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FA Cup shock and City’s managerial shake-up – Women’s Football Weekly podcast

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry, and Robyn Cowen to discuss Gareth Taylor’s exit and the weekend’s games

On the podcast today: Manchester City part ways with Gareth Taylor just days before their League Cup final against Chelsea, with Nick Cushing stepping in as interim manager. What went wrong, and what does this mean for City’s season?

Elsewhere, Liverpool stun Arsenal to reach the FA Cup semi-finals, joining Chelsea, Manchester United, and Manchester City in the final four. Meanwhile, Liverpool’s Taylor Hinds was subjected to “sexually inappropriate comments” from a spectator. We break down all the action from the quarter-finals and discuss Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s latest eyebrow-raising comments on the Manchester United women’s team.

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© Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters

© Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters

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Trump orders likely to drive species’ extinction, wildlife advocates warn

In addition to layoffs and hiring freezes, a ‘God squad’ can effectively veto ESA protections for endangered species

Donald Trump’s administration, backed by House Republicans and Elon Musk’s Doge agency, are carrying out an attack on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and federal wildlife agencies that, if successful, will almost certainly drive numerous species into extinction, environmental advocates warn.

The three-pronged attack is designed to freeze endangered wildlife protections to more quickly push through oil, gas and development projects, opponents say.

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© Photograph: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

© Photograph: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Militants say 182 people taken hostage as train hijacked in Pakistan

Baloch Liberation Army claims to have killed 20 soldiers after blowing up tracks in south-western Balochistan region

A separatist militant group in Pakistan’s south-western Balochistan province says it has taken 182 hostages including military personnel after hijacking a train, as the country’s security situation continues to decline sharply.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) blew up the tracks and fired on the Jaffar Express train as it travelled through a tunnel in a remote and mountainous area, bringing the train to a halt.

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© Photograph: Sami Khan/EPA

© Photograph: Sami Khan/EPA

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UK reggae pioneers Steel Pulse: ‘We told punk fans – you can pogo, but please don’t spit at us’

They won a Grammy, risked being shot in the US and were adored by Bob Marley. As they go on tour, the band look back on half a century of being a voice for the voiceless

In the late 1970s, whenever young Birmingham reggae band Steel Pulse performed their song Ku Klux Klan, the group’s vocalists would theatrically wear white KKK hoods onstage to illustrate the song’s lyrics, which excoriated the Klan’s violence, racism and cowardice. British audiences loved it and understood the power of a black band making such a striking visual statement, but in America it was different.

“American audiences were sort of dumbstruck and flabbergasted,” says lead singer David Hinds, now 68, remembering their first US visit, in 1981. “They told us they didn’t even know there were black people in England, let alone would do a song like Ku Klux Klan. In Boston a white guy jumped out of the audience and started a struggle onstage. In the end the police came and dragged him off. Our elderly African American T-shirt seller said he was scared for us every time we went onstage. He’d say ‘You don’t know America. This place is something else.’”

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© Photograph: Peter Noble/Redferns

© Photograph: Peter Noble/Redferns

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Fifa accused of blocking labour inspection at 2026 World Cup stadium

  • Building and Wood Workers’ International makes claim
  • Stadium in question is Azteca in Mexico City

Fifa has been accused of reneging on a commitment to ensure workers’ safety on World Cup projects by refusing inspectors access to observe conditions inside Mexico’s Azteca Stadium.

Representatives from the trade union the Building and Wood Workers’ International say they were told on Monday before a planned visit that they would not be allowed access to the 80,000-capacity venue, which is being renovated for the 2026 World Cup.

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© Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

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Students block access to Serbian state TV station amid nationwide protests

Anti-government rally in Belgrade this weekend billed as climax to months of unrest since Novi Sad tragedy last year

Several hundred student protesters have blocked Serbia’s public television station building in Belgrade as tensions soar days before a large rally planned for the weekend that is billed as the climax of months of anti-government demonstrations.

The students, who first blocked the TV building in the capital’s city centre late on Monday, gathered again in their hundreds on Tuesday after announcing that their blockade would last for at least 22 hours. A similar blockade was organised in the country’s second-largest city, Novi Sad.

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© Photograph: Đorđe Kojadinović/Reuters

© Photograph: Đorđe Kojadinović/Reuters

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Spiced chicken, pasta with peas and a twist on biscotti: three recipes from Guy Mirabella

The cookbook designer and former owner of Shop Ate Cafe & Store on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula shares his seasonal, Australian take on his Sicilian heritage

Many of my favourite recipes come from Sunday pranzo (lunch) at our family farm on the Morning Peninsula in Victoria, surrounded by Italian flavours. The food I love to eat and make is layered with Sicilian heritage and history.

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© Photograph: Guy Mirabella

© Photograph: Guy Mirabella

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The Beguiled: Clint Eastwood’s 1971 version is a sweaty, southern hothouse

Before Coppola’s 2017 film, there was Eastwood’s portrayal of the Union soldier taken in by an all-girls school. It’s an all-timer scumbag performance

On paper, Don Siegel’s 1971 southern Gothic melodrama The Beguiled appears the perfect candidate for a remake: a critical and commercial failure in its own time, its infamous reputation helped it linger in the margins of popular consciousness. Sofia Coppola would have thought as much when she directed her own take on Thomas P. Cullinan’s source novel in 2017. While Coppola’s version is full of distinct beauty, Siegel’s original stands alone in its unyielding thorniness – that may have seemed like a career misstep for star Clint Eastwood upon its initial release, but now stands clearly as one of the most potent subversions of the masculine archetype he helped popularise.

Eastwood plays John McBurney, an unscrupulous corporal fighting for the Union during the waning days of the American civil war. Wounded in rural Mississippi, McBurney is found drenched in his own blood by 12-year-old Amy, out picking mushrooms despite the many potential dangers. Amy takes the wounded McBurney to the seminary where she boards. Soon, his presence both as an enemy soldier and a man throws the ecosystem of the Confederate-sympathising, all-women school into disarray.

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© Photograph: Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

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I’m a transgender veteran. Trump’s military order is reckless and dangerous | Alleria Stanley

Trans people are twice as likely as US adults overall to serve in the armed forces. But we’re regularly told our careers and lives aren’t worth saving

Late last month, the Trump administration moved to fire transgender people serving in the armed forces.

This includes those who have honorably served for for 19 years (one year short of retirement) those who’ve served honorably in combat situations, and those in whom the military has already invested millions of dollars in training.

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© Photograph: ddp USA/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ddp USA/REX/Shutterstock

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Australia’s record gold exports to US set back its case for tariff relief as Trump trade war looms

Industries across the country are bracing for the impact of the Trump administration’s worldwide tariff regime

A run on gold in America – fanned by fears of a global trade war – has given Australia its first trade surplus with the US in decades, undermining the government’s key argument for exemption from Donald Trump’s impending global tariff regime.

Australia expects to be included in a comprehensive global tariff regime of 25% on aluminium and steel imports from Wednesday, but which is set to expand to other sectors, such as agriculture and pharmaceuticals, in coming months.

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© Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

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From burritos to baklava bowls: the best things to make with cottage cheese | Kitchen aide

World cuisines that use curd cheeses frequently sub in cottage cheese, even in sweet dishes – read on for inspiration

Why is everyone talking about cottage cheese, and can you make anything that’s actually good with it?
“I’ve never understood why cottage cheese has such a bad rep,” says Tommy Banks, chef/director of The Black Swan at Oldstead, Roots York and The Abbey Inn in North Yorkshire, who is a big fan of the white stuff. “It’s deliciously creamy and so versatile; I use it in both sweet and savoury dishes at home, where it’s a staple.” And he’s not kidding: Banks has it for lunch just about every weekday, either with scrambled eggs or tinned fish. “It’s a great, affordable, high-protein quick-fix.”

There’s no denying that the diet food from the 1980s is experiencing something of a revival, thanks to videos of ice-cream, flatbread and pancakes made from the curds and whey receiving millions of views on TikTok over the past year or so. However, it is also a good alternative to urda, a Balkan cheese made from leftover whey that, when Irina Janakievska moved to the UK 20 years ago, was impossible to find here. “I started using cottage cheese instead,” says the author of The Balkan Kitchen. “And while it isn’t a direct substitute, it is versatile.” For a riff on a Balkan-style filo or hand-stretched savoury pastry (“such as gibanica, banitsa or burek”), Janakievska combines cottage cheese, fried leeks and blanched and roughly chopped greens (spinach, chard, sorrel, nettles, say), then binds them with an egg before swaddling in filo and baking.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

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© Photograph: Uyen Luu/The Guardian

© Photograph: Uyen Luu/The Guardian

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The Nigel Farage v Rupert Lowe prize fight is getting ugly. Has Reform reached its breaking point? | Marina Hyde

It’s great for those who enjoy a punch-up on the right, but as the zealots duke it out, think of the voters who trusted them

How soon before one of Reform’s MPs starts touting himself as the reform Reform candidate? A negative amount of time, it seems, with Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe already relieved of the whip for saying that Reform is currently “a protest party led by the Messiah”. Yep: Jesus Christ Superkings.

Anyway, Nigel Farage has taken all this as well as you might expect. In terms of what’s happened since, with even Nigel judging that “things have got a little bit out of control”, I’m finding it quite hard to immerse myself fully in every angle. Mainly because I’m worried it’s going to be one of those stories that demeans men – and I’m a passionate supporter of their involvement in politics, whatever people are saying about DEI nowadays.

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© Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA

© Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA

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‘Stolen off a donkey’: why is The White Lotus so obsessed with graphic penis footage?

From Jason Isaacs’ shocking flash to Theo James wearing a prosthetic he described as ‘ginormous’, the luxury resort drama is packed with male nudity. Why are so many men going full frontal?

Lucius Malfoy just showed us his wand. In the fourth and latest episode of The White Lotus, viewers saw more of actor Jason Isaacs than they expected. Several inches more. We screamed in unison with his character’s grossed-out children. You didn’t get that at Hogwarts.

As wealthy patriarch Timothy Ratliff, he has been steadily coming off the rails at the five-star Thai resort. The dodgy dealings upon which he built his high-finance empire have been uncovered by journalists in the US. The feds are closing in. Assets have been seized. He is desperately trying to cover his tracks to avoid jail time, while hiding the scandal from his dysfunctional family, who were forced into a digital detox upon arrival at the spa. Safe to say they will have a fair few notifications when they switch their phones back on.

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© Photograph: HBO

© Photograph: HBO

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The US Postal Service helped build the Black middle class. Trump could end that legacy

Trump is expected to privatize the USPS, where Black people make up 29% of the staff, and cut down on the number of jobs

In recent weeks, the fate of the United States Postal Service (USPS), a revered and vital public institution, has been uncertain. Since the start of his second presidency, Donald Trump has launched major changes to the federal government. Along with billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the president has carried out widespread layoffs at agencies such as the Small Business Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the purported goal of cutting costs and boosting efficiency. Now, Trump is turning his focus to the post office, an agency he has long been critical of and one that he may be privatizing.

In addition to delivering upwards of 343.5m pieces of mail and packages a day, the post office is responsible for administering official government forms such as passport applications, and providing banking services, such as money orders. As of 2025, it employs 640,000 people. Black people, in particular, make up 29% of its staff, while making up just 12% of the national workforce overall.

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© Composite: Bloomberg, PhotoQuest, Getty Images

© Composite: Bloomberg, PhotoQuest, Getty Images

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Supersized pearls and crystal bows: Chanel lures celebrity crowd to Paris

Fashion week also brings Louis Vuitton showcasing cinematic romance of train travel

Chanel came gift-wrapped in black ribbon at Paris fashion week. The ribbon was made of steel, not silk. It was the width of a city street and 368 metres long, soaring skywards beside the long catwalk like very pretty scaffolding. The message: the house of Chanel is as tough as it is chic.

New designer Matthieu Blazy is expected to take up his role next month, by which time Chanel will have been without a creative lead for almost a year. This design vacuum poses a challenge for the house, but Chanel still has a star designer – albeit one who has been dead for 54 years.

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© Photograph: Tom Nicholson/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tom Nicholson/REX/Shutterstock

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America’s next killing spree: 10 days, five states, six death-row prisoners set to die

Desolate spectacle of executions begins again under Trump, in landscape of capital punishment as riven as US is as a whole

David Leonard Wood. Jessie Hoffman. Aaron Gunches. Wendell Grissom. Edward Thomas James. Moises Sandoval Mendoza.

So many names. So many dead men walking. Ten days, five states, six death row prisoners scheduled for execution.

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© Illustration: Guardian Design

© Illustration: Guardian Design

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No one’s buying Hunter Biden’s terrible paintings any more? I wonder why | Arwa Mahdawi

It’s tough being a nepo baby – especially when your daddy suddenly loses his influence

Poor Hunter Biden. His dad, who issued him an unconditional pardon as one of his last acts as US president, saved him from the justice system – but it’s quite apparent no one is coming to save his art career.

You may have had other things on your mind lately, so let me remind you about the trajectory of one of the US’s most controversial artists. Just a few years ago, Joe Biden’s troubled son, who had previously earned megabucks sitting on various boards doing mysterious board things, was enjoying remarkable success as an “emerging” artist. His paintings were being exhibited in a fancy New York gallery and selling for large sums. Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer and friend of Biden, reportedly bought 11 works for a total of $875,000 (£690,000). Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Democratic donor, bought two paintings, for $42,000 and $52,000. All in all, Hunter sold art for about $1.5m between 2021 and 2024. Not too shabby for someone considered an amateur.

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.

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© Photograph: Tom Brenner/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Brenner/Getty Images

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‘I don’t feel part of society’: how Covid is still taking its toll five years on

The social, educational and financial impact is still making itself felt, especially for those who continue to mourn

Five years ago, on 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. In the intervening years, more than 7 million people worldwide have been reported to have died from Covid. For most people, life as they remember it before the outbreak has returned to the way it was before. However, respondents to a Guardian callout reflect a more complex picture for those who are still affected.

While many reported feeling happier that working from home has allowed for a more flexible work-life balance and that eating more healthily and exercising has become a priority, many others described how they still live with what happened.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

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Cheltenham festival 2025: Lossiemouth streaks home, Majborough shocked in day one thriller – live

1.20 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle: Oddspedia market movers

Kopek Des Bordes (1/1 into 4/5)

Romeo Coolio (8/1 into 11/2)

Karniquet (66/1 into 40/1)

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© Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile/Getty Images

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Sierra Leone’s immigration chief fired after footage showed him with fugitive drug lord

President sacks Alusine Kanneh after video of him with Johannes Leijdekkers, one of Europe’s most wanted

Sierra Leone’s president has fired the head of the immigration service days after footage was published showing him receiving a birthday gift from a fugitive Dutch drug kingpin.

The footage of Alusine Kanneh being handed a present by Johannes Leijdekkers – which has not been independently verified by the Guardian – was published by the investigative outlet Follow the Money and the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad on Friday.

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© Photograph: First Lady Fatima Maada Bio/Facebook/Fatima Maada Bio/Reuters

© Photograph: First Lady Fatima Maada Bio/Facebook/Fatima Maada Bio/Reuters

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Kyiv ‘ready to do everything to achieve peace’ as crunch US-Ukraine talks begin

Senior officials meet in Jeddah aiming to build confidence after Trump cut support for Ukraine in war with Russia

Senior US and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia for crunch talks focused on ending the war with Russia, aiming to build confidence despite a personal crisis between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although the two presidents will be absent, Zelenskyy has sent his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, while Trump dispatched his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to Jeddah.

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© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

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Having a bawl: why Avatar 3 will reduce you to a sobbing husk (just ask James Cameron’s wife)

Cameron is pulling out all the stops to promote Avatar: Fire and Ash, by telling the world that it reduced Suzy Amis Cameron to tears for four hours

Can you feel it? If you’re paying enough attention, and you have your spirit tuned to the frequencies of the planet, then you’ll be able to sense that the old Avatar machinery is starting to crank up again. The third instalment of the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set for release in December. And this means that James Cameron finds himself saddled with a familiar task; in just nine months he has to try and motivate people to see a film from a franchise that they’ve already forgotten about twice before now.

The bad news is that these are incredibly expensive films to make. So expensive, in fact, that Cameron previously stated that the second film needed to be the third highest grossing movie of all time just to break even. And, just to compound things, that film was such an incomprehensible mishmash of confused mythology, nondescript motivation and vague characterisation that this one needs to be something really special to get bums on seats.

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© Illustration: Dylan Cole

© Illustration: Dylan Cole

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NFL star Odell Beckham Jr denies allegations in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs lawsuit

  • Woman claims player was involved in assault
  • Beckham says he was not in California at time

NFL star Odell Beckham Jr has denied any wrongdoing after saying he was named in a lawsuit that alleges Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs initiated a gang-rape against a woman in California.

In an initial lawsuit filed in October, Ashley Parham claims she was lured to an apartment in Orinda, California, and assaulted by multiple men. She alleges the assault was watched by Combs, who she had claimed had played a part in the killing of Tupac Shakur. An amended lawsuit filed on Friday is understood to have named former Beckham as one of her attackers.

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© Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

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Wales women’s rugby captain slams ‘disgraceful’ WRU contract wrangle

  • Hannah Jones says she considered quitting last year
  • WRU allegedly threatened pulling out of World Cup

The Wales captain, Hannah Jones, says what the squad went through amid a contract controversy last year was “disgraceful” and made her contemplate international retirement.

Allegations emerged in October that the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) had threatened to withdraw from the 2025 Rugby World Cup if the women’s team did not sign new contracts on offer. Jones says the negotiations last year were difficult “from day one” and that communication with the WRU was a “big issue”, with some of her players “becoming unwell physically and mentally” because of the process.

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© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

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Ice accessed car trackers in sanctuary cities that could help in raids, files show

Westchester county has laws limiting cooperation, but Ice has accessed trove of data that holds license plate readers

As Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its crackdown on undocumented immigrants to the US, advocates are increasingly worried immigration agents will turn to surveillance technology to round up those targeted for deportation, even in so-called “sanctuary cities” that limit the ways local law enforcement can cooperate with immigration officials.

That’s because US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (Ice) in past years has gained access to troves of data from sanctuary cities that could aid its raids and enforcement actions. Among that information is data from the vast network of license plate readers active across the US, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

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© Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images

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My brother was shot dead – and then my nephew. Now I’m trying to make our city a safer place

As mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, Randall Woodfin is trying to tackle a murder epidemic. He’s all too familiar with the pain of losing a loved one to violence

It was past midnight on 27 May 2012 when Randall Woodfin, an early-career public prosecutor, received a call about his older brother. “Ralph’s been shot,” he was told, abruptly. “You need to come.”

He jumped in a car, and raced across the city of Birmingham, Alabama, running every red light along the way. He made it to the police perimeter. It was a block and a half from his grandmother’s old home, at a public-housing project in the city’s south, where the two brothers – eight years apart – had spent much of their childhood.

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© Photograph: Charity Rachelle/The Guardian

© Photograph: Charity Rachelle/The Guardian

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The Breakdown | France buy-in to monster pack blueprint threatens reimagined future

Oscar Jégou’s fine Dublin performance brings into focus the potential impact of forwards who can play anywhere

The Six Nations title is still theoretically on the line entering the final weekend. But, let’s be honest, if France display the same power against Scotland as they did against Ireland in Dublin there is only one probable outcome. Even minus the unfortunate Antoine Dupont, now facing a long lay-off because of damaged knee ligaments, France have frightening reserves of strength and depth.

How good, for example, was the young back-row forward Oscar Jégou after he arrived off the bench to replace the centre Pierre-Louis Barassi? The 21-year-old from La Rochelle did not simply make a try-scoring impact; he made every specialist centre in the competition shift uneasily in their seats. Why bother with a subtle, ball-playing 12 or 13 when you have a 6ft 3in Superman who makes old-school positional orthodoxies redundant?

This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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© Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile/Getty Images

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‘I demand to have some booze!’: how do actors fake being drunk or on drugs?

From The White Lotus to Industry, hedonism is everywhere on TV at the moment. Actors, and the ‘wellbeing facilitators’ tasked with keeping them safe, reveal the trick to acting under the influence

“Iam not a big drinker, I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke,” says Sagar Radia, best known as the ruthless, potty-mouthed trader Rishi Ramdani in the HBO/BBC banking saga Industry. “But when friends and family watch, they’re like: ‘You look like you do know what you’re doing.’”

Nowhere was this more the case than in season three’s White Mischief, an episode focused entirely on the character’s grim descent into gambling addiction, inflamed by booze and cocaine. Previously described by a colleague as “the ghost of Margaret Thatcher in a handsome Asian kid”, here Rishi starts to look more like a disgraced Tory MP in the 90s, as he binges on shots and coke in a seedy casino. At first he’s euphoric – dancing like a drunk uncle at a wedding – but soon his behaviour becomes erratic, his movements shaky and impaired, his legs unsteady. Despite rising debts, he gambles away all he has, and even seems to consider pawning his wedding ring for a few, long seconds. The next morning, we see him stagger into work on a comedown – bloody cuts and bruises all over his face.

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© Illustration: Jason Ford/The Guardian

© Illustration: Jason Ford/The Guardian

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European markets rise and euro gains against dollar amid ‘Trumpcession’ fears

US currency has lost all the gains it enjoyed since Trump won election as global shares are sold off

European markets have risen and the euro gained against the dollar to the highest level since the US election, as the greenback sank against other leading currencies amid mounting “Trumpcession” fears.

The euro rose sharply, breaking above $1.09 for the first time since early November, when Donald Trump’s election victory sent the dollar soaring. That “Trump trade” has unwound, as new US tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, and the threat of more levies against European trading partners, have triggered fears of an American recession.

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© Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

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Pronatalists are ascendant on the right. Can they agree on how to make Americans have more babies?

The movement unites ‘family values’ conservatives and tech bro rightwingers. Will this incoherent coalition hold?

In his first address to the United States after becoming vice-president, JD Vance stood on stage and proclaimed: “I want more babies in the United States of America.” Weeks later, Donald Trump signed an executive order pledging support for in vitro fertilization, recognizing “the importance of family formation and that our nation’s public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children”.

In late January, a Department of Transportation memo directed the agency to prioritize projects that “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average”. And last week, it was reported that Elon Musk, the unelected head of the government-demolishing “department of governmental efficiency” and a man who has said that the “collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far”, had become a father of 14.

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© Composite: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design

© Composite: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design

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The Mexican women who defied drug-dealers, fly-tippers and chauvinists to build a thriving business

The Guardianas del Conchalito ignored chants of ‘get back to your kitchens’, determined to protect the environment and create a sustainable shellfish operation

Ahead of the small boat, as it bobs on the waters near La Paz in the Mexican state of Baja California, is a long line of old plastic bottles strung together on top of the waves. Underneath them are as many as 100,000 oysters, waiting to be sold to the upmarket hotels down the coast.

Cheli Mendez, who oversees the project, pulls a shell up from below, cuts it open with a knife, and gives me the contents to try: a plump, tasty oyster. Mendez is one of a group known as Guardianas del Conchalito, or guardians of the shells, and theirs is the first oyster-growing business in the region run entirely by women, she says.

The women dug a channel with shovels and pickaxes to allow seawater to reach the mangroves

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© Photograph: Benjamin Soto/The Guardian

© Photograph: Benjamin Soto/The Guardian

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Experts warn of North Sea collision’s ‘devastating’ impact on marine life

Highly toxic jet fuel leaking from oil tanker threatens local ecosystems as investigations begin into collision’s cause

Leaking fuel from the collision between a cargo ship and oil tanker in the North Sea would have a “devastating” impact on marine life, experts have said, as investigations began into the cause of the incident.

Fires continued to burn onboard both vessels 24 hours after the Stena Immaculate tanker and cargo ship Solong collided off the coast of Yorkshire on Monday morning. A search for a missing crew member was called off overnight.

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© Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

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William S Burroughs’s art: ‘He said, I killed the only woman I loved. Then broke down sobbing’

Notorious for his drug-fuelled literary experiments and the fact that he shot his partner, beat writer Burroughs also made art inspired by the climate crisis

One day 51 years ago, out in the wilds of New Mexico, Kathelin Gray asked a question of her hero, the writer and artist William S Burroughs, whom she had just met. “William, I have read your books and I must know: what is your attitude to women?”

The question had been eating away at Gray for the best part of a decade. As a teenage babysitter, she read Burroughs’ novel The Naked Lunch and was blown away by it. “The very yuckiness of the imagery, the critique of predatory capitalism, the degrading sex and violence – all that spoke to me,” she says.

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© Photograph: Jonathan Greet/© Estate of William S. Burroughs

© Photograph: Jonathan Greet/© Estate of William S. Burroughs

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Diego Maradona medics go on trial accused of criminal negligence

Seven health professionals who worked with football legend in days before his death face trial in Argentina

An Argentinian neurosurgeon and six other medical professionals have gone on trial in Buenos Aires over the death of the legendary footballer Diego Maradona.

Ardent admirers of the World Cup-winning star, who died in November 2020 aged 60, gathered outside the courtroom to demand punishment for the people they blame for Maradona’s premature death.

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© Photograph: Alejandro Pagni/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alejandro Pagni/AFP/Getty Images

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After a Musk post, Canada professor convicted in absentia plunges back in public eye

Hassan Diab, who maintains innocence in 1980 Paris attack, fears extradition fight as rightwing media seizes on his case

Until recently, Hassan Diab’s life in Ottawa had begun to settle back into a quiet suburban routine: spending his days teaching sociology part time at Carleton University, taking his two youngest children to the park to play football, or going for an afternoon swim.

It had been well over a year since he was convicted in absentia for carrying out a deadly bomb attack on a Paris synagogue in 1980, and the media attention had largely quieted down. He was trying to move on with his life.

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© Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

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‘I cried about my breast cancer – but I didn’t throw a pity party’: Anastacia on hardship, hits and humour

Twenty-five years after her debut album, the star is still loving life as a ‘continual working girl’. She talks about menopause, mastectomy and her bizarre failure to crack her native America

After Anastacia had a double mastectomy in 2013, she began to joke about it. “It was wild to look at myself. I said: ‘My boobs look like this!’” She peers at me with her eyes screwed shut. We are sharing a sofa in a photographic studio in London. I’m not sure what she means, but she belts out, “No eyeballs!” (Typically, nipples come towards the end of reconstructive surgery.) Even in hospital, “I would make jokes and be funny,” she says. “I’m lucky.” Lucky isn’t how many people would feel after getting breast cancer for the second time, but preventive surgery was her choice and, she says, “I can accept it when I find humour in it. Being able to take the mick out of myself and my toxic titties! – See! There you go! – it takes the sting out of it.”

Anastacia has always been like this, she says. Back when she used to break her older sister Shawn’s dolls, “cos the arms didn’t go in a certain direction”, her mum tried to punish her. She gave Shawn brand new dolls, and Anastacia the broken ones. But Anastacia was in her element. “I played hospital. I was like ‘Whee! Whee!’” she says, bouncing her hands, busily working imaginary dolls. She made them have a great time despite their mutilations, scribbled-on faces and brutally cut hair. “Which is constantly how my life is. I was born with that in me, and it amplified as I got older and realised: ‘Oh yeah, that’s a better way to live than worrying about things.’”

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

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As Jews celebrate Purim, let us end the slaughter in Gaza committed in our name | Peter Beinart

Our refusal to reckon with the dark side of Purim reflects a refusal to reckon with the dark side of ourselves

Later this month, on the holiday of Purim, Jewish people will dress in silly costumes, eat triangular pastries, and listen to an ancient story about attempted genocide. What we notice, and don’t notice, about that story says a lot about what we notice, and don’t notice, in Israel and Palestine.

The tale comes from the book of Esther. It begins with a dissolute Persian king. He hosts a banquet, gets drunk, orders his queen to “display her beauty” to the revelers, and, when she refuses, banishes her from the throne. As her replacement he chooses Esther, a beautiful young maiden who, unbeknownst to him, is a Jew. Then he makes a calamitous personnel decision: he selects Haman, a pathological Jew-hater, to be his right-hand man. The stage is now set for an epic clash.

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© Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

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