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Posted by Nicola Davis Science correspondent

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/27/uk-spring-sunshine-prompts-warnings-over-unsafe-fake-designer-sunglasses

Experts say counterfeits lack UV filters, increasing the risk of eye damage, and urge shoppers to check for safety marks

While many will be enjoying the spring sunshine, experts have cautioned against wearing fake designer sunglasses, warning they could do more harm than good.

As the College of Optometrists notes, sunglasses not only protect the eyes against glare on sunny days, but can also shield them from harmful ultraviolet (UV) light.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/27/uk-spring-sunshine-prompts-warnings-over-unsafe-fake-designer-sunglasses

Posted by Ashifa Kassam European community affairs correspondent

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/27/pro-choice-campaign-malta-lockboxes-containing-abortion-pills

Critics hit out at ‘dire’ situation in the country which has the strictest laws around abortion in western Europe

Rights campaigners have affixed lockboxes containing abortion pills to sites across Malta, in a campaign designed to highlight the country’s near-total ban on abortion.

The 15 black boxes aim to provide practical help to women grappling with the EU’s strictest abortion laws; anyone who is less than nine weeks pregnant and in need of an abortion is invited to send an email to obtain the location and codes to access the pills.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/27/pro-choice-campaign-malta-lockboxes-containing-abortion-pills

Posted by Alexandra Coghlan

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/27/schwarzman-centre-grand-opening-review-oxford

Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford
The Sohmen Concert Hall’s acoustics made Scottish Ensemble’s Shostakovich pinprick clear, while the Great Hall showcased Devlin and Muhly’s ‘choral installation’

In 1676 London musician Thomas Mace proposed a bold idea. Instead of enduring the “inconveniences of talking, crowding, sweating and blustering”, audiences should be able to enjoy music in a dedicated space: a “musick room … convenient and fit to perform in”. For the first time concert-going was open to anyone for the price of a ticket, though this hungry new audience had to wait until 1748 and the construction of Oxford’s Holywell Music Room – Europe’s oldest custom-built public concert hall – for the fulfilment of Mace’s vision and a room of their own.

Since then, concert halls have become a mirror to changing fashions, priorities and politics. Compare the gorgeous fantasy of the 19th-century’s Royal Albert Hall to the sleek postwar functionality of the Royal Festival Hall. In Oxford the Holywell has since been joined by several others, though none without their issues – until now.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/27/schwarzman-centre-grand-opening-review-oxford

Posted by Angela Giuffrida in Rome

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/27/venice-opera-house-fires-incoming-music-director-who-made-nepotism-claims

Appointment of Beatrice Venezi had been strongly opposed by orchestra musicians and staff

• Europe live – latest updates

Teatro La Fenice, the prestigious Venice opera house, has fired its incoming music director after she insinuated its hiring practices were nepotistic, with jobs “practically passed down from father to son”.

After months of controversy over the appointment of Beatrice Venezi, La Fenice Foundation said on Sunday it had decided to “cancel all future collaborations” with the 36-year-old conductor and pianist.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/27/venice-opera-house-fires-incoming-music-director-who-made-nepotism-claims

Posted by Tanya Aldred at the Oval

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/apr/27/surrey-v-essex-yorkshire-v-sussex-and-more-county-cricket-day-four-live

Updates from day four of the latest round of matches
Sign up to The Spin | Email Tanya or comment BTL

And another one down for Derbyshire, Andersson for a two-ball duck to Will Williams, who is having quite a game.

Good and bad news for Derbyshire fans – Matthew Montgomery has 50, but nightwatchman Ben Aitchison is out. Derbys 125-4, still trail Gloucs by 92.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/apr/27/surrey-v-essex-yorkshire-v-sussex-and-more-county-cricket-day-four-live

Posted by Arifa Akbar

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/27/omar-sharif-chichester-hannah-khalil-doctor-zhivago

Hannah Khalil’s new play sprang from her surprise at seeing the great Egyptian actor had performed at the Festival theatre in the 1980s. She explains how it entwined with a story of her mixed-heritage identity

A few years ago the playwright Hannah Khalil was queuing for the loos at Chichester Festival theatre when she spotted Omar Sharif, in a prince’s costume, on the wall. The photograph was part of a gallery showing stars who had graced the Chichester stage. “I was like: ‘Omar, what the hell are you doing in Chichester?’” says Khalil. “I really wanted to know more.”

You could call that moment a bolt out of the loo: instantly, it set her on the trail of her latest play, Love Omar. When had the Egyptian actor visited Sussex and what had local audiences made of him? Khalil’s director husband, Chris White, hails from Chichester. “I began asking his parents because they have lived there for a long time,” she says. “They vaguely remembered him coming to do the show.”

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/27/omar-sharif-chichester-hannah-khalil-doctor-zhivago

Posted by Maanvi Singh

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/27/texas-ice-family-detention

After fleeing India, a family of four is being detained in a controversial Texas facility, facing deteriorating health, inedible food and substandard education

Three months ago, Manpreet was looking forward to her 11th birthday party. Her brother Guri, 12, was excited about his class field trip for Black history month.

Now their future looks like a void.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/27/texas-ice-family-detention

Posted by Phil Hoad

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/apr/27/brute-1976-review-throwback-slasher-summons-up-spirit-of-texas-chain-saw-massacre

Aiming to subvert the all-American exploitation film with progressive comment and a touch of diversity, this horror soon reverts to hokey tropes and carnage

‘The world is changing. I can feel it – don’t you?” says black model Roxy (Adriane McLean), before donning her stars’n’stripes bikini and getting fabulous with white colleague Sunshine (Sarah French) for an American bicentenary magazine covershoot. This overcooked 1976-set slasher flick tries to bake in progressive political comment from the start, but it’s clear from the chainsaw-toting maniac in the prologue, and a reference to a then-recently released film, that director Marcel Walz really pledges allegiance to the flag of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – and that this will be essentially a throwback affair.

Makeup artist Sunshine is stepping in front of the camera after first-choice model Raquel (Gigi Gustin), seen ill-advisedly nosing around a set of desert tunnels with her girlfriend in the intro, fails to show. On the hunt for locations, the fashion squad – also including caftaned photographer Jordy (Adam Bucci), pothead driver Charlie (Robert Felsted Jr), and assorted hangers-on – stumble into prime ruin-porn in the wreckage-strewn outpost of Savage. The name prompts tittering meta chat about what things might happen to them there, and they ignore folksy bystander Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette) when she gives them the lowdown on the town’s violent past.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/apr/27/brute-1976-review-throwback-slasher-summons-up-spirit-of-texas-chain-saw-massacre

Posted by Shada Islam

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/27/orban-europe-eu-racism-migration-border

EU leaders have normalised once fringe racist narratives in their migration, border control and even foreign policies

For years, Viktor Orbán, with his anti-migrant and white Christian nationalist rhetoric – sentiments that endeared him to Donald Trump and his Maga base – offered his European counterparts the comforting fiction that racism in the EU was the preserve of a few unsavoury men and women. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Racism is not the work of one individual. It is structural. Racial logic is woven into our laws as well as our political, economic and social systems. It shapes access to jobs, housing, education and justice. It informs policing practices, border controls and foreign policy choices. Racialised biases are being stamped into our AI tools. A major scandal in the Netherlands arose because algorithms used to process childcare benefits wrongly flagged thousands of Dutch parents as fraudsters. A form of racial profiling left ethnic minority or migrant heritage families disproportionately impacted. The victims suffered devastating consequences including severe debt, forced evictions and wrongful prison terms and many are still struggling to recover.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/27/orban-europe-eu-racism-migration-border

Posted by Jakub Krupa

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/27/europe-ukraine-russia-poland-germany-eu-latest-news-updates

Across country, at least 14 have been injured as Zelenskyy highlights importance of air defences

Back to foreign affairs, Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the German ambassador over a meeting in Kyiv between a German lawmaker and a Chechen separatist who Moscow says leads a “terrorist” organisation, Reuters reported.

Russia said it had lodged a complaint with German ambassador Alexander Lambsdorff over what it said were talks between Bundestag deputy Roderich Kiesewetter and Akhmed Zakayev, whom Moscow says leads the outlawed “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/27/europe-ukraine-russia-poland-germany-eu-latest-news-updates