Guardian Digest

Every time she lifts her arms to get dressed or hang out her washing, Julie Ford gets a painful reminder of one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. At 7am one day in April 2021, she had gone into hospital, alone and wearing a mask, to have her right breast and lymph nodes removed in a bid to stop breast cancer from spreading. Later that day, still groggy from the anaesthetic, in pain and with surgical drains hanging from both sides of her chest, she had staggered to the door with the help of two nurses. She was eased into a friend’s car and driven home to fend for herself. While…

Hungary’s opposition Tisza party, led by Péter Magyar, has won the election, bringing an end to Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power, in a result that is likely to rattle the White House and reshape the country’s relationship with the EU. Less than three hours after polls closed on Sunday, Orbán conceded defeat after what he described as a “painful but unambiguous” election result. “I congratulated the victorious party,” the rightwing populist told supporters in Budapest. “We are going to serve the Hungarian nation and our homeland from opposition as well.” With 98.74% of the vote counted,…

It’s always heartening when people agree with you. I had Keir Starmer down as a non-ideological technocratic centrist dad the moment I first clocked him, with a tin ear for both simple human interaction and the darker subtleties of the political arts. So despite carrying his famous “Ming vase” over the line in the 2024 election, I’ve been wholly unsurprised by him flatfooting and pratfalling through jagged shards of porcelain ever since, living down to all my worst fears. Now absolutely everybody else thinks he’s crap too. Or so I thought, until a family visit to China last month, when I…

Donald Trump has said the US will begin a blockade of the strait of Hormuz, after ceasefire talks with Iran ended without an agreement over the weekend. The strait has emerged as Iran’s most effective weapon in its asymmetric war with the US. Since 28 February, the US and Israel have pounded Iran, striking thousands of targets and killing dozens of the country’s most senior leaders. Iran has responded by effectively closing the strait – a vital waterway through which in normal times about 20% of global oil moves – driving up oil prices and fuelling fears of a rise in inflation. The threat…

Representative Eric Swalwell, the Democratic frontrunner in the fiercely contested race to be governor of California, has suspended his campaign amid a series of sexual assault and misconduct allegations by a former staff member and at least three other women. The woman who worked for Swalwell said the California congressman had sexually assaulted her twice when she was too inebriated to consent, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle, which was published on Friday. Three other women also accused Swalwell of misconduct, according to CNN. The women said Swalwell had sent them…

Bernie Sanders has sounded an alarm over the US economy, warning “the worst is yet to come” unless workers overcome a “ruling class” of billionaires. Related: US inflation soars in March as war on Iran drives economy into uncertainty The US senator spoke at a rally in Manhattan on Sunday alongside Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, who cautioned that artificial intelligence was “coming for human jobs” amid mounting concern over the technology’s rapid development. As the pair headlined the launch of Union Now, a new drive to boost labor unions across the US, Sanders issued a bleak…