The real world is way worse than Westeros – so why not let this heartwarming underdog tale of a simple soul and his ethereal squire be your safe space

‘Bless their little cotton socks!” is not a response one expects to have to any of the inhabitants of Westeros, the land of the bloody, violent, incestuous and often depraved series of Game of Thrones. But the endearing protagonists of the latest spin-off of the franchise, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, invite it.

Their names, as in the George RR Martin novellas on which the series is based, are Dunk – short for Ser Duncan the Tall – and Egg. Dunk (Peter Claffey, a suitably tall former Irish rugby union player, last seen in Bad Sisters) was squire to a hedge – non-noble – knight, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), who took the boy under his wing but never quite got round to knighting the man before dying. We first meet Dunk burying his mentor under an old elm tree and taking up his arms against the sea of troubles that are about to engulf him. Dunk is a simple soul (very simple, some might say – he may look like a medieval Jack Reacher, but inside he is more of an eager but baffled labrador) and sets out to find a lord he can himself serve as a hedge knight.

Victor Manuel Diaz was found unresponsive at Camp East Montana in what ICE officials claim is ‘presumed suicide’

• Who is on the frontline of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown?

A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.

Son of David and Victoria Beckham takes to Instagram to open up about feud with parents

Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, the son of David and Victoria Beckham, has said he does not want to reconcile with his family.

The 26-year-old has spoken out for the first time and acknowledged the feud between him and his family in a post on Instagram.

• World team will play US teams in mini-tournament

• James could still make team as a reserve

The first-ever World team for the NBA All-Star Game already looks loaded. And the fate of LeBron James’ record streak of All-Star selections will now be decided by coaches, or perhaps even Commissioner Adam Silver.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver’s Nikola Jokić, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Dončić and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama were among those announced Monday as starters – an inexact term this year – for next month’s All-Star Game at the Los Angeles Clippers’ home arena in Inglewood, California. They’re likely heading to the World team, which will take on two teams of US players as part of yet another new format for the midseason showcase.

The NBA announced 10 starters, five from each conference. Golden State’s Stephen Curry, New York’s Jalen Brunson, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and Boston’s Jaylen Brown all are presumably headed to the US squads that will play in the three-team, round-robin tournament on 15 February – all 12-minute mini-games, with the top two teams advancing to a 12-minute championship game.

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4 min Kadioglu, playing at left-back tonight, cuts inside and hits a hopeful shot from the left edge of the penalty area. It bounces just in front of Petrovic, who holds on with authority. Good boy.

2 min “I have much interest in the game tonight,” writes Roger Kirkby. “If Bournemouth don’t win tonight, no team in the Premier League will have won their last two games. Something rare in the world of anoraks.”

Poet’s sixth collection explores the destruction of the natural world, with a perspective shaped by her upbringing in rural Canada

The Canadian poet Karen Solie has won the 2025 TS Eliot poetry prize for a collection of work, Wellwater, which explores the destruction of the natural world.

Solie was announced as the winner at a ceremony held at the Wallace Collection on Monday evening, and will receive £25,000 in prize money from the TS Eliot Foundation. Wellwater, her sixth collection, co-won the Forward prize for best collection last October, alongside Vidyan Ravinthiran’s Avidyā.

Officials say death toll likely to rise as rescuers continue to comb through wreckage in remote area of Andalucía

Spain will begin three days of mourning on Tuesday as rescuers continue to comb through the wreckage of twisted train cars and scattered debris to locate victims after a train collision that killed at least 40 people and injured dozens.

On Monday, more than 18 hours after a high-speed train carrying about 300 Madrid-bound passengers derailed and collided with an oncoming train, people across the country were still scrambling to make contact with missing loved ones caught up in Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade.

• France winger left San Diego Wave by mutual agreement

• Daniëlle van de Donk delights in London City debut

London City Lionesses have signed the France winger Delphine Cascarino on a three-and-a-half-year deal, the Women’s Super League newcomers continuing their eye-catching recruitment drive by acquiring another highly rated international.

The 28-year-old Cascarino won six Champions League titles with OL Lyonnes. Her most recent club was the NWSL side San Diego Wave, with whom she parted ways on Sunday by mutual agreement, having wanted to move back closer to home.

Blair, Putin, Erdoğan, Orbán: the names of those invited to serve say it all. And it's about so much more than Gaza

The fate of the Palestinian people offers a warning about the future of humanity. When I recently visited the West Bank, Palestinians kept impressing the same point on me: Israel has turned their land into a laboratory. The technology of oppression that it has deployed – including in its genocide in Gaza – ranges from hi-tech surveillance to military drones and AI on the battlefield. These technologies have been exported to oppressive states across the world. And it doesn’t stop there.

This brings us to Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, now set to rule Gaza. In the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay, where George Orwell lies buried, the ground itself ought to be shaking. This isn’t peace. It’s naked neocolonialism.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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His eponymous label is renowned for its opulent, elegant take on women’s fashion and has a legion of famous fans

Valentino Garavani, the designer central to pioneering Italian glamour with his eponymous fashion house, has died aged 93.

“Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,” his foundation said on Instagram on Monday. “Valentino Garavani was not only a constant guide and inspiration for all of us, but a true source of light, creativity and vision,” it added.

US president tells Norwegian PM he no longer feels obliged to think ‘purely of peace’ as relations with Europe plunge into chaos

Donald Trump has linked his repeated threats to seize control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel peace prize, as transatlantic tensions over the Arctic island escalated further and threatened to rekindle a trade war with the EU.

In an extraordinary text message sent on Sunday to the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, the US president wrote that after being snubbed for the prize, he no longer felt the need to think “purely of peace”.

People in Adamuz rushed to help when two trains smashed into each other and say they will never forget what they saw

Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through the forested hills of eastern Andalucía and beetled down a track to begin picking up the enormous, wrecked pieces of Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade. Behind it rolled a support lorry and a convoy of police cars.

A few minutes’ drive away, between groves of olive and oak trees, lay the two stricken trains that had smashed into each other on Sunday night, killing at least 39 people and critically injuring at least 12 others. As investigators and Guardia Civil officers walked up and down the line by the twisted carriages, the nearby town of Adamuz was in the early stages of trying to process what had happened a few kilometres from its outskirts.

The answers to today’s puzzles

Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Bonnie Tiler

New Jersey musician said during concert in home state that US core values ‘have never been as endangered’ as now

Bruce Springsteen used a Saturday concert to decry what he called the “Gestapo tactics” of the Trump administration’s surge of immigration officers and said the country’s founding values “have never been as endangered as they are right now”.

While performing in his home state of New Jersey, Springsteen dedicated his 1978 song The Promised Land to Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minnesota.

• Pool stages could revert to an October start

• ‘The format is delivering,’ European rugby chief insists

The organisers of the Champions Cup are looking to shift the start of the tournament back to October to add extra impetus to the pool stages. This year’s competition kicked off in December, but there is collective support from coaches and clubs to commence their campaigns before the packed November Test window.

The existing structure and calendar slots are technically in place until 2030, but there is growing recognition that a change could be helpful. Among other benefits, clubs would have a better chance of having their best players fit and firing before the autumn internationals which, in turn, could encourage more early season interest.

Serb showed off astounding movement in 100th win in Melbourne to begin his 22nd grand slam season in style

The very first point of Novak Djokovic’s 2026 season offered an instant reminder of his enduring greatness. Djokovic started his first match of his Australian Open campaign, also his opening match of the season, by working his way through a breathless 17-stroke rally and then punctuating the exchange with a perfectly timed forehand winner. He could not help but chuckle at his own genius.

That blazing start set the tone for a straightforward night inside Rod Laver Arena as Djokovic began his 22nd grand slam season with an effortless 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win against Spain’s Pedro Martínez. It was the Serb’s 100th win at the Australian Open, a feat he has also achieved at Wimbledon and Roland Garros.

Brewing tradition of nearly 1,000 years at Weltenburg Abbey in Bavaria to be bought up by Munich company Schneider Weisse

The world’s oldest monastic brewery, Germany’s Weltenburger, is being sold to the Munich brewers Schneider Weisse as part of consolidation in the sector in response to plunging sales.

Beer has been brewed at Weltenburg Abbey, a stunning, still active monastery on the banks of the Danube in Bavaria, for nearly 1,000 years.

• Bills lost dramatic overtime game to Broncos

• Buffalo missed Super Bowl under coach’s leadership

The Buffalo Bills have fired Sean McDermott after the team yet again fell short in the NFL playoffs.

The Bills lost a dramatic divisional round game in overtime to the Denver Broncos on Saturday. Buffalo have reached the playoffs in all but one of the seasons since McDermott took over in 2017, when he helped the Bills reach the postseason for the first time in 17 years. However, they have failed to reach the Super Bowl in that time despite the presence of Josh Allen, one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. Under McDermott, the Bills became the first team to win a playoff game in six straight seasons and not claim a Super Bowl.

What if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Every new year – after the holiday glut of travel, parties, shopping and baked goods – there can be pressure to do and be more: more active, more productive, more creative, more thrifty. Maybe this will be the year I finally start meal planning or doing morning pages. New year, new me!

But what if the thing we needed more of was to do less? What if this was the year we finally learned to rest?

Physical rest: making sure you get enough sleep; taking naps.

Mental rest: journaling; meditating; doing tasks that are not mentally taxing, like puzzles.

Emotional rest: talking through feelings and experiences with a friend or therapist.

Social rest: setting aside time alone to recharge; making sure you’re spending time with people who don’t leave you feeling drained.

Sensory rest: spending time outdoors; taking breaks from screens.

Creative rest: engaging in creative hobbies like drawing, reading or dancing.

Spiritual rest: connecting to a cause or tradition that feels meaningful to you.

Walid Regragui faced calls to resign despite stunning record with Atlas Lions after nightmare that prolongs 50-year wait

“There will be no second star for Morocco,” read the headline of Le360.ma, referring to the symbol of an Afcon title being sown on the shirt of the winning team. “The most prestigious African title is at odds with Morocco. The dream and the ambition will have to wait some time,” laments the writer, Abdelkader El-Aine.

It is now 50 years since Morocco won their only Afcon. This month, as hosts of the tournament, Morocco had started to dream of a second title. That became a nightmare on Sunday evening in Rabat.