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Music
‘This keeps the dream alive’: the bands sleeping at venues to make touring work
Sundus Abdi
Tue 19 May 2026 15.00 CESTLast modified on Tue 19 May 2026 20.05 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/19/bands-sleeping-at-venues-to-make-touring-work

T ouring has become increasingly financially precarious for grassroots artists, pinched by issues including the cost of living crisis and increasing fuel costs. But a growing number of UK music venues are attempting a simple but potentially transformative fix: giving bands somewhere to sleep.

This month, the Music Venue Trust charity announced a new wave of funding initiatives to rebuild infrastructure for touring musicians, including schemes focused on artist accommodation: unused spaces in venues could be converted into rooms for touring musicians, in an effort to cut costs and make smaller tours more viable. “Accommodation costs are limiting touring options and venues, especially in rural locations where there may not be lots of accommodation choices,” says Mark Davyd, the charity’s chief executive.

One of the first venues involved is Voodoo Daddy’s in Norwich: the site is currently being refreshed throughout, with new shower facilities and triple-stack bunk beds installed for touring artists. Owner Ben Street says the project emerged from conversations with musicians who were struggling to make the numbers work. “There’s so many times that we’d have international artists discussing the fee and trying to get over here, and one of the big issues was they were trying to cover the cost of accommodation,” he says. With a tour party of six or seven, “the cost of that was just really difficult”. Rather than charging separately for rooms, Street says accommodation costs are currently being folded into performance deals: artists may accept a slightly lower guaranteed fee in exchange for staying at the venue, but avoid paying far higher hotel costs elsewhere in the city.

Previously, he said, artists would often rush off after shows: “They’d stay at a Travelodge on a motorway, or a Premier Inn way out, because it’s cheaper. That means they finish the show, have to really quickly pack up and just disappear. It just wasn’t a nice experience for anyone.”

Now, he hopes artists will be able to stay on site, spend more time with audiences and reduce travel costs at the same time. “They can sign some merch, we can have a drink with them after. It just makes the whole experience way nicer and financially viable.”

The idea is being greeted with enthusiasm by artists. “Accommodation is an amazing perk that helps international acts survive on the road,” say the Jump Cuts, a Florida-based indie rock band who are due to stay at Voodoo Daddy’s later this year. “Everyone’s touring on razor-thin margins. This setup helps keep the dream alive for smaller bands to still go on tour despite the rising costs of pretty much everything.”

Street says the idea is also informed by his own years spent touring in bands. He remembers touring in Europe “where smaller grassroots or independent venues would have accommodation included and have amazing catering as well,” he says.

Is he worried about someone launching a TV through a window in time-honoured style? “Bands on tour can cause havoc,” he admits. “But I feel confident that most artists will appreciate what we’re doing and look after our little band hotel.”

Other venues see the move as a way of strengthening local live scenes and competing for touring acts who are forced to streamline their routes to save money. The Cornish Bank in Falmouth has allowed artists to stay in residencies where they create new work , and at Leicester venue Firebug, owner Matt Kirk believes offering accommodation could help attract artists who might otherwise bypass the city altogether. “If we have the infrastructure to go, ‘Don’t go to Nottingham, come to Leicester,’ that’s huge,” he says.

Kirk also argues that lowering venue costs could benefit audiences as much as promoters. Because accommodation costs aren’t factored in to the deal between venues, promoters and artists, “we can reduce the ticket price to make it more affordable. Twenty quid is actually quite a lot of money for people nowadays.”

As grassroots venues continue to fight rising costs and shrinking margins, MVT hopes these projects can offer something more sustainable than short-term emergency support. Davyd says the trust is already in conversations with 27 venues about developing accommodation facilities, with roughly half of MVT’s member venues having potentially usable space. “Not all of them will house all the bands on tour, and not all of them can be available all the time,” he says. “But if we can significantly drop the cost of accommodation as a factor for touring for the grassroots, it’s going to result in a lot more touring.”

Pensions
The Guardian view on saving for old age: alarming shortfalls set the scene for a pensions overhaul
Editorial
Tue 19 May 2026 19.37 CESTLast modified on Tue 19 May 2026 22.23 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/19/the-guardian-view-on-saving-for-old-age-alarming-shortfalls-set-the-scene-for-a-pensions-overhaul

R ecommendations from the government-backed Pensions Commission are not due until next year. But its interim warning that at least 15 million Britons are not saving enough for retirement already signals the scale of the challenge. The trend towards increasing longevity means that the issue of retirement incomes is unavoidable. At some point during the next decade, a threshold is expected to be reached whereby there are three pensioners for every 10 working-age adults.

The decision to reconvene this expert group was a good one. The automatic enrolment system it proposed has been a success, with around 90% of eligible employees signing up since 2012, along with their employers. But millions of low-paid workers, as well as the vast majority of self-employed people, face an uncertain future unless they too are helped to plan and save. One suggestion, made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) as part of its own pensions review , was that HM Revenue and Customs could oversee a system whereby self-employed taxpayers would be enabled to make pension contributions at the same time as paying their tax bill.

Of the system’s three pillars – auto-enrolment, the state pension and voluntary individual saving – the commission judges the last to be the weakest. One issue is whether people are saving enough to top up their state pension (currently £241.30 a week or £12,547.60 a year) to a level at which they will be satisfied with their income. Another is how these additional savings are managed. Since no one knows exactly how long they are going to live, or what their needs will be, decisions can be difficult even for financial experts. The report implies that changes made under the Conservatives and designed to boost pensioner freedoms were ill-advised. UK retirees have far greater flexibility than their peers in most countries, and those withdrawing lump sums are at risk of running down their savings too quickly. A rebalancing towards a more cautious default is likely to be among next year’s recommendations.

Inequalities of various kinds also require addressing. The gender pensions gap is far larger than the pay gap, with women approaching retirement holding half the savings of men on average (a median figure of £81,000 versus £156,000). The commission has rightly indicated that policies to tackle this disparity will be a priority. While the retirement age has now been equalised, women’s greater longevity means that the average woman needs to support herself through retirement for longer than the average man. Some ethnic groups are also overrepresented among those with inadequate savings.

The commission’s remit excludes the triple lock , which is used to uprate the state pension, and this report ignores it. Any change to the current system is highly unlikely during this parliament. But it is worth noting the IFS’s view that were the pension age to be raised again, as a way of reining in costs, this would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest pensioners who live the longest, while poorer pensioners would have their retirements further shortened.

The warning of a savings shortfall must be treated seriously. Pensioner poverty has fallen in recent decades relative to poverty in other age groups and must be prevented from climbing up again. But the success of auto-enrolment is a reason for cautious optimism about what comes next. Unlike the impasse over social care funding, the pensions system has shown a capacity to adapt.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

From Amazon to Meta: how the world’s biggest companies are securing supplies of low-carbon energy
Rhymer Rigby
Tue 17 Mar 2026 16.01 CETLast modified on Wed 18 Mar 2026 11.22 CET
News
https://www.theguardian.com/the-grid/2026/mar/17/how-big-tech-companies-are-securing-low-carbon-energy

The war in the Middle East this year has given us a stark reminder of how global events can have a huge impact on domestic energy prices. It follows earlier systemic shocks to global energy supplies, from the oil crises of the 1970s to the energy price spikes in 2021-2023 as the world came out of Covid lockdowns and then grappled with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While each of those dramatic disruptions had a well-documented impact on the consumer market, power-hungry businesses and energy suppliers felt the brunt. That’s why many organisations want to fix their energy costs to avoid price spikes, flatten out the peaks and troughs or volatility and give more certainty over the longer term.

How power purchase agreements work

One way of doing this is with power purchase agreements (PPAs). Being familiar with them can give you a fuller understanding of the clean energy grid – how clean energy markets work and how these agreements help companies reduce their carbon footprint.

Put simply, PPAs lock in a long-term price at which a business or supplier can buy energy. The prices may be somewhat higher than the wholesale price, but if the price climbs they can offer significant savings. In this sense, they are much like fixed mortgages. They work for both businesses and energy providers. Businesses like to be able to forecast their costs accurately and energy generators like to be able to forecast their income.

It isn’t just rising wholesale prices that make PPAs attractive. Renewable energy is another increasingly important driver. Renewables such as offshore windfarms have huge upfront investment costs and the debt incurred raising capital needs to be serviced. Knowing there is a reliable income stream that could last between five and 20 years (the typical duration of PPAs) makes investment decisions of this nature much easier.

Sustainability reporting

But PPAs are about much more than financial risk management. Businesses and energy suppliers who use PPAs are not just buying the energy, they are buying a guarantee of origin. Thus, the environmental attributes of the project in question can enable a business or energy supplier to state that it is powered by low or net zero energy. The companies still normally get their energy from the grid but they will have a certificate saying that the amount of energy they used was generated by renewables.

This can help companies deliver more robust sustainability reporting. Likewise, it can help assure customers who are trying to reduce their own carbon footprints.

There is another benefit when it comes to PPAs and clean energy. Nowadays, energy from renewables is generally cheaper to generate than energy from gas. However, wholesale electricity prices in Britain are determined by the most expensive source of energy generation available. This is known as a marginal pricing system and means the most expensive power source, which is most often gas, determines the price for all electricity . But if a company commits to buying large quantities of renewable energy over a long period a green energy generator may also be able to offer businesses (and energy suppliers) lower prices.

There are other facets to PPAs. Some will cover energy produced “privately”. This might, for instance, be from solar panels on a company’s site or nearby and will bypass the public grid altogether.

A booming market for PPAs

PPAs have become big business in recent years. According to BloombergNEF’s Corporate Energy Market Outlook report , in 2023, private companies and public institutions signed PPA contracts to secure 46 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy to power their operations – over 12% more than in 2022. The US market, which declined slightly last year, is the biggest, followed by Europe which is growing fast. Since 2008, companies have signed PPAs for almost 200 GW of clean energy . This is more than the generating capacity of countries such as France, the UK and South Korea.

Iberdrola, the world’s second-largest electricity utility company, which owns Scottish Power in the UK, has been using PPAs for more than a decade. It is the biggest player in Europe and in 2024 signed 15 PPAs totalling 1.25 GW, an increase of 38% over 2023. It has signed PPAs in the US, UK, Spain, Mexico and Australia and its corporate clients include Amazon, Apple, Meta and Heineken. Amazon is one of the biggest corporate buyers of clean energy in the world: in 2023, it bought 8.8 GW of PPAs ; Meta bought more than 3 GW.

Recently, in the UK, Iberdrola signed a PPA with Amazon associated with the East Anglia THREE offshore windfarm, as well as another with Co-op supermarkets, associated with a photovoltaic solar plant for about 170 MW.

For all of these companies, these deals are tools that help them decarbonise their operations. They also ensure that long-term plans can be made and that price shocks will not happen. Increasingly, they are part of a green future that makes both environmental and business sense.

Prediction markets
Gambling addicts are struggling as Kalshi and Polymarket explode in the US: ‘You could be betting your rent away’
Alaina Demopoulos
Tue 19 May 2026 16.58 CESTLast modified on Tue 19 May 2026 17.25 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/19/kalshi-polymarket-gambling-addiction-sports-betting

When Kevin first heard about the prediction market Kalshi, he knew deep down it would be wise to stay away. Kalshi reminded him of a weakness of his: sports betting .

Kevin, who is 36 and works in law enforcement in Texas, has been a gambling addict for 18 years. It’s a problem that cost him his first marriage and forced him to file for bankruptcy.

Sports betting is illegal in Texas, so Kevin used a bookie based out of the state – until his second wife changed the passwords to his bookie account. Going to a physical casino required him to get in the car and drive. But Kalshi was right there: “I could still do my sports thing and it was actually legal.” (He requested to go only by first name to speak about sensitive matters.)

Despite being a recovering gambling addict, Kevin created a Kalshi account last summer, assuring his wife he wasn’t gambling. “I kind of swindled her into saying Kalshi was like stocks,” he said – not so difficult a sell, considering Kalshi describes itself as operating “like a stock exchange for events”.

The prediction market Kalshi allows more than 5 million monthly users to “trade” or place wagers on what might happen in pop culture, politics, weather or any real-world event with an uncertain outcome. Sports are an enormously popular category on these platforms, which make money by charging fees for trading. Kalshi’s competitor Polymarket, which operates similarly, is making a return to the states.

In the past year the boom in prediction markets – and their unscrupulous nature – has inspired parodies on SNL and South Park. Viewers of this year’s Golden Globes were treated to real-time Polymarket odds for category winners during the telecast, whether they liked it or not; the collaboration was widely panned as gauche. During the Super Bowl, Kalshi surpassed $1bn in trading, up 2,700% over the previous year.

They have surged in popularity as researchers report a dramatic rise in Americans seeking gambling addiction help. This began even before the introduction of prediction markets: in 2018, the US supreme court legalized sports betting and paved the way for online sportsbooks such as DraftKings and FanDuel, which have also exploded in the US.

Experts and people who experience problem gambling say that though prediction markets are not subject to the same oversight as sportsbooks, they are just as addictive. They say US regulators are not doing enough to keep users safe.

“The more people gamble, the more activities they gamble on, and the more ways they gamble, the more likely they are to develop a problem,” said Lia Nower, director of Rutgers University’s center for gambling studies, via email. “So, on average, unregulated markets like Kalshi and Polymarket will have an additive effect to the legal forms of gambling. This will likely contribute to increasing rates of problem gambling in the years to come.”

For Kevin, it took less than a year for him to get himself back on the wagon. In that time he estimates that he lost $5,000-10,000 on Kalshi – enough to “substantially impact” his family’s finances. “You can just be in your boxers laying in bed, betting your rent away,” he said.

Most gamblers lose money, and prediction markets are no different. Seven in 10 traders record losses on Polymarket, according to the Wall Street Journal, and a tiny percentage of accounts make 67% of profits. (Polymarket declined to comment on the journal’s numbers.) Kalshi told the journal that there were 2.9 unprofitable users for every profitable one in April.

But prediction markets draw careful distinctions between themselves and gambling platforms in other ways.

In sports betting or at a casino, players bet against a bookie who keeps their own sets of odds. State gambling commissions or tribal gaming agencies monitor for suspicious behavior from bookies, and generate taxes that fund public services. Online sportsbooks such as DraftKings can only operate in states where sports betting is legal, with age restrictions between 18 and 21, depending on the state.

Prediction markets differ in that there is no traditional “house” to bet against, according to the companies. Users trade against each other, similar to futures markets. Therefore, Kalshi and Polymarket do not have to comply with state gambling regulations. Instead, prediction markets are overseen on the federal level by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), better known for controlling the derivatives and commodities markets.

Kalshi is available in all 50 states to users aged 18 and older. As of last week, US users who are 18 and up can start trading on some categories on a new Polymarket app. In 2022, the CFTC fined Polymarket $1.4m and sent it a cease-and-desist order due to regulatory violations. This setback led to Polymarket banning US users, though some still found ways to reach it using VPNs. (Using a VPN to access Polymarket violates its terms and conditions.)

Public health advocates and state lawmakers are increasingly concerned that the distinction between prediction markets and online gambling is functionally meaningless. “The prediction market platforms may take umbrage at the idea that they’re gambling platforms. The rest of the world needs to recognize that they are,” said Benjamin Schiffrin, director of security policies for Better Markets, a non-profit promoting public interest in financial markets and reform on Wall Street.

Kevin, a seasoned gambler, also fails to see much of a difference. “If you look at an app on your phone for bookie betting and Kalshi, it’s the same stuff – numbers and stats, it’s just dressed up a bit differently,” he said. “There’s a language that you already are primed to know through other types of gambling.”

According to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) nearly 20 million Americans reported experiencing problematic gambling in 2024. Gambling addiction can financially cripple entire families. It can also be difficult to identify – you might not know a loved one has a gambling problem until they burn through half their savings. One in five problem gamblers attempt suicide; this is the highest rate of any addiction disorder.

Nower said that treatment for gambling addiction looks the same whether someone wagered on prediction markets or online gambling sites. “But [abuse] prevention and education will vary, as a lot of people view prediction markets as ‘not gambling’ because they aren’t regulated like other forms of gambling,” she said.

The NCPG runs a helpline; in February the board of directors called on prediction markets to promote the helpline on their platforms like sports betting platforms do. Currently Kalshi links to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and Birches Health, a treatment provider for “digital addictions and compulsive behaviors”, on a policy page that does not use the terms “gambling” or “addiction”. Polymarket does not refer users to a helpline.

This week, Kalshi announced a $2m investment in the NCPG that will “expand consumer education campaigns, increase awareness of the warning signs of problematic behavior, and promote responsible trading and healthy decision-making”. It will not start promoting the gambling hotline on its platforms. Kalshi’s head of communications, Elisabeth Diana, said a conversation about doing so “is still ongoing” internally.

Kalshi makes money by charging small fees on trades; traditional gambling venues profit off of players’ losses. This is a message Kalshi representatives push in response to claims that prediction markets can exacerbate gambling addictions. “With prediction markets, there’s no incentive to make people lose, and we think that’s a fundamental difference and creates a less predatory, fairer, more transparent incentive,” Diana said.

Polymarket declined to comment on this story.

Polymarket and Kalshi advertising can be hard to avoid for people in recovery for gambling addiction.

Rob Minnick placed his last bet in November 2022. Kalshi and Polymarket existed when he was in the throes of dependency (the brands were founded in 2018 and 2020, respectively), but were not nearly as popular. He bet online with sportsbooks and in casinos, spending six to eight hours a day on his habit. Minnick now creates gambling recovery content on YouTube, where he has more than 38,000 followers.

These videos generate money through ads, and he is careful to block ads that have to do with gambling, casinos or “every conceivable category of trading” so people on the brink of sobriety do not have to sit through potentially triggering advertisements. But about a year ago, Kalshi promotions found their way on to his page.

“I have no idea how it showed up on my feed,” Minnick said. “They are sneaking through advertising in places where they really shouldn’t be, such as podcasts about gambling addictions [like mine].”

The fact that the ads got through Minnick’s blocker disturbed him so much that he asked his lawyer to send a cease-and-desist letter to Kalshi. “Common sense, decency, and the consumer protection laws of several states dictate that Kalshi ads should not be running on a channel dedicated to helping vulnerable people struggling with gambling-related harm,” the letter reads.

A Kalshi representative never confirmed receipt of the letter, but the advertising stopped shortly after. “My interpretation is that these businesses are pushing the line until someone says something and then backing off because they know that what they’re doing is not good,” Minnick said. “It’s the same beast in a new set of clothes.” (Diana declined to comment.)

A 2025 study conducted by the American Gaming Association found that 85% of Americans believe prediction markets’ sports categories amount to gambling, and almost as many said they should be regulated as such. At least 13 federal lawsuits have been filed that accuse Kalshi of an operating unlicensed gambling platform or being an illegal service that worsens gambling addiction, according to NPR. In response to the lawsuits, Diana told the Guardian: “We operate fundamentally differently than a casino or a sportsbook, and so we’re confident in our legal position on it.”

But Kalshi and Polymarket have powerful allies : Donald Trump Jr serves as an adviser to both, and Truth Social is developing its own prediction market called Truth Predict. Donald Trump has expressed some distaste for prediction markets, but last month his administration sued Connecticut, Arizona, and Illinois in an attempt to block state regulations on prediction markets.

Last week, US regulators indicated they have no appetite for reclassifying prediction markets as gambling, with the CFTC’s chair, Michael Selig, calling prediction markets and sportsbooks “two separate things”.

Prediction market evangelists are inescapable on social media, where influencers peddle the brands as a way for cash-strapped young people to make money in a difficult economy. Kalshi and Polymarket have zeroed in on college campuses, handing out branded swag and sponsoring frat parties in exchange for mass account signups. And though users still skew heavily male, Kalshi has enlisted female influencers to court more women.

Given the reach and availability to young adults under 21, experts say prediction markets are probably creating future addicts who might not have otherwise stepped foot in a casino or placed a traditional sports bet.

The younger someone is when they begin gambling, the more likely they are to develop a substance-use disorder – this is true for drugs, alcohol and gambling, said Alexandra Plante, a senior adviser on substance-use disorder at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. “Gambling preys on the adolescent brain in a very unique way,” she said. “The data is starting to reveal this big bus headed straight for us.”

Young men are of particular concern. A July study by Common Sense Media found that roughly a third of 11-year-old boys reported gambling in the past year. By age 17, that amount rose to almost half.

“White guys, 18 to 24. That’s it. That’s all we see,” Timothy Fong, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s gambling studies program, recently told the science quarterly Nautilus in an interview about gambling addiction in the age of Polymarket. “The last 20 calls I’ve had for help were 18- to 24-year-old white guys with good families, who were highly educated, tech savvy, but had run into some trouble.”

The NBA, PGA Tour and NCAA have called for US regulators to raise the legal age for prediction markets to 21, while Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, said that Kalshi’s minimum age should remain 18, to match the minimum age for investing in the stock market. “We’re a financial exchange, and so it’s no different than allowing 18-year-olds to use a financial exchange, which they’re allowed to do,” Diana said. (Polymarket has not commented on its minimum age.)

This month, Mansour announced new rules to curb underage use on Kalshi, including the use of facial recognition technology to make it more difficult for kids to use their parents’ accounts.

Kevin still remembers how his grandma loved to gamble. As a child growing up in Minnesota, his family took trips to casinos located on Indigenous reservations. “There would be six feet of snow outside, but it was warm in there, and exciting,” Kevin remembered. He believes that exposure may have led him to develop a bad habit. As an 18-year-old navy recruit stationed in Japan, he would visit Pachinko slot machines whenever he felt homesick.

Now a father of two children who are under three years old, Kevin wants to shield his kids from any problem gambling. He placed his last Kalshi bet about six months ago, and has not had a “big slip” since then. He attends counseling twice a week, and his wife is in charge of all their finances. He installed an app called Bark on his phone, intended for parents to monitor their children’s screentime, which prohibits him from accessing Kalshi or other prediction markets.

“It sucks, but it’s what I need,” he said.

In the US, call the National Council on Problem Gambling on 1-800-MY-RESET. In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found via the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic on 020 7381 7722, or GamCare on 0808 8020 133. In Australia, Gambling Help Online is available on 1800 858 858 and the National Debt Helpline is at 1800 007 007

Hantavirus
Tell us: have you been affected by the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak?
Guardian community team
Mon 11 May 2026 14.32 CESTLast modified on Mon 11 May 2026 15.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/11/tell-us-have-you-been-affected-by-the-cruise-ship-hantavirus-outbreak

Twenty Britons from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak continue to be offered practical and emotional support as they isolate at a UK hospital.

Along with the 20 British nationals, a German who is a UK resident, and a Japanese passenger, were taken to Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral on Sunday after the MV Hondius docked in Tenerife.

Three passengers who boarded the cruise ship have died. Eight people no longer on the vessel have fallen ill, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) tally from Friday, of whom six are confirmed to have contracted the virus. The WHO said its goal was to finish the ship’s evacuation, with the exception of 30 crew members remaining on board, by 7pm on Monday [11 May].

If you, a friend or a family member has been affected in any way by the outbreak, we would like to hear from you.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Laws of football
Uefa will not follow Fifa’s lead on red cards for mouth-covering or walk-offs
Matt Hughes
Tue 19 May 2026 13.00 CESTLast modified on Tue 19 May 2026 19.28 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/19/uefa-fifa-lead-red-card-mouth-covering-walk-off-world-cup

Uefa has opted against following Fifa’s lead and introducing automatic red cards for players who cover their mouths when confronting an opponent or leave the pitch in protest at a refereeing decision.

Football’s lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board (Ifab), approved those regulations last month after prompting from Fifa and they will take effect on 1 June, with match officials instructed to apply them at the World Cup. But Uefa’s decision means they will not apply in the men’s and women’s Champions Leagues or its other club competitions.

Fifa was responding to two major controversies this year that it is determined to avoid recurring at the World Cup, one of which took place during a Champions League game.

Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of racially abusing him while covering his mouth with his shirt during a Champions League game in February. The Argentinian was given a six-game ban by Uefa, with three of those matches suspended for a two-year period, after being found guilty of homophobic conduct.

In January the final of the Africa Cup of Nations was marred by Senegal players leaving the pitch for 15 minutes in protest at Morocco being awarded a late penalty.

Morocco’s Brahim Díaz missed from the spot and Senegal won in extra time, but the Confederation of African Football’s appeals committee declared Morocco 3-0 winners in March, a decision Senegal have appealed against at the court of arbitration for sport.

Ifab has not mandated that the rule changes be enforced in all competitions. Uefa’s executive committee will meet for the final time this season in Istanbul on Wednesday and it is understood no regulation changes are on the agenda.

After the ExCo meeting Uefa’s club competitions committee will sign off next season’s regulations for its men’s and women’s tournaments in Leipzig next week, with no significant changes expected.

Uefa sources said that its referees committee would monitor the impact of the new regulations during the World Cup with a view to discussing potential changes during next season.

Domestic leagues have discretion over whether to introduce the regulations. The Premier League will confirm its plans for next season after the clubs’ AGM next month. Given only Fifa has committed to introducing the rules at this stage, it is unlikely they will be adopted.

Spain
Former Spanish PM under criminal investigation as €53m bailout of airline examined
Sam Jones
Tue 19 May 2026 15.08 CESTFirst published on Tue 19 May 2026 13.43 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/19/spanish-ex-pm-criminal-investigation-bailout-airline-rodriguez-zapatero

The former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been placed under investigation for alleged influence-peddling and other offences by a judge examining the state bailout of a Venezuela-linked airline during the Covid pandemic.

Zapatero, a socialist who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011, has been ordered to appear before Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, on 2 June.

Although other former and serving Spanish prime ministers have been called to testify in corruption cases, this is the first time a former prime minister has been placed under criminal investigation.

The latest investigation is part of an inquiry into the €53m (£46m) state rescue of the Spanish airline Plus Ultra in March 2021. Prosecutors are examining whether the company made “inadequate use” of the public funds the government approved for the bailout, while anti-corruption police are investigating whether the airline used the rescue money to launder funds from Venezuela through France, Switzerland and Spain.

According to the investigating judge, Zapatero is alleged to have overseen “a hierarchical structure of influence peddling”, whose purpose was “to obtain economic benefits through intermediation and the exercise of influence before public bodies in favour of third parties, mainly Plus Ultra”.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the court said the judge had authorised police to search Zapatero’s office as well as those of three other companies.

Zapatero released a video in which he insisted on his innocence and stated his willingness to cooperate with the investigation.

“I’d like to reaffirm that all my public and private activity has always been conducted with absolute respect for the law,” he said, adding he had never carried out “any action” relating to the airline’s bailout.

Zapatero’s denials echoed his appearance before a senate committee in March , where he said he “had never taken any commissions from Plus Ultra”. But he did tell the committee he had done some consultancy work for his friend Julio Martínez Martínez, a businessman who worked with Plus Ultra and who was arrested by anti-corruption officers in December last year.

Appearing before the senate committee in February, Plus Ultra’s president, Julio Martínez Sola, insisted that bailout had been conducted in complete compliance with the relevant laws. “There was no exceptional procedure outside the norm; there was no preferential treatment or undue interference; there was no illicit aid,” he said. “There was a regulated process, with controls, reports, and very strict conditions that have been met. Nobody has given us anything for free.”

Zapatero’s socialist successor as prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is facing a series of corruption allegations involving his family, his party and his administration.

Last month, Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, was charged with embezzlement, influence-peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds at the end of a two-year investigation by a judge in Madrid. The prime minister’s younger brother, David Sánchez, is also facing trial this month on charges of influence-peddling.

Both Gómez and David Sánchez deny any wrongdoing, and the prime minister has accused his political and media opponents of smearing and pursuing his family.

Two senior former figures in Sánchez’s government are on trial for alleged corruption . The prime minister’s former right-hand man, the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos, is accused – along with his former aide Koldo García and the businessman Víctor de Aldama – of taking kickbacks on public contracts for sanitary equipment during the Covid pandemic. Ábalos and García, who deny all charges, are facing sentences of 24 years and 19 years respectively while Aldama, who has already admitted to his part in the alleged scheme, faces a seven-year sentence.

The socialist party issued a statement in support of Zapatero on Tuesday, calling him a pioneering prime minister whose “two terms were defined by an ambitious programme to expand rights, equality, and social protection”. It added: “The right and the far right have never forgiven him for these advances.”

The opposition conservative People’s party described Zapatero’s as “Sánchez’s muse” and said, “the principle that links Spain’s two most recent socialist prime ministers is corruption … this indecency must end”.

Labour
Stop the anonymous briefings and show respect, two ministers tell Labour MPs
Peter Walker
Tue 19 May 2026 15.56 CESTLast modified on Tue 19 May 2026 15.57 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/19/stop-anonymous-briefings-respect-labour-cooper-reynolds

Two cabinet ministers have warned Labour colleagues against damaging anonymous briefings as the party prepares for a probable leadership contest, arguing it is disrespectful to voters to wage a factional war in public.

The comments by Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, and Jonathan Reynolds , the chief whip, came as Labour MPs gathered late on Monday for the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party.

There has been a volley of briefings since Labour’s terrible results in elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils, often attributed to “allies” or “supporters” of Keir Starmer or those with hopes of replacing him, such as Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham.

Cooper began by saying she had spent the weekend meeting former Labour councillors in her West Yorkshire constituency who had lost their seats on 7 May “to say sorry to them that they had to deal with national issues and problems in what should have been a local campaign”.

She said: “We need to deal with the aftermath of that, and there will be serious debates within our party about how we respond and how lessons are learned. But I would also say, based on nearly 30 years in parliament, that the way in which we debate matters.

“When it is being reported that ‘the things Labour people are saying about each other are unprintable’, I would just say, frankly, I don’t care who you are in our party, and what you think the answer is for the future, we treat each other with respect. And above all we show respect to people across the country who rely on us to keep focusing on the things that matter most to them.”

Speaking at the same event, Reynolds said he wanted to remind fellow Labour MPs that they should support each other, rather than brief damagingly.

“I just want to say, whatever else is going on, we are the government,” he said. “Our first duty, our first responsibility, is to do the work, to be responsible, to understand why we do everything we do, and that is our duty to our constituents, but it is also our duty each other.

“I just wanted to highlight that in terms of some of the comments and exchanges I’ve seen between colleagues in the past few days. Let us never forget, please, why we are here and who we are here to serve.”

Examples of anonymous briefings in recent days include supporters of Starmer saying Streeting had “bottled” a leadership bid; one that referred to 2024-intake MPs as “erratic” and inexperienced; and another calling Streeting “a recently crashed-out backbencher”.

By no means all the anonymous quotes come from MPs, with many originating from officials, advisers or others.

The net benefits of net zero: why there’s more to renewables than tackling the climate crisis
Rhymer Rigby
Mon 23 Mar 2026 17.20 CETLast modified on Mon 23 Mar 2026 17.21 CET
News
https://www.theguardian.com/the-grid/2026/mar/23/the-benefits-of-net-zero-beyond-climate-change

The environmental benefits of cleaner energy are well known. These range from mitigating climate change to eliminating pollution near generating sources. In the UK, decarbonising the electricity grid is already a big environmental success story. Greenhouse gas emissions attributable to electricity supply fell by more than 50% between 1990 and 2022, faster than any other source. Meanwhile, once widespread problems such as acid rain are a fading memory in many countries, especially in the west.

But there are myriad other benefits to having a clean energy network. Clean power generation and distribution are very much industries of the future and tend to deliver high value jobs. Better still, in countries like the UK and the US, these jobs are likely to be located outside the prosperous cities and are often in the areas that have been hit the hardest by industrial decline.

“The green economy, which is the second fastest growing sector globally, has the capacity to create well-paid jobs, revitalising communities across the country,” says James Alexander, CEO of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association.

Job creation

It is estimated that up to 300,000 more skilled workers are required to build out the network. As well as creating jobs building equipment and making components, these industries also deliver new jobs servicing infrastructure. The biggest ever rewiring of Britain’s electricity grid since electrification is now underway and creating tens of thousands of jobs in energy and its supply chains. ScottishPower’s SP Energy Networks will create 1,400 new jobs and support 11,000 more just in its transmission upgrades alone. It is also true of offshore wind, which requires significant maintenance by highly skilled workers. The number of people working in the offshore wind industry has risen from just over 32,000 in 2023 to almost 40,000 in 2025 – an increase of 24%. Altogether 55,000 people now work in the wind industry. These jobs typically pay well and are predominantly located in places where they often didn’t exist before – for instance in the UK’s coastal towns, particularly in the north-east of Scotland, east of England and the Humber. Decarbonised energy also creates jobs in related areas ranging from green finance to domestic retrofit.

Analysis by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) last year showed that the UK net zero economy (encompassing renewable energy and related activities such as green finance) grew by 10% in 2024 , far more strongly than the economy as a whole, generating £83bn in gross value added. The CBI further found that net zero businesses employed almost a million people and paid average salaries of £43,000, which is £5,600 higher than the national average. Speaking in January this year, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said: “There is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero. Quite the opposite. Net zero is the industrial opportunity of the 21st century.”

Cheaper bills

Green energy also holds out the possibility of significantly cheaper power. While renewables tend to be expensive to build, with high upfront costs, they provide cheaper power once built and aren’t exposed to the volatile global gas markets.

Of course, this isn’t just good for household consumers. Cheaper renewable power benefits existing industries, particularly those that are power intensive. One notable example of this outside the UK is Iceland, which is a major aluminium exporter despite having no bauxite (aluminium ore) mines. Rather, its abundant geothermal energy capacity makes it economical to ship in aluminium ore, smelt it and export low-carbon aluminium.

Although decarbonising the grid is often viewed as being about inputs (such as solar and wind power), the actual grid itself is equally crucial and requires significant investment and upgrading. “An economy powered by renewable energy will require an equally powerful electricity grid,” says Layla Sawyer, secretary general of CurrENT, which represents grid technology providers in Europe. “Investing in new, innovative technologies that can transport enormous quantities of electricity to the places where it is needed will allow Europe to remain an attractive location for industries that rely on cheap energy.”

National security

Another significant benefit of a decarbonised grid is national security. “For decades, the UK’s dependence on imported fossil fuels has left us hugely vulnerable to price shocks, threatening families and businesses,” says Alexander. “We can break this cycle by expanding our use of domestic renewable power.”

Energy security also has a strong geopolitical dimension. A country that is largely self-sufficient in terms of energy has more freedom to act if its interests suddenly diverge from those of major energy suppliers. This issue was thrown into sharp relief in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Gas prices spiked, and suddenly many European countries found themselves energy dependent on an aggressive neighbour. If that wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, this year’s war in the Middle East has given us the latest geopolitical lesson in the connection between national resilience and energy self-sufficiency.

Finally, there are the economic and geopolitical benefits of being at the forefront of technology in an ever more competitive world. Sawyer says: “We also have the chance to remain a global leader in the development of innovative grid technologies, while decreasing our reliance on imported fossil fuels, and the strings that are attached.”

Alexander adds: “Investors recognise the fundamental opportunities that a cleaner grid has for jobs, growth and our long-term energy security,”

Cannes film festival
Fjord review – Cristian Mungiu at sea with strange child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan
Peter Bradshaw
Mon 18 May 2026 19.26 CESTLast modified on Mon 18 May 2026 20.21 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/18/fjord-review-cristian-mungiu-at-sea-with-strange-child-abuse-drama-starring-renate-reinsve-and-sebastian-stan

R omanian director and Palme laureate Cristian Mungiu – the winner here in 2007 with his stunning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – comes to Cannes with an anticlimactic, underpowered movie which it seems to me could be part of an odd phenomenon at this year’s festival, detectable also in films here by Kantemir Balagov and Ryusuke Hamaguchi: auteurs making coproduction movies outside their home turf and mother tongue with big foreign stars, perhaps as a result of creative conversations at international film festivals with admirers from all over the world – and losing focus. Fjord is an odd film, bearing Mungiu’s signature, certainly, with enigmatic long shots and avoidance of closeups, and one very distinctive crowding of faces in a dinner-scene tableau. But the ostensible pain and trauma of its story is conveyed without the rewarding complexity that we have come to associate with him, and without revelation or mystery. Ultimately, the film does not compellingly deliver a blazing truth about its various relationships – but neither does it intriguingly withhold any such truth from us. Sebastian Stan plays a Romanian guy called Mihai, married to a Norwegian woman called Lisbet (Renate Reinsve); they have to come to live in the beautiful, remote village of Lisbet’s birth because Mihai, a qualified software engineer, can get an IT job and there is a strong church community thereabouts which is a great attraction as Mihai and Lisbet are fundamentalist conservative Christians who are very strict. They are given a warm welcome by their (non-Christian) neighbours, who are the school’s headteacher and his wife. The film begins on a disquieting, ambiguous moment: Mihai has clearly just delivered a punishment of some sort to their teenage daughter who is now required to give him a penitent hug. The school’s staff notice that the children have marks and bruises. They are gently but pointedly questioned and (perhaps) incriminate their parents because they are not sufficiently proficient in any language other than Romanian. Perhaps the language issue also contributes to the calamitous statement Mihai then gives to the police with no lawyer present. With lightning speed, the children are taken into provisional care pending a hearing and criminal trial. Things are complicated by a growing concern about their neighbours’ elderly disabled father and about Mihai and Lisbet’s daughter forming a close relationship with their neighbours’ rebellious teen daughter. There is something undoubtedly ingenious in the way Mungiu invites the audience to sympathise with the children, and side against this ice-cold patriarch – and then almost side with the patriarch against the blandly smug, supercilious officers of a system weighted against them. Liberal prejudice against them as Christians or as Romanians arguably plays its part. But the facts of the matter do not seem to be in doubt: Mihai concedes he smacks or slaps the children occasionally – quite normal in the robust world of Romania. But don’t those bruises and marks show something worse than that? The matter is not resolved in court or in the film and then we have a strangely inert and suspense-free finale at the ferry terminal which reveals that the relationship between the teen girls Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) is something else the film has not sufficiently told or not told us about. Mungiu’s technique will always be interesting but this is a disappointment.

Fjord screened at the Cannes film festival