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9 min: Off the line by Gruev! Meslier is looking vulnerable on set-pieces. He paws Peck’s corner back towards his own goal – he thought he was fouled, the referee disagreed – and Gruev did brilliantly to stoop forward and head the ball off the line.

8 min A long throw from the left is spilled by Meslier, who is very relieved to dive on the loose ball before any Sheffield United player can get to it.

US-based nonprofit Dawn also accuses ex-secretary of state Antony Blinken and ex-Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin

A US-based nonprofit organization has urged the international criminal court to investigate former president Joe Biden and two of his cabinet members for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The request, submitted by the Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) last month but made public by the group on Monday, urges the ICC to investigate Biden, as well as former secretary of state Antony Blinken and former defense secretary Lloyd Austin, for their “accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza”.

The Emilia Pérez best actress nominee will be at Sunday’s ceremony with Netflix paying for all expenses incurred

The Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is reportedly set to attend this Sunday’s Oscars after controversy over bigoted tweets.

The Spanish actor, who is nominated for best actress, had been removed from the campaign trail by Netflix after resurfaced tweets led to a backlash.

Title race and relegation over by February? The Premier League is rich, but there’s no jeopardy and no real sense of excellence, at least not on the pitch

Ladies and gentlemen we have now reached our cruising altitude. The pilot will be putting his feet up and drinking tiny cans of Sprite from here to the middle of May. Sit back, zone out. Stick on a bad film with Seth Rogen in it. You can even watch the football if you like. Just don’t expect much to happen for the next three months.

So much for that excitingly bumpy, turbulence-fuelled Premier League season, all perky upstarts, crumbling certainties and unexpected shifts of altitude, which really did seem to be shaping up just a few short weeks go. As of game weekend 26 and Arsenal’s defeat by West Ham, followed by Liverpool strolling through Manchester City, the league has reached a stage of premature entropy.

Study shows funding bias towards animals like rhino while other endangered species including amphibians and algae disregarded

Most global conservation funds go to larger, charismatic animals, leaving critically important but less fashionable species deprived, a 25-year study has revealed.

Scientists have found that of the $1.963bn allocated to projects worldwide, 82.9% was assigned to vertebrates. Plants and invertebrates each accounted for 6.6% of the funding, while fungi and algae were barely represented at less than 0.2%.

Campbell Scott, a senior director at Fico, was reported missing while in Nairobi for a three-day conference

Police searching for a British businessman missing in Kenya have recovered a body, found in a sack in scrubland about 60 miles from Nairobi, reports said.

Campbell Scott, 58, a senior director at the data analytics company Fico, went missing on 16 February after arriving in the Kenyan capital to attend a conference at the JW Marriott hotel.

The soul singer was ambitiously diverse in her musicianship, and enthralled at every turn – whether doing desolate folk cover versions or lighter, sophisticated pop

In the liner notes to 2023’s Lost Takes – which excavated the tapes that had served as Roberta Flack’s audition for Atlantic Records over half a century earlier – the poet Harmony Holiday wrote that Flack possessed “the voice of the idyllic afterlife you’d want to arrive in after the end of a dysfunctional world”.

Indeed, Flack sang like she was equally conversant with the ecstasy of faith and the agony of life. The dignified richness of her vocal was tempered by the subtly volcanic power she displayed on her reading of To Sir With Love off Lost Takes – a not-so-quiet fire that always resided within her.

• Slovenian opines about immigration and populism
• ‘We are all fed up with political correctness’

The president of Uefa, Aleksander Ceferin, has made an outspoken intervention in European politics, claiming “freedom of speech no longer exists” and “we are all fed up of political correctness”.

In a wide-ranging series of remarks Ceferin attacked European politicians over their handling of the Ukraine war and for “preaching to the world”. He even joked that the only “great thing” the EU has done is to mandate that bottle tops should not be detachable.

• England captain to prioritise fitness for Australia series
• Moeen Ali also withdraws and retires from county game

Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali have both withdrawn from this year’s Hundred. England’s Test captain has chosen to focus on his fitness and his duties with the red ball, and Moeen has decided to retire from county cricket so he can grasp the opportunities offered by global franchise leagues.

The competition has brought only bad luck to Stokes, who in five appearances has scored only 14 runs at an average of 3.50 and sustained one serious hamstring injury, while playing for Northern Superchargers last August. That pulled muscle kept him out of all cricket for two months and, after a recurrence while playing for England in New Zealand late last year, he required surgery from which he is recovering.

The victorious CDU leader is likely to be more proactive on the European stage. He will also need to forge broad alliances at home to see off the far right

Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), has a reputation for being blunt. On Sunday evening, as it became clear that the CDU had won the snap election triggered by the outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, he did not disappoint. “For me,” said Mr Merz in a post-election television debate, “the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

As recently as a fortnight ago, such a statement from a German chancellor-elect would have been inconceivable. But these are new and extraordinary times. A convinced transatlanticist, Mr Merz has previously played down the dangers to western unity posed by Donald Trump. But crude electioneering on behalf of the extreme right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) by the US president’s outriders, and the sidelining of Europe and Kyiv from negotiations over the future of Ukraine, have forced a handbrake turn.

The government’s consultation was weighted towards big tech. Now is the time for a rethink

It’s a seductive promise: let our computers scrape the internet for ideas, images, forms of words, stories, music, jokes … and our industry will make your country rich. For a UK government desperate for economic growth, the demands of tech companies for copyright laws to be relaxed – in order that their artificial intelligence (AI) systems can access as much online content as possible without having to pay or seek permission – have been hard to resist. The US and China are the global leaders of this new tech race. But the UK has a chance to compete that ministers are desperate not to miss.

To AI businesses, copyright is an irritant. Three years ago, it appeared that their lobbyists were on the verge of getting their way when a government agency, the Intellectual Property Office, recommended an exemption for data mining. This would grant bots free rein and – so the argument went – provide an incentive for tech companies to invest in the UK.

Holt to step down as anchor as Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, whose shows also canceled, to remain at MSNBC

NBC’s Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of its Nightly News show, and MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin is stepping down from a similar role at his namesake weekend evening show as the liberal networks’ owners continue a major programming shake-up on Monday.

Others at MSNBC affected by changes revealed on Monday include Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, the New York Post reported.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 had reached a 3.1% likelihood of impact but further data has rendered it negligible

It was a discovery that lead to panic-inducing headlines: a giant asteroid found to be hurtling towards Earth that, while unlikely to wipe out life, could do some serious damage.

But now the world can breathe a sigh of relief. After the odds of a future collision rose earlier this year, the likelihood of an impact is now so low as to be negligible.

Wyoming woman still in hospital while Ohio man released after facing ‘respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms’

Two people, in Wyoming and Ohio, have been hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a routine flu update on Friday.

The person from Wyoming is still in hospital, while the Ohio patient has been released, according to the report. Both patients experienced “respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms”, the report said, without detailing those symptoms.

Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey look ahead to a pivotal week of diplomacy for Keir Starmer as he prepares to visit the White House. With Donald Trump’s hostility towards Kyiv looming large over the three-year anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, can the prime minister persuade the US president to change tack?

• Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com

‘I took the discussion too far,’ says commerce minister Andrew Bayly, calling his own behaviour ‘overbearing’

A New Zealand government minister said on Monday he had resigned from his post after “placing his hand” on a staff member’s upper arm during an “animated” discussion.

The country’s minister for commerce and consumer affairs, Andrew Bayly, told reporters his behaviour towards the staff member had been “overbearing”.

The Last Week Tonight host looked at content moderation and how Mark Zuckerberg has bent to Trump’s will

John Oliver took aim at Mark Zuckerberg and the world of content moderation in this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight.

The host of the HBO series looked at “just how much the tech industry seemed to swing toward Trump” since the election last year.

Almost every time I unclip my dog, it seems, he can find and inhale the literal poisons laid out by carefree picnickers in defiance of signage

My beautiful stupid boy. So long and brave as he bounds at light-speed across the sunny fields, looping past the old trees and disused play equipment, a joyful cascade of limitless hope and unhinged, insatiable hunger.

Italian actors Isabella Rossellini and Sergio Castellitto lead well-wishers at the Sag awards hoping the ailing pontiff makes a quick recovery

The cast of papal election drama Conclave have expressed their concerns for Pope Francis, as reports continue of his critical condition.

Actors Isabella Rossellini and Sergio Castellitto, who respectively play papal housekeeper Sister Agnes and conservative cleric Cardinal Tedesco in Conclave, were speaking as the film was given the award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture by the Screen Actors Guild (Sag), an outcome that would appear to significantly boost its chances in the Oscar race.

Singer with a reserved, intimate style on hits such as The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song

Roberta Flack’s pensive version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, from her 1971 album Quiet Fire, so impressed another rising star that he sent her a fan letter. “Dear Roberta,” wrote Elton John, “I have never heard anything this beautiful in years ... ”

Flack, who has died aged 88, must have seemed both familiar and fascinatingly different to the young English songwriter. Like John, she was a classically trained pianist who had gravitated to pop. But she was North Carolina born, and had taught in high school before having her first hit at the age of 34. Her career was founded on her ability to sell a song using reticence and reserve, qualities that defined her from the early smash singles, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song, to her final album, a collection of Beatles covers released in 2012.

Joël Le Scouarnec tells court on first day of trial he will take responsibility for his actions

A 74-year-old surgeon accused of abusing 299 people, most of them children, while they were anaesthetised or recovering from operations has told a French court he did “hideous things” and is prepared to take responsibility for them.

Joël Le Scouarnec is accused of raping or sexually abusing the victims, whose average age was 11, during a 30-year career, and detailing the abuse in notebooks.

The US singer, who gracefully glided across genres, has died aged 88. From Ronnie Scott’s to the Grammys, here are some snapshots of her life and career
• Roberta Flack, soul and R&B icon behind Killing Me Softly, dies aged 88

The belief that mothers should focus solely on their children is no longer the default. But with grandmothers, traditional ideas still hold sway

Constance fills her days with music. The 77-year-old, who lives in London, studies and performs classical piano. To stay involved with her community, she volunteers with local arts projects, a community garden and an oral history initiative.

After a career working as a mental health professional, what Constance wants from retirement is to continue engaging with causes and passions that matter to her. (Her name has been changed for her privacy.)

The hip-hop legends will kick off US tour in June, and hint at further dates to ‘spread the Wu swag, music, and culture’

After more than 30 years of music, during which they created an entire martial mythology as well as some of the greatest hip-hop records of all time, Wu-Tang Clan have signalled a possible end to the group.

They have announced “the start of their final tour”, entitled Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, which will initially visit 27 US cities, beginning 6 June in Baltimore. Bandleader RZA has alluded to later worldwide dates, saying in a statement:

This is a special moment for me and all my Wu brothers to run around the globe together one more time and spread the Wu swag, music, and culture. Most importantly to touch our fans and those who have supported us throughout the years. On this tour we’re playing songs we’ve never played before to our audience and me and our production team have designed a Wu-Tang show unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Dan Bongino’s installation in high-ranking law enforcement role sparks concern in both Republicans and Democrats

Fears over the future direction of the FBI have intensified after Donald Trump announced that a far-right podcaster, Dan Bongino, who has never served in the bureau, would become its next deputy director.

Bongino, a former New York police officer and Secret Service agent who provided security to Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, is best known as a conservative commentator who has vocally supported Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Spending ranges from new AI server factory in Texas to film and TV content and may add 20,000 jobs

Apple announced Monday it would invest $500bn in the US in the next four years that would include a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers and add about 20,000 research and development jobs across the country.

The move comes on the heels of reports that the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, met Donald Trump last week. Many of Apple’s products that are assembled in China and imported to the US could face 10% tariffs introduced by the White House earlier this month, though the iPhone maker secured some waivers from China tariffs during the first Trump administration.

Cases in UK set to rise by 21% and deaths by 42%, while globally one in 20 women will be diagnosed with disease

Breast cancer diagnoses and deaths are projected to surge worldwide by 2050, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency has said, with cases in the UK to rise by 21% and deaths by 42%.

Globally, one in 20 women will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, with cases up 38% and deaths up 68% over the next 25 years, according to an analysis by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Stance of German alliance’s leader could herald closer ties with France but ‘debt brake’ poses obstacle to spending

• German election live – latest updates

Friedrich Merz marked his conservative alliance’s victory in Germany’s election by urging Europe to make itself more independent from the US – a project that will be music to the ears of Emmanuel Macron but may turn on whether Merz can build a Bundestag majority to lift the so-called debt brake that slows increases in defence spending.

One possibility for the CDU/CSU alliance leader, who is on course to become Germany’s next chancellor, is to claim that the country is in an emergency, to try to force the change through the Bundestag before its dissolution.

Mikel Arteta’s team have suffered unfortunate injuries but they also have far less self-belief than a Liverpool side who look destined to win the Premier League

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

And with that, surely, the title race is over. Liverpool had drawn four of their previous eight games which had created an opening. Had Arsenal beaten West Ham and Liverpool lost at Manchester City this weekend, the title would have been in Arsenal’s hands, at least to the extent that they would have won it if they had won every game they had remaining this season, including away at Liverpool. But, after Arsenal limped to a 1-0 defeat, Liverpool produced their best performance in weeks to win 2-0. The gap is 11 points and, even though Arsenal have a game in hand, it’s very hard to imagine either Liverpool dropping sufficient points or Arsenal winning enough for that to be overturned.

Arteta described himself as “very, very angry” after his side’s defeat, admitting they were “nowhere near the levels that we have to hit to have the opportunity to win the Premier League”. But there’s been an element of that all season. This was only Arsenal’s third league defeat of the campaign, but there has been something distinctly underwhelming about them. Too many points have been frittered too cheaply. Too often they have failed to grasp chances. And too often ill-discipline has let them down.

In all similar democracies, left and right are having versions of the same argument: does ‘electable’ mean centrist or radical?

As the German election results land, a lot of people are looking on the bright side: nearly 80% of Germans won’t entertain voting for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). A nanosecond ago, however – as recently as Saturday – the idea that voters might go this far-right, in these kinds of numbers, for the first time since the second world war was terrifying. Some are calling this a victory over Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who vocally supported the AfD; others are calling it a victory for them.

Nobody is puzzling much over the decline in support for Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic party – down 9%, almost equal to the AfD’s gains, although the numbers on switchers have yet to be crunched – because it was so long expected. The CDU/CSU alliance has won, with 28.5%, pretty much as the polls predicted. It’s an incredibly German story in its labyrinthine and laborious coalition possibilities, but it’s also a common story these days. The two main parties hand power to one another in a kind of disillusionment relay; the populist right gets a dispiritingly good show; the populist or eco left is less populist, less popular, and can pick a fight with itself in a paper bag, so it looks even smaller than it is.

Much-loved singer known for Killing Me Softly With His Song, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and duets with Donny Hathaway and Peabo Bryson, had suffered a stroke in 2016

Roberta Flack, the US singer behind a string of hits including Killing Me Softly With His Song, has died aged 88. “We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” a statement from her spokesperson read. “She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”

With her graceful presence, genre-crossing versatility and ability to give voice to the full range of love’s highs and lows, Flack is widely considered one of soul and R&B’s greatest ever artists.

The 22-year-old is an elite player. How might he react if the Blues miss out on Champions League qualification again?

Remember those chants of “We’ve got our Chelsea back” when Enzo Maresca’s side thumped Southampton at St Mary’s in December? Life moves quickly in west London. Two months have passed since those heady days, back when the talk was of a burgeoning title challenge, and the mood at Stamford Bridge has fractured so rapidly that the theme of a protest against the owners before their home game against Southampton on Tuesday night is – wait for it – “We want our Chelsea back”.

It may seem an overreaction to a dip in form. Even so it is not hard to find fans who feel a growing disconnection with the club and struggle to understand Chelsea’s youth-driven recruitment strategy. They sense that the change pushed by the majority shareholder, Clearlake Capital, has been too intense; that too much knowledge has left the building since the end of the Roman Abramovich era. Perhaps it is why Chelsea, who have built a squad full of raw talent but short of experienced leaders, look rudderless when games go against them.

• AIU reveals ‘presence/use of EPO, furosemide’ in tests
• He previously won marathons in Sydney and Frankfurt

The Kenyan marathon runner Brimin Kipkorir has been suspended provisionally, after he tested positive for prohibited substances, the Athletics Integrity Unit said on Monday.

Kipkorir won the Sydney Marathon in 2024 in a course-record time of 2hr 06min 18sec, and the Frankfurt Marathon in 2022 and 2023.

Trump administration escalates movement forged by US states to censor literature in full-scale DEI crackdown

When the actor Julianne Moore learned her children’s book, Freckleface Strawberry, a tale of a girl who learns to stop hating her freckles, had been targeted for a potential ban at all schools serving US military families, she took to Instagram, posting that it was a “great shock” to discover the story had been “banned by the Trump Administration”.

Moore had seen a memo that circulated last week revealing that tens of thousands of American children studying in about 160 Pentagon schools both in the US and around the world had had all access to library books suspended for a week, while officials conducted a “compliance review” to hunt out any books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Warning comes as FCC, chaired by Trump ally and Project 2025 author, orders investigations into US media groups

The Trump administration is waging a “disturbing” attack on the freedom of the press that amounts to a “true free-speech emergency”, media experts have warned, as the Federal Communications Commission recently launched an investigation into a series of media organizations, including the owner of NBC News.

The FCC, led by Donald Trump appointee and Project 2025 author Brendan Carr, has ordered investigations into NPR and PBS in the first month since Trump took office, while also scrutinizing a CBS News interview and a San Francisco radio station.

Environment justice advocates say tools to study pollution in vulnerable communities by companies, including xAI and SpaceX, have disappeared

As Donald Trump’s administration continues its purge of federal agencies, environmental justice campaigners are alarmed by the disappearance of federal environmental and climate data tools – some of which have been used to identify pollution concerns about Elon Musk’s companies.

Several federal agencies, including the EPA and CDC, previously published data regarding pollution levels across the country, as well as data about the vulnerability of each census tract, such as poverty rates and life expectancy. Several of the websites containing that data have gone dark in the weeks following Trump’s inauguration.

Continent is being told to take more responsibility for its own defence in light of US president’s overtures to Putin

A few days after Vladimir Putin sent Russia’s invading forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the EU’s then foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, asked his staff for an urgent military aid plan. They came up with €50m (£41.4m) to help Ukraine.

“And I said: ‘Are you crazy? We are talking about a war,’” Borrell recounted in late 2024, shortly before standing down. “Do you know what does it mean, a war? Put three zeros behind! … And then we started taking things seriously.”

Two others hospitalized after speed boat capsizes off Breezy Point, Queens, as Coast Guard continues search

Three people died, two others were hospitalized and one was missing after a boat sank in New York City on Sunday, according to the US Coast Guard.

One of the hospitalized people was in critical condition on Monday morning, police said, a day after the speedboat took on water 5 miles (8km) south-east of Breezy Point, a neighborhood at the tip of Queens’ Rockaway peninsula.

Goal of increasing renewable energy generation 20-fold to be ditched, shareholders to be told this week

BP is expected to ditch a target to ramp up renewable energy generation by 2030 as part of a shift back towards fossil fuels when it presents its strategy to investors this week.

The chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, is poised to tell shareholders that the oil and gas company is scrapping its target to increase renewable generation 20-fold between 2019 and 2030 to 50 gigawatts, Reuters reported.