will really matter for internal party confidence”. Meanwhile, “you could see Reform making advances in places where you’d never previously expect Labour to be seriously challenged, such as areas of Liverpool. That will give us one of the clearest indications yet of how deep that shift in support really is.” Senior party figures have warned that voters would punish the party further at the ballot box for indulging in a leadership contest while Starmer was trying to navigate through the international crisis of a war in the Middle East, which may insulate him from the most severe outcome. The king’s speech on 13 May and a potential cabinet reshuffle will, Downing Street hopes, quickly shift focus away from a local election debacle. What Labour are ultimately banking on, Jess says, is that at a general election voters will return to them as the best “stop Farage” option. That may come as cold comfort to Keir Starmer, on what looks set to be a very difficult set of results. What else we’ve been reading I had no idea what “zombie filler” was before I read this extraordinary piece on the use of cadaver tissue in cosmetic surgery. It’s a horrifying read but it is hard to look away. Patrick Daffodils bloom, a cuckoo sounds, frogspawn appears, Ali Martin writes a preview of the English county cricket season, and you know that spring is almost here. Martin From Atonement to the X-Men, James McAvoy is a fixture on screens small and large. Now, the Glaswegian actor has made his directorial debut with California Schemin’, a true-life story about a Scottish rap duo who pretend to be American to make their dreams come true. He spoke to the Guardian’s Libby Brooks about the film. Patrick In case you missed it, this story by Oliver Holmes about the woman who alerts the world when an asteroid could hit is well worth a read. It made me feel safer. Patrick For the Quietus, Simon Price speaks to the electronic band Ladytron about 10 of their most impressive tracks. Martin Sport Football | Thomas Tuchel has plotted a diplomatic course through the storm that has followed the withdrawals of Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka from the England squad, saying the optics may look bad but he has “100% trust” in their integrity. Football | Roberto De Zerbi has moved closer to becoming Tottenham’s new manager after further negotiations on Monday. The club have made him their prime target to replace Igor Tudor and save them from what would be a ruinous relegation to the Championship. Cricket | Worcestershire’s new overseas signing has arrived under a cloud after leaving a one-day final in South Africa to catch his flight to England. Beyers Swanepoel set off for the airport “around the 43rd over” of the second innings without informing his teammates as to why. The front pages The Guardian leads with “Trump threat to ‘obliterate’ all Iranian power plants”. The i has “PM meets UK fuel bosses as prices rise at the pumps”. The Times says “War brings in £20m a day extra in energy taxes”. The Telegraph splashes on “Starmer’s 48-hour ultimatum to doctors”. The Financial Times reports “Mistral raises $830m to build AI data centres in drive for digital ‘sovereignty’”. The Sun is among a number of papers leading on the sudden sacking of BBC radio DJ Scott Mills; its headline is “Mills crisis for BBC”. Today in Focus Blast off! Nasa goes back to the moon Astronaut Tim Peake and Guardian journalist Richard Luscombe talk through Artemis II, the first manned mission to the moon for 50 years. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Seven years ago, Ubokobong Amanam (pictured above, left) was seriously injured in a fireworks accident. Although doctors saved his life, they could not save his fingers, reports Valentine Benjamin from Uyo, Nigeria. Today, Amanam has a lifelike prosthetic – but finding it has not been without a challenge. “The first thing I discovered is that prosthetics aren’t really made for people like us,” he says. Artificial limbs for Nigerians and other Africans are often hard to access, prohibitively expensive and made for western bodies. So Amanam and his brother John, a special effects artist, decided to design prosthetics for Africans, by Africans. The Ubokobong Bionic Arm took three years to create, and the Amanam’s company, Immortal Cosmetic Art, has become a leader in accessible, lifelike prosthetics across the continent. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
The family of aid worker Zomi Frankcom has urged the Albanese government to press Israel for a serious independent investigation into her death, including the release of audio from the drone strike which blew up a humanitarian convoy in Gaza in 2024. Wednesday will be the second anniversary of strikes on the World Central Kitchen aid worker’s convoy which killed the 43-year-old Australian and six of her colleagues. Israel’s defence force conducted an investigation into the deaths, which resulted in two officers being dismissed and three others being reprimanded. In February, Albanese raised the case with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, during his visit to Australia. On Tuesday, he called Frankcom’s death “a tragic loss”. “We’ll continue to work each and every day to do our best to ensure that there is transparency and appropriate action.” Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email But Frankcom’s brother, Mal Frankcom, said serious outstanding questions remained, including possible consequences for other Israel Defense Forces personnel involved. “What happened on 1 April 2024 absolutely devastated my family and many people in the community,” Frankcom said during a visit to federal parliament. He said the convoy had been struck three times, “resulting in seven heroic aid workers being left to die on the side of the road”. “We have been told that the case is still under review, while many other high-profile cases have since been closed. “We hope that our pursuit of justice and accountability will not be in vain, and that an open and transparent investigation.” Frankcom was due to meet the prime minister, Anthony Albanese and other federal MPs on Tuesday. Frankcom called for the audio of drone footage to be released, even if translation from Hebrew was required. Frankcom said the victims’ families had never received proper explanation for the deaths, personal apologies from the Israeli government or compensation. Independent MP Zali Steggall said Frankcom represented the best of Australia during her life. “Zomi Frankcom embodied all that is good about Australian values and selflessly worked helping so many communities … being there to deliver aid, humanitarian aid where there’s most needed.” The federal government commissioned the former defence force chief, Mark Binskin to provide it with advice on the adequacy of Israel’s investigations and actions following the deaths. In the report, which was published in August last year, Binskin wrote there had been “a significant breakdown in situational awareness” by the Israeli forces before the drone strikes. But Binskin said he did not believe the strikes were “knowingly or deliberately directed against” the World Central Kitchen convoy, instead saying IDF controls failed, “leading to errors in decision making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias”. After a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, defended the Israeli government’s actions and said Binskin delivered a report that found “the attack was not intentional”. Newman said he was not aware the investigation had been shelved and promised to seek an update. “As far as I know, they have not come to final conclusions not because they’re delaying … there are legal cases in Israel that go on for years,” he said. Newman claimed Binskin’s “full access” was “unprecedented” despite Binskin’s report noting he was never able to review the drone footage’s audio. The ambassador would not commit Israel to releasing the drone footage audio. “That’s not in my hands. It’s in the IDF’s hands,” he said. Israel’s top diplomat in Australia said every innocent person killed in war is a tragedy but claimed figures indicating the number of working journalists killed in Gaza exceeded 200 were exaggerated, disinformation or “bashing Israel”, claiming “Hamas and Hezbollah guise themselves as press and remain terrorist operatives”. “When people outside quote 250, 300 journalists [have been killed], what they’re doing is they’re just buying [it] hook, line and sinker. “If they would check, they would find that the majority of all the journalists, so-called journalists, that were affected were actually activists guised as journalists.” The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a press freedom advocacy group, has criticised Israel’s previous accusations that many of the journalists killed in Israeli strikes have been engaged in terrorist activity. The CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, has previously described it as “smear campaigns” without “credible evidence to substantiate their claims”. Estimates on the number of journalists killed by Israel during the war in Gaza vary but the CPJ found Israeli fire killed 86 journalists in 2025 with the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza. The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinian journalists in Gaza between December 2024 and December 2025 and that nearly 220 journalists had been killed since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
China is introducing a law to stop people storing the ashes of their dead relatives in empty high-rise flats rather than paying steep costs for increasingly scarce cemetery plots. China’s new funeral management legislation will prohibit the use of “residential housing specifically for the purpose of storing cremated remains” and the burial of corpses or construction of tombs in “areas other than public cemeteries”. The law will come into force on Tuesday ahead of Sunday’s Qingming grave-sweeping festival – a traditional Chinese celebration in which people clean their ancestors’ tombs and make ritual offerings. The practice of using an apartment to store ashes, known as a “guhui fang”, or bone ash apartments, has grown as rapid urbanisation and a fast-ageing population increases competition and cost for limited cemetery plots in cities. The empty apartment is used as a ritual hall, with people transforming the space into ancestral shrines with candles, red lights and urns lined up by generation. After Japan, China’s funeral expenses are the second-highest in the world, according to a 2020 global funeral expense survey conducted by insurer SunLife. In contrast, property prices fell 40% between 2021 and 2025, caused in part by Xi Jinping’s campaign – “properties are for living in, not for speculation” – to curb excessive speculation in the real estate market. China’s cemetery plots also only come with a 20-year lease, while residential properties carry government-backed 70-year usage rights. Consequently, many Chinese citizens now view apartments as better value than cemeteries as a place to store the remains of their loved ones. A hashtag associated with the ban has been viewed more than 7m times on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, with social media users expressing scepticism about the measure. “Who’s going to go in and check? Or are they planning to put a GPS tracker on every single urn?” said one user. “Even at 90% off, cemetery plots are still too expensive,” another wrote. China has one of the world’s fastest-growing ageing populations. It recorded 11.3m deaths in 2025, up from 9.8m in 2015, and far more than the country’s 7.9m births the same year. Facing a rising number of burials and increasingly limited land supply, authorities in big cities such as Shanghai are subsidising costs for those who opt for “ecological burial methods”, including “deep-ground burial or sea burial of cremated remains”. In 2025, Shanghai’s sea burials reached a record high, exceeding 10,000 cases for the first time. Additional reporting by Lillian Yang
This blog is closing now but our live coverage of the Iran war continues in a new blog here, including a recap of the latest developments. Thanks for reading.
Jayson Naga is a tricycle taxi driver on the streets of Manila. In a normal day he brings home P500 (US$8) to feed his four children. But these days he is struggling. He requires four litres of gasoline a day to ferry his passengers around the city and the 60% surge in fuel prices has wiped out nearly a third of his take home pay. “If gas prices go up any further, there will be nothing left for us,” he told the Guardian. His family’s only luxury – driving to air-conditioned malls on weekends to escape the heat – was the first to go. The Philippines imports almost all of its crude oil from the Middle East. The government became the first in the world to declare a national energy emergency over the oil crisis triggered by the war in the Middle East, and public outcry over the response to soaring fuel prices and supply issues has spilled into the streets. Transport workers are facing the immediate brunt of the oil crunch. Hogan Ruben, also a tricycle driver, has to spend an extra five hours on the road to earn enough. “What we do now is we head out early and stay out until twelve midnight or one in the morning, just so the income we bring home is enough,” he said. “We have no choice but to keep grinding,” Ruben said. After admitting challenges to securing supplies to replenish its inventory, President Ferdinand Marcos on 27 March said the government has secured enough crude oil for domestic processing to last until 30 June. This assurance comes as he scrambles for alternative sources, including a recent shipment from Russia. But anger at the government is palpable. Last week, transport groups held two-day nationwide transport strikes to call for oil price rollbacks by scrapping fuel excise taxes and the oil deregulation law. President of the transport group Piston, Mody Floranda said Marcos was “inutile.” “Hardship persists not only for transport but for the entire public. How can workers survive on low wages while fuel prices keep climbing?” he said. It is a human rights crisis as well as an economic crisis, said Edgardo Cabalitan, a NGO worker, who joined a noisy barrage in front of the country’s largest gas station on Friday. Passing jeepneys and motorcycle riders blared their horns in a show of solidarity. “The oil crisis is not just an issue of rising costs. It is an issue that directly strikes at human rights. As oil prices rise, the cost of goods follows, affecting not only the livelihoods of drivers but also our very access to basic needs,” Cabalitan said. Jan Carlo Punongbayan, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics, said the crisis will only get worse, with estimations that the global price of crude oil could reach as much as $200 dollars per barrel. “It’s going to be quite bad, especially the indirect effects of inflation. The [government] is looking at double digit inflation rates by May. We haven’t seen that level of inflation for many many years, not even during the pandemic,” said Punongbayan. Food price pain on the horizon Food prices are next. Punongbayan said the current harvest season has so far tempered the impacts, but he expects food prices to start going up rapidly in the coming weeks, after the harvest season and with higher transport costs. While crowds in malls have thinned, the grocery stores are packed. Shoppers are filling baskets with basic necessities, in a manner reminiscent of pandemic-era panic buying. On social media, users are discussing solar panel installations and the viability of electric vehicles.The desperate situation has brought out the worst in people. At a gas station in Quezon City, a pump attendant had to shoulder a nearly $100 bill after a driver of an SUV sped away without paying for his full tank. Local police promised to search CCTV footage to trace the perpetrators. But back on Maginhawa street in Quezon City, donations of food packs from members of the public began arriving last week at the corner where drivers like Naga and Ruben wait for passengers. On Sunday, they each grabbed a pack of rice, some eggs, noodles, canned goods, and a sandwich. The community pantries are back, a community-led project which the Maginhawa neighbourhood initiated during the pandemic, this time offering a lifeline to transport workers. More than a dozen similar community pantries have popped up nationwide. “When we saw that the community pantry was back, it gave us drivers a sense of hope again,” said Naga.
Some of Ukraine’s allies have sent Kyiv “signals” about the possibility of scaling back the country’s long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector as global energy prices have surged, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. The Ukrainian president said he was ready to reciprocate if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine’s energy system, and that Kyiv was open to an Easter ceasefire. “Recently, following such a severe global energy crisis, we have indeed received signals from some of our partners asking about how to reduce our responses in the oil sector and the energy sector of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp briefing with journalists. A Reuters source familiar with the situation said US officials had conveyed this message to their Ukrainian counterparts as part of their regular conversations, adding that the initial “signals” appeared to have come from Moscow. The US state department and the Russian embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Fresh from a four-day visit to the Middle East, Zelenskyy said he had reached agreement with some countries in the region to provide energy support to Ukraine. Over the weekend, he said he had reached a deal on diesel deliveries for a year to Ukraine, without providing further details. Ukraine has signed a 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria, a major arms manufacturer, covering production of drones and other weapons, Zelenskyy announced. The Ukrainian president said he was “very pleased” with the deal, signed during a visit to Kyiv by Bulgaria’s interim prime minister, Andrey Gyurov. The agreement covers “joint production, on the territory of our countries, of various types of weapons, including drones”, he said at a press conference. The length of the accord should make it possible to “systematise” security cooperation, Zelenskyy said, in particular keeping up with the rapid pace of drone technology, a key weapon in Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion. Bulgaria, now a member of Nato and the EU, was part of the communist bloc during the cold war, and for decades produced ammunition and weapons to Soviet standards, which are also used by the Ukrainian army. Sofia has sent large quantities of weapons to Kyiv. Gyurov hailed the accord as the “result of long preparation”, adding: “This is not a mere formality, but a joint commitment to our Euro-Atlantic security.” Russian attacks on central and northern Ukraine on Monday killed two people and injured more than 20, regional officials said. Near the central city of Poltava, falling debris from drones killed one person, injured three and damaged a high-rise apartment building, the regional governor Vitaliy Diakivnych said. Drone attacks and artillery strikes killed one person in the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region near the town of Nikopol, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said. Two people were injured in the town and 12 throughout the region. Russian forces launched two strikes with glide bombs in the Sumy region near the Russian border, injuring 13 people, including a six-year-old, regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said. Fifteen homes were damaged. The US on Monday extended a deadline for the fourth time for companies to negotiate with Russia’s Lukoil about buying its foreign assets after Washington imposed sanctions on the energy company in 2025. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control extended the deadline by a month to 1 May for companies interested in buying the foreign assets that are worth about $22bn. Washington imposed sanctions in October on Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, and Rosneft, its top producer, to reduce Moscow’s ability to pay for its war on Ukraine. Interest in the assets has been shown by the US private equity firm Carlyle, the US oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp, the Abu Dhabi conglomerate International Holding Company, and the Austrian investor Bernd Bergmair, the former majority owner of an adult entertainment group that includes the website Pornhub. Vladimir Putin’s position has not been significantly weakened by sanctions on oligarchs or specific products or sectors, the exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has said. Politicians wanted to “impress their electorate” with sanctions against goods and trade, but in practice these were “unrealistic” to enforce, he added. Khodorkovsky said the west’s belief that sanctions against Russian oligarchs would motivate them to put pressure on Putin to end the war in Ukraine was based on “erroneous” understanding of the relationship between wealthy businessmen and the Kremlin. “I have been saying for the past 20 years that there are no oligarchs in Russia,” he said. “How can you reconcile oligarchy with dictatorship? If you have money without any weapons, you are just food for somebody else.”