Friday’s top story: landmark study finds antiretroviral drugs prevent HIV transmission. Plus, how our news habits are harming our mental health – and our democracy

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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Scientists hail ‘fantastic’ study that could herald end of Aids

The Aids epidemic could at last be approaching its final act, following a landmark study that found men whose HIV infection had been fully suppressed by antiretroviral drugs could not pass on the disease to their partners. If everyone with HIV were fully treated with the medicine, it would halt the spread of the virus that causes Aids. Prof Alison Rodger from University College London, who co-led the paper published in the Lancet, said the results were “fantastic”.

European study. Researchers surveyed 1,000 male couples in Europe where one partner with HIV was receiving treatment.

Global crisis. There is a long way to go, however. In 2017, almost 40 million people worldwide were living with HIV, only 21.7 million of whom were receiving antiretroviral treatment.

Pelosi accuses Barr of ‘crime’ for lying about Mueller report

Play Video 0:52 Nancy Pelosi accuses Barr of lying to Congress: 'That's a crime' - video

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has accused the US attorney general, William Barr, of a “crime” for lying to Congress about his handling of the Mueller report. Barr told lawmakers at a hearing last month he was unaware Robert Mueller had been unhappy with his characterisation of the Trump-Russia investigation. This week it emerged Mueller had written to Barr to complain that the attorney general’s memo summarising his findings “did not fully capture” their “context, nature, and substance”.

‘Deadly serious’. “The attorney general of the United States of America was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. “And that’s a crime.”

In contempt. Democrats have threatened to hold Barr in contempt of Congress after he refused to testify before the House judiciary committee.

Kushner: Middle East peace plan ‘very acceptable’ to Palestinians

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jared Kushner discusses the Trump administration’s peace efforts at a DC symposium on Thursday. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, has insisted his Middle East peace plan will be “very acceptable” to Palestinians, despite the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept mediation by the White House following Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and his administration’s alignment with Israel’s right wing. Speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Thursday, Kushner declined to give further details of the plan, which he is expected to unveil next month.

Two states? Kushner revealed his plan would avoid the term “two-state solution”, saying: “it means one thing to the Israelis, it means one thing to the Palestinians. We said, ‘you know, let’s just not say it.’”

Billionaire opioid firm founder guilty of bribing doctors

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Kapoor was found guilty of a bribery scheme to boost sales of a highly addictive fentanyl spray. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

It is the first criminal conviction of a top pharmaceutical executive over the industry’s role in fuelling the opioids epidemic. On Thursday, John Kapoor, the billionaire founder of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty by a jury in Boston of bribing doctors to prescribe Subsys, a painkilling spray containing the powerful opioid fentanyl, to patients who did not need it. Kapoor and four other Insys executives could each face up to 20 years in prison.

Fraudulent scheme. The jury also found Kapoor guilty of defrauding insurance companies with the same scheme, which dramatically widened the market for Subsys from terminal cancer patients to people with non-life threatening pain.

Crib sheet

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Is an endless torrent of notifications harming democracy as well as our wellbeing? Composite: Christophe Gowans/Guardian Design/Getty/AFP/Alamy/AP/Reuters

How the news took over reality

Thanks largely to smartphones and social media, the news consumes more of our time and attention than ever before, meaning Trump, Brexit and other crises are starting to feel more important than the concrete immediacy of our everyday lives. It’s damaging our personal wellbeing and our public life, says Oliver Burkeman.

The National: ‘We’re the sound of the apocalypse!’

Sylvia Patterson met the National in Paris, where they played a show while Notre Dame burned nearby. The alt-rock five-piece, whose moody output is a product of persistent infighting, recently took on a creative director in the form of the film director Mike Mills, who “took a lot of tension out of the band,” says the guitarist Bryce Dessner. “Suddenly there was this higher authority.”

My descent into YouTube addiction

From Russian road traffic accidents to squirrels undergoing CPR, Domingo Cullen’s drug of choice was YouTube. He took a knife to his own internet connection three times, as he found himself spending days alone with the hypnotic site. “The ridiculousness of it all feels laughable. But maybe I laugh to keep from crying.”

Trans teen athletes shine in new documentary

In Changing the Game, the documentary maker Michael Barnett shares the inspiring stories of three trans high school athletes battling a staid system and everyday intolerance. It’s a big-hearted and vital film, writes Jake Nevins.

Opinion

Google, the world’s biggest data company, has almost unfettered power to shape our futures. The most effective oversight of that power comes from an unlikely source, says Veena Dubal: Google’s own white collar workers.

These organized tech workers, through courageous acts of protest, have made a revolutionary leap: they have explicitly connected Google’s workplace practices to the broader public interest.

Sport

Arsenal and Chelsea both kept their European hopes alive on Thursday, though the north London club did so more emphatically, with a 3-1 win over Valencia in the first leg of their Europa League semi-final. Chelsea could only eke out a 1-1 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt, but will go into the second leg with a precious away goal.

Donald Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tiger Woods at a White House ceremony next week, after Woods capped an extraordinary comeback with his first Masters title for 14 years last month.

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