Women’s singles final in Melbourne, 8.30am GMT start
Rybakina poses threat | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Katy
Rybakina
First round def Kaja Juvan 6-4, 6-3
Second round def Varvara Gracheva 7-5, 6-2
Third round def Tereza Valentova 6-2, 6-3
Fourth round def Elise Mertens (21) 6-1, 6-3
Quarter-final def Iga Swiatek (2) 7-5, 6-1
Semi-final def Jessica Pegula (6) 6-3, 7-6
Sabalenka
First round def Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 6-4, 6-1
Second round def Bai Zhuoxuan 6-3, 6-1
Third round def Anastasia Potapova 7-6, 7-6
Fourth round def Victoria Mboko (17) 6-1, 7-6
Quarter-final def Iva Jovic (29) 6-3, 6-0
Semi-final def Elina Svitolina (12) 6-2, 6-3
© Photograph: Izhar Khan/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Izhar Khan/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Izhar Khan/AFP/Getty Images
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Tomorrow … February (bad enough), but also 10 years precisely from the day Manchester City named Pep Guardiola as their incoming manager.
Please address any and all complaints re: the passage of time to your creator of choice where relevant.
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© Composite: Getty Images
© Composite: Getty Images
© Composite: Getty Images
Thousands set to gather in Budapest after János Lázár’s remarks captured on video
Thousands of people are set to gather in Budapest to demand the resignation of a senior Hungarian politician, for making a racist remark against Roma people earlier this month.
János Lázár told attendees at a political forum that migration was not the solution to the country’s labour shortage. “Since there are no migrants, and someone has to clean the bathrooms on the InterCity trains,” Lázár said Roma people would do the job, using an offensive slur in his speech.
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© Photograph: Patrick Kingsley/The Guardian
© Photograph: Patrick Kingsley/The Guardian
© Photograph: Patrick Kingsley/The Guardian
In the second part of our series on digital politics, we look at how online provocateurs have advanced extreme political ideas – and watched them seep into the mainstream
Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London
The internet has totally changed the way in which politics is conducted. As established in the first piece in our series, liberals have totally failed to grasp this fact. The right, however, are thriving in this new world. Future historians studying the role that fringe online ideas played in the US republic’s demise will be spoiled for choice. One episode in particular comes to mind: Tucker Carlson, a former primetime speaker at a Republican convention, inviting a white supremacist livestreamer, Nick Fuentes, on to his YouTube show in 2025 for a chat in which he talked about the influence of “organised Jewry” in the US.
Carlson spent years echoing white nationalist talking points on his Fox News show, but Fuentes’ style – combining Nazi salutes with cheeky grins – places him beyond the pale for broadcast television. However, under the logic of YouTube, the meeting of these two major influencers is almost inevitable. Platforms incentivise audience cross-pollination, which is why Fuentes routinely livestreams with figures such as Adin Ross and Andrew Tate, who are known more for their homophobia and misogyny than their thoughts on ethnostates.
Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London
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© Illustration: Antoine Cossé/The Guardian
© Illustration: Antoine Cossé/The Guardian
© Illustration: Antoine Cossé/The Guardian
Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, an ex-Fed governor, for the role as the White House continues to attack Jerome Powell
The US Federal Reserve requires “strong, sound and steady leadership”, according to Donald Trump. The president found a man to lead the central bank who would “provide exactly that type of leadership”, he declared.“He’s strong, he’s committed and he’s smart.”
This is not how Trump described Kevin Warsh, the former Fed governor whom he unveiled as his new nominee to chair the central bank on Friday – but how he hailed Jerome Powell, the current Fed chair, when nominating him for the job about eight years ago.
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© Composite: Reuters
© Composite: Reuters
© Composite: Reuters
Campaigners criticise use of ‘vulnerable’ devices at Salisbury Cathedral and Parthenon despite their removal from sensitive UK government sites
Security cameras guarding Magna Carta are provided by a Chinese CCTV company whose technology has allegedly aided the Uyghur “genocide” and been exploited by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged.
In letters seen by the Guardian, campaigners called on Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of four surviving copies of the “powerful symbol of social justice”, to rip out cameras made by Dahua Technology, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.
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© Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
© Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
© Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
Keir Starmer says he wants to ‘go further’ in relations with Brussels as ministers look to restart stalled negotiations
The UK and the EU are exploring the prospect of new talks on closer defence cooperation, as Keir Starmer stressed on Friday that he wanted to “go further” in the UK’s relationship with Brussels.
Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, is due in London for talks next week, with trade, energy and fisheries on the agenda. But diplomatic sources said the UK is keen to discuss restarting negotiations on defence as soon as it can.
Talks for the UK to join the EU’s €150bn (£130bn) Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence fund collapsed in November 2025 amid claims that the EU had set too high a price on entry to the programme.
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© Photograph: Carl Court/PA
© Photograph: Carl Court/PA
© Photograph: Carl Court/PA
As rivers swell and homes are cut off, scientists say UK winter rainfall is already 20 years ahead of predictions
When flooding hit the low-lying Somerset Levels in 2014, it took two months for the waters to rise. This week it took two days, said Rebecca Horsington, chair of the Flooding on the Levels Action Group and a born-and-bred resident. A fierce barrage of storms from the Atlantic has drenched south-west England in January, saturating soils and supercharging rivers.
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© Composite: Artwork by Alex Mellon and Guardian Design. Source Photographs by Shutterstock, Neil Owen, Getty Images, iStockphoto, Reuters
© Composite: Artwork by Alex Mellon and Guardian Design. Source Photographs by Shutterstock, Neil Owen, Getty Images, iStockphoto, Reuters
© Composite: Artwork by Alex Mellon and Guardian Design. Source Photographs by Shutterstock, Neil Owen, Getty Images, iStockphoto, Reuters
From the person who scrolls on the toilet to the one without any social media, what do their digital habits tell us?
• Will Storr: we have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones – can we get it back?
Dayeon, 16: the teenager who spends less than an hour a day on screens
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© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones/The Guardian
© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones/The Guardian
© Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones/The Guardian
Democratic senators refuse to vote for bill authorizing continued DHS spending after killings of two US citizens
Funding lapsed for several US government departments on Saturday, the result of a standoff in Congress over new restrictions on federal agents involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign following the killings of two US citizens in Minneapolis.
The partial government shutdown is the result of Democratic senators refusing to vote for a bill authorizing continued spending by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota’s largest city last week, and Renee Good earlier in January. The minority party’s blockade imperiled a push by Republicans for approval of larger package of legislation funding other departments, which needed to pass the Senate before the government’s spending authorization expired Friday.
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© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images
© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images
© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images
‘Everyone wants to know,’ Melania says at the beginning of the two-hour extravaganza – but do we?
It’s Friday afternoon at Hoyts on Sydney’s northern beaches, and the atmosphere is horrific. I am here to see Amazon’s $75m “documentary” on Melania Trump, which has already been condemned as a flop ahead of its release.
When I arrive, I panic for a second that I have the time wrong. There are no Melania posters anywhere and the screening is tucked into the back bottom corner of the large movie theatre, like the weird leftover table at a wedding.
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© Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
© Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
© Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
From the Cloak of Invisibility and the Elder Wand to Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which European city changed its name in 1914, 1924 and 1991?
2 Which gun dog has won best in show at Crufts the most times?
3 Catherine Connolly is the third woman to become what?
4 Which arm of the Arctic Ocean is named after a Dutch navigator?
5 Which nut characterises Dubai-style chocolate?
6 What is the most abundant metal in the human body?
7 Where do you hear Hayley Sanderson and Tommy Blaize sing?
8 Where were the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan destroyed in 2001?
What links:
9 Court and King, 1973; Navratilova, 1992; Sabalenka, 2025?
10 Cloak of Invisibility; Elder Wand; Resurrection Stone?
11 AMS; AV; AV+; FPTP; PR; STV?
12 JB Books; Father Karras; Władysław Szpilman; László Tóth; George Valentin?
13 Bucentaure; Santísima Trinidad; Victory?
14 Adopt Me!; Dress to Impress; Flee the Facility; Grow a Garden; Steal a Brainrot?
15 The Cradle; Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight; The Harbour at Lorient; Woman at her Toilette?
© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds
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Last year, almost every new car sold in Norway, the nature-loving country flush with oil wealth, was fully electric. In prosperous Denmark, which was all-in on petrol and diesel cars until just before Covid, sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reached a share of 68%. In California, the share of zero-emissions vehicles hit 20%. And at least every third new car now bought by the Dutch, Finns, Belgians and Swedes burns no fuel.
These figures, which would have felt fanciful just five years ago, show the rich world leading the shift away from cars that pump out toxic gas and planet-heating pollutants. But a more startling trend is that electric car sales are also racing ahead in many developing countries. While China is known for its embrace of electric vehicles (EVs), demand has also soared in emerging markets from South America to south-east Asia. BEV sales in Turkey have caught up with the EU’s, data published this week shows.
The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised
The 16-month battle to reveal the truth about Sydney Water’s poo balls
Powering up: how Ethiopia is becoming an unlikely leader in the electric vehicle revolution
‘My Tesla has become ordinary’: Turkey catches up with EU in electric car sales
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© Photograph: Americo Roberto/EPA
© Photograph: Americo Roberto/EPA
© Photograph: Americo Roberto/EPA
Leicester’s quirky prop on beating adversity, being second-string goalkeeper at Nottingham Forest and his love of ‘cooking with butter’
For some people the road to the top is painfully long and winding. Joe Heyes used to be a player whose dreams of making England’s matchday squad were constantly dashed. Driving home from Bagshot, having been omitted yet again, he would listen to Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues – “I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t when …” – and wonder if the hardship and sacrifice would ever be worth it.
And now? Less than two years later he is suddenly the most important player in England. The national management have already lost two injured tightheads in Will Stuart and Asher Opoku-Fordjour plus the loosehead prop Fin Baxter. If they had enough cotton wool England would be wrapping the now indispensable Heyes up in it.
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© Photograph: Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images
© Photograph: Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images
© Photograph: Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images
Sabrina Carpenter fangirling Miss Piggy, Beaker losing his eyes … yes, Kermit and co are back for a trip down memory lane – and it’s a perfect, saucy joy
The Muppet Show is back! We need this, don’t we? We need them. The TV show ended in 1981, yet decades later, memes of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Animal et al still circulate. We give their movies Oscars. Their version of A Christmas Carol is a non-negotiable tradition for anyone with sense. Jim Henson’s furry anarchists bring us together like few things can. As a beady eyed fun-sponge, I can’t help but wonder – why?
In an 1810 essay, German poet Heinrich von Kleist argued that puppets demonstrate pure grace: a weightless unself-consciousness that humans long for but never achieve. He was talking about marionettes, suspended from strings. Yet Muppets are hand puppets; extensions of a body. They have weight. As for grace, have you seen how Kermit moves? His arms flap, and he bounces vertically, while moving forwards. It’s hard to imagine a less efficient walk. That frog, he silly.
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© Photograph: Disney+
© Photograph: Disney+
© Photograph: Disney+
That 1 February 2016 announcement led to Johan Cruyff’s gospel spreading to all corners of our game – and a bromance with Neil Warnock
It wasn’t quite without fanfare but when Manchester City announced, 10 years ago on Sunday, that Pep Guardiola was to be their manager from the next summer, it was a banal, bald press release that brought English football the news that would change it for ever. That was a simpler time, pre-Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, and before centre-halves in League Two would split wide for the keeper to pass out from the back to the holding midfielder, dropping in to receive the ball as a false 9 came deep to link with full-backs stepping into midfield.
“It’s not about coaches adapting to English football,” said Jordi Cruyff in 2016 as Guardiola began to make his mark on England. “It’s about English football adapting to the new things of the game.” And yet that typical Cruyffian confidence looked like hubris when Guardiola’s Manchester City got hammered 4-2 by Leicester, 4-0 by Everton and experienced Champions League humiliations at Barcelona and Monaco in that first season.
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© Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
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