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Slot sanguine after Liverpool exit in ‘best game of football I’ve ever been involved in’

  • PSG beat Liverpool on penalties in Champions League
  • Slot praises ‘teams of an incredible level and intensity’

Arne Slot described Liverpool’s Champions League exit as the ­finest game of his career after Paris Saint‑Germain stunned Anfield with ­victory in a penalty shootout.

The Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma proved the decisive figure in the last-16 second leg with penalty saves from Darwin Núñez and Curtis Jones. The game had gone to extra time and penalties after ­Ousmane Dembélé’s winner cancelled out Liverpool’s first‑leg lead from Paris. PSG converted all four of their penalties in a flawless shootout display.

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© Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

© Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

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‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

Swings between drought and floods striking from Dallas to Shanghai, while Madrid and Cairo are among cities whose climate has flipped

Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed.

Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa. The report analysed the 100 most populous cities, plus 12 selected ones, and found that 95% of them showed a distinct trend towards wetter or drier weather.

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© Composite: Guardian Design/AP/EPA

© Composite: Guardian Design/AP/EPA

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Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart in world-first success

Sydney surgeons ‘enormously proud’ after patient in his 40s receives the Australian-designed implant designed as a bridge before donor heart

An Australian man with heart failure has become the first person in the world to walk out of a hospital with a total artificial heart implant.

The Australian researchers and doctors behind the operation announced on Wednesday that the implant had been an “unmitigated clinical success” after the man lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in early March.

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© Photograph: Claire Usmar/BiVACOR

© Photograph: Claire Usmar/BiVACOR

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Donnarumma denies Liverpool and Núñez to send PSG through on penalties

Luis Enrique exploded across the Anfield pitch when Désiré Doué struck the winning penalty and was still leaping on Paris Saint-Germain players and officials when they headed down the tunnel five minutes later. The reaction of someone who knows that one of the biggest obstacles to PSG’s designs on a first Champions League title is out of the way.

Liverpool suffered a role reversal in an epic last 16 second-leg tie at Anfield and their hopes of a seventh European crown are gone as a consequence. The home side were superior, profligate and lost 1-0, just as PSG did at Parc des Princes last week. The visiting goalkeeper again emerged the hero with Gianluigi Donnarumma, not Alisson, taking the acclaim after saving from Darwin Núñez and Curtis Jones in a penalty shootout. Ousmane Dembélé had levelled the tie on aggregate with an early goal but Liverpool had numerous chances to advance before the necessary spot-kicks.

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© Photograph: Peter Powell/Reuters

© Photograph: Peter Powell/Reuters

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Mother of two sons shot in Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ dares hope for justice

Sarah Celiz among tens of thousands feeling relief that ex-Philippines president will finally face the courts

Sarah Celiz wept as she sat at home watching footage from Manila’s main airport on her phone. They were tears of sadness, and of relief.

The former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who had just landed in the capital, was surrounded by officials and being taken into custody. The international criminal court had issued an arrest warrant over his bloody “war on drugs”, in which her two sons were among the tens of thousands of people killed in deprived urban areas.

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© Photograph: Basilio Sepe/AP

© Photograph: Basilio Sepe/AP

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USAid employees told to destroy classified documents, email shows

Officials have begun large-scale destruction of classified documents, including using shredders and ‘burn bags’

Officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have begun a large-scale destruction of classified documents at their headquarters in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington DC including with shredders and using “burn bags”, according to an internal email seen by the Guardian.

The email, sent by the acting USAid secretary, Erica Y Carr, instructs staff on procedures for clearing “classified safes and personnel documents” through shredding and the use of “burn bags” marked “SECRET” throughout the day on Tuesday.

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© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

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The trauma plot: how did culture get addicted to tragic backstories? | Diana Reid

Again and again, audiences have been spoon-fed the same story: a character can only be explained by a past trauma, tantalisingly revealed in the last episode. Has the trope reached a tipping point?

You only need to look at some of the biggest stories of the past decade to realise popular culture from the late 2010s had a love affair with trauma. Online there was the personal essay boom that kept websites including BuzzFeed, Jezebel and Australia’s own Mamamia afloat. In publishing, memoirs that explored the gamut of human suffering – everything from the pampered (Prince Harry’s Spare) to the impoverished (Tara Westover’s Educated) – broke sales records. And memoirs found their fictional counterpoint in novels including Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Miranda Cowley Heller’s The Paper Palace. Even television and film were trauma-obsessed. Cue the detective who must face his own trauma before he can crack the case (True Detective, The Dry); and the advertising executive who could write perfect copy if only he could stop running from his past (Mad Men).

Our craving for tales of suffering reached a fever pitch in Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. The 2015 novel follows a corporate lawyer, Jude (named after the patron saint of lost causes), as he stumbles through a glamorous life in New York, haunted by the abundance of abuse he suffered as a child. A 2022 theatrical adaptation by the Belgian theatre director Ivo Von Hove was so faithful and so bloody that when I saw it at the Adelaide festival in 2023, a woman beside me exclaimed aloud in the intermission: “Why?”

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© Photograph: Luke Varley/PA

© Photograph: Luke Varley/PA

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Kane and Davies complete emphatic Bayern Munich win over Leverkusen

Normal service has been resumed in Germany. Perhaps it has in the Champions League, too, given Bayern Munich are in the quarter-finals for a sixth successive year. If Inter are treated with the same brutality they inflicted upon Bayer Leverkusen, whose brief spell as domestic kryptonite appears comprehensively over, they may move closer to lifting the trophy on home soil in May.

This may not have been as sedate as the walking pace at which Harry Kane nudged the opener but, in truth, it was not far off. Bayern never looked like losing even a fraction of the three-goal lead amassed in the first leg and could count once again on the England captain, whose presence on their scoresheet does not seem such a luxury any more.

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© Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA

© Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA

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Eagles will visit White House to celebrate Super Bowl win after 2018 absence

The Philadelphia Eagles have confirmed they will visit the White House to celebrate their victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl.

The news was announced by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Tuesday, and later confirmed by an Eagles spokesperson.

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© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

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Tiger Woods all but certain to miss Masters after rupturing achilles at home

  • 15-time major winner has emergency surgery in Florida
  • Woods has not played on tour since 2024 Open at Troon

Tiger Woods is a near certainty to miss the Masters for just the fifth time since his debut in 1995 after confirming emergency surgery on a ruptured achilles, sustained while training at home.

Woods has not played an individual event since missing the cut at the Open Championship last summer. He is a notable absentee from the Players Championship this week, with a lack of appearances in the early part of this year partly due to the death of his mother in early February.

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© Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA

© Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA

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Lamine Yamal bamboozles Benfica as Barcelona advance in name of Carles Miñarro

Barcelona qualified for the Champions League quarter-finals in the name of Carles Miñarro, as a journey they began together continued in his absence.

On Tuesday morning a funeral was held for the club doctor who had died suddenly at the team hotel three days earlier; the same evening, the players he had cared for and who had spent the previous night at the chapel of rest paid homage the only way they really could.

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© Photograph: Jose Breton/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jose Breton/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

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Astronomers discover 128 new moons orbiting Saturn

Planet now has 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets in the solar system combined

Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, giving it an insurmountable lead in the running tally of moons in the solar system.

Until recently, the “moon king” title was held by Jupiter, but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined. The team behind the discoveries had previously identified 62 Saturnian moons using the Canada France Hawaii telescope and, having seen faint hints that there were more out there, made further observations in 2023.

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© Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/EPA

© Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/EPA

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Liverpool v PSG goes to penalties: Champions League last 16, second leg – live

The stats do not read well for Paris Saint-Germain. None of the last 15 French sides to play away from home against an English opponent in Europe have managed to win, with 14 of those ending in losses. The last victory was by PSG against Manchester United in 2020-21.

Liverpool, who have won all four of their home Champions League games this season, have progressed from their last 14 knockout stage ties in this competition. The last side to eliminate them after Liverpool took an advantage into the second leg was in 2001-02 against Bayer Leverkusen.

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© Photograph: Alex Pantling/UEFA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alex Pantling/UEFA/Getty Images

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Columbia University ‘refusing to help’ identify people for arrest – White House

Trump administration has axed $400m in federal funding to Columbia and detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of Homeland Security identify people for arrest on campus, after immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate over the weekend.

The Trump White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday the administration had given the university names of multiple individuals it accused of “pro-Hamas activity”, reiterating the administration’s intention to deport activists associated with pro-Palestinian protests.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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German tourists’ ordeal reportedly ending as they are returned from US detention

Jessica Brösche to join Lucas Sielaff, who is reported to have returned to Germany on 6 March

A German tourist detained by US immigration authorities is due to be deported back to Germany on Tuesday after spending more than six weeks in detention, including eight days in solitary confinement.

Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Berlin, will reportedly join Lucas Sielaff, 25, from Bad Bibra in Saxony-Anhalt, who is reported to have returned to Germany on 6 March, after being arrested at the Mexican border on 18 February before being detained for almost two weeks.

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© Photograph: Bing Guan/Reuters

© Photograph: Bing Guan/Reuters

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Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem twice in a month

Books about Banksy and by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé were removed, and one of the owners detained

Israeli police have raided the leading Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem for the second time in a month, detaining one of its owners for several hours and seizing some of its stock.

The deputy state attorney’s office had warned police that they overstepped their authority with the first raid on the shop in February. Officers again arrived at the Educational Bookshop without a warrant on Tuesday morning, staff said.

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© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

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Ratcliffe’s straight-talking gunslinger act dissolves into double-speak | Barney Ronay

On Manchester United’s job losses, finances and new stadium, it takes hawk-like focus to work out what the co-owner is actually saying

A core strength of Ineos is direct accountability. Matrix structures are by definition amorphous, confusing, and create places for people to hide.

Hmm. That does sound bad, Sir Jim. Talk me through it one more time, these frustrating corporate shields, these blame-avoidance tactics you’re so worried about. But first could you please just come out from behind the table. And stop doing that admittedly very good Donald Duck voice.

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© Illustration: Manchester United FC

© Illustration: Manchester United FC

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Dizzying turnaround in US-Ukraine relations leaves all eyes on Russia

Putin may well stick to previous demands over Ukrainian elections and a rejection of European peacekeeping forces

Suddenly the ball is in Russia’s court. The flow of US intelligence and military aid to Ukraine is to resume – and the Kremlin is being asked to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv has already told the Americans it will sign up to.

It is a dizzying turnaround from the Oval Office row between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump and the apparent abandonment of the White House’s strategy to simply pressurise Ukraine into agreeing to a peace deal. Now, for the first time, Russia is being asked to make a commitment, though it is unclear what will follow if it does sign up.

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© Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP

© Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP

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Ukraine agrees to 30-day ceasefire as US prepares to lift military aid restrictions

Joint statement says ‘ball is now in Russia’s court’ as two countries also revive plans for minerals deal

Ukraine said it was ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia, as the US announced it would immediately lift its restrictions on military aid and intelligence sharing after high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump said he now hoped Vladimir Putin would reciprocate. If the Russian president did, it would mark the first ceasefire in the more than three years since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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© Photograph: Saul Loeb/Reuters

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/Reuters

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US investigators advise partial ban on helicopter flights after DC plane crash

Announcement comes after fatal collision between military helicopter and American Airlines jet on 29 January

Federal investigators looking for the cause of the collision between a passenger jet and a US army helicopter that killed 67 people near Washington DC in late January recommended a ban on some helicopter flights on Tuesday to improve safety.

The recommendation came after a military helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet as it approached Ronald Reagan National airport over the Potomac River on 29 January. Among the victims were 28 members of the figure-skating community.

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© Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

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Golden Ace wins most dramatic Champion Hurdle in living memory

  • Outsider triumphs on day one of Cheltenham festival
  • Constitution Hill and State Man both fall independently

Amid falling crowds, increasing numbers of odds-on shots and a relentless stream of winners from the Willie Mullins yard, it has been a popular theory in recent years that the Cheltenham festival was becoming a little too … predictable. But it was debunked in the space of four chaotic minutes of extraordinary drama on Tuesday.

Jeremy Scott’s mare Golden Ace, at 25-1, emerged as one of the most unexpected of all Champion Hurdle winners, at the end of a race in which both Constitution Hill and State Man – the champions in 2023 and 2024 respectively – were fallers.

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© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

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Romanian court rejects appeal by far-right politician to lift candidacy ban

Călin Georgescu, a Russia-friendly populist, won first round of election before result was annulled

Romania’s top court has upheld a decision to ban presidential election frontrunner Călin Georgescu from standing in a rerun of the vote in May, sparking protest in Bucharest and leaving the country’s far-right parties four days to find a candidate.

Georgescu, an anti-EU, Moscow-friendly populist, surged from almost nowhere to win the first round of the country’s presidential election last year, but the result was annulled by Romania’s top court because of suspected Russian interference.

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© Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

© Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

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The Guardian view on Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague: a warning to rogue leaders | Editorial

The extradition of the former president of the Philippines on an ICC warrant is an affirmation of the principles of international justice

After his arrest on an international criminal court (ICC) warrant on Tuesday, the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, demonstrated an uncharacteristic concern for due legal process. A petition was unsuccessfully filed to his country’s supreme court to stay his extradition, as lawyers challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction, and pleas were made for any trial to take place in a Philippine court.

The relatives of those butchered during Mr Duterte’s brutal and lawless “war on drugs” will struggle to sympathise. Notoriously, many of its victims never got near a courtroom of any description. In 2016, months into a presidency in which thousands of Filipinos suffered summary executions, Mr Duterte readily acknowledged an indiscriminate dimension to the lawless carnage he had unleashed. The deaths of innocents and children, he told reporters, amounted to inevitable “collateral damage” in his mission to clean up the streets.

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: Jorge Silva/Reuters

© Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters

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‘Out of the blue’: search for answers goes on after North Sea tanker collision

Investigators will look into reports deck of cargo ship Solong was unmanned when the catastrophe took place

In the North Sea, about 12 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire, the smouldering wreck of a 183-metre tanker is being kept in place by tugboats.

The central part of the vessel has been caved in, with water gushing from a hole in its side. Sections are covered in black soot, evidence of the raging blaze that engulfed the ship when it was struck by a smaller cargo ship on Monday morning, with the flames from multiple explosions only just dying down on Tuesday afternoon.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/AP

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/AP

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PGA Tour could name and shame slow-play offenders after player unrest

  • Players believe current rules are not fit for purpose
  • Jay Monahan says Tour committed to making changes

The PGA Tour may be unable to conclude a deal to unify professional golf but there is, finally, progress on another key issue for spectators: slow play. Speaking ahead of the Players Championship, the Tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, revealed the imminent arrival of new sanctions which could include the naming and shaming of offenders.

The two-time major champion Collin Morikawa had already made clear that the PGA Tour’s current pace of play policies – which only occasionally sees golfers fined – are unfit for purpose. “I think you just have to start stroking guys and giving guys actual penalties, whether it be strokes or FedExCup [points],” Morikawa said. “What I’ve learned is that monetary fines are useless. We make so much money and some guys frankly could not care less.”

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© Photograph: Phelan M Ebenhack/AP

© Photograph: Phelan M Ebenhack/AP

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EU plan to deport more people will lead to ‘prolonged detention’, say critics

European Commission draft includes orders for people to leave EU entirely and conditions for ‘return hubs’ outside bloc

The European Commission has outlined proposals to increase deportations of people with no legal right to stay in the EU, but critics said it had opened the door to “prolonged detention” of people with plans for offshore detention centres.

The plans for a European returns system published on Tuesday came after EU leaders demanded “innovative solutions” to deal with undocumented migrants, in response to gains made by the far-right in last year’s European elections.

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© Photograph: Cecilia Fabiano/AP

© Photograph: Cecilia Fabiano/AP

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At least a dozen US states rush to ban common food dyes, citing health risks

RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ giving fresh momentum to longtime efforts to outlaw additives, which is now a bipartisan movement

At least a dozen US states – from traditionally conservative Oklahoma to liberal-leaning New York – are rushing to pass laws outlawing commonly used dyes and other chemical additives in foods, citing a need to protect public health.

In one of the most far-reaching efforts, West Virginia last week advanced a sweeping ban on a range of common food dyes that have been linked to health problems, particularly for children, with overwhelming support from both Republicans and Democrats.

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© Photograph: Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images

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Federal judge orders Doge to release internal records for transparency

Musk said social media posts were sufficient documentation for agency that is changing face of government

A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) must comply with transparency laws and release its internal documents, finding the secretive operation exercises “substantial independent authority” that cannot be shielded from public scrutiny.

In a 37-page opinion issued on Monday, US district judge Christopher Cooper ordered Doge – which took over what used to be the White House’s US Digital Service (USDS) – to begin a “rolling” production of records within weeks, rejecting the Trump administration’s attempts to position it beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.

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© Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

© Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

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Controlled-release fertilizers can spread microplastics on US cropland – study

Tiny bits of plastic can end up in water and soil at alarming levels, said lead author of University of Missouri paper

Fertilizers that shed microplastics are increasingly spreading on America’s cropland, research shows, raising new worry about the soil contamination and safety of the US food supply.

A peer-reviewed University of Missouri paper found common types of controlled-release fertilizers are often encapsulated with plastic and can be so small that they could be considered microplastics. Those are designed to break down into even smaller pieces of plastic once spread in fields.

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© Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

© Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

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Who is Rodrigo Duterte? Populist architect of Philippines’ bloody ‘war on drugs’

Mayor who rose to president bragged about a violent past and revelled in attacks on women and the press

As Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte was notorious for his boasting.

With cowboyish bravado, he bragged about a past when he cruised around on his motorbike looking for suspected criminals to kill, or at age 16 stabbed someone to death. In 2016 he joked about missing out on the chance to rape an Australian missionary before she was murdered in jail in 1989.

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© Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP

© Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP

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Barcelona 3-1 Benfica (agg: 4-1): Champions League last 16, second leg – as it happened

Lamine Yamal and Raphinha put on an attacking masterclass in the first half to swat aside Benfica and make it to the quarter-finals

Barcelona get the ball rolling. The city so beautiful in the background. Ah, memories of the diving at the 1992 Olympics.

The teams are out. Barcelona are in their famous blaugrana, Benfica in third-choice white/silver/grey with neon yellow trim. A crackling atmosphere at the Olímpic Lluís Companys despite the place not yet totally full, as per Steve McManaman. We’ll be off once a poignant moment is taken to remember Carles Minarro Garcia.

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© Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

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Ukraine’s drone strike shows it is not helpless without US intelligence

Attack on Moscow as peace talks began was designed to reinforce Kyiv’s proposal for an air truce with Russia

Ukraine’s decision to launch a drone attack into Russia as the next phase of peace negotiations involving delegations from Washington and Kyiv began is a clear demonstration that its military capacity has not yet been significantly dented by Donald Trump’s decision to withhold military intelligence last week.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine had attacked with 337 drones, 91 of which were aimed at Moscow and the surrounding region. Three people were reported to have been killed, all four of the Russian capital’s airports had to be closed, and local air defences were not entirely effective in repelling the assault.

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© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA

© Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA

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‘If all I cared about was a career, I’d make listenable music’: Joost Klein on Eurovision, scandal and having the last laugh

The wild child ‘gabber pop’ rapper was booted off last year’s song contest. But his song Europapa eclipsed the winner’s – and he’s about to tour the world in his gigantic shoulder pads

Joost Klein is arguably the first artist to triumph at the Eurovision song contest without actually performing in the final. In May last year, the 27-year-old Dutch wild child “gabber pop” rapper was disqualified from the world’s largest live music event just hours before he was due to perform Europapa to 170 million TV viewers around the globe.

This song – a chaotic but catchy ode to the father he lost as a teenager, and to the free movement of people ethos his father instilled in him – was touted as a favourite. But instead of gearing up for his big moment, Klein spent seven hours that day sitting in his changing room in a reflex-blue, Ursula-von-der-Leyen-meets-Vivienne-Westwood suit with gigantic shoulder pads, fearing he was about to be arrested – on live TV – over a “backstage incident” after the semi-final the previous evening. Swedish host broadcaster SVT filed a police complaint accusing Klein of “threatening behaviour” by pushing a female camera operator’s equipment. Entertainment careers have been cancelled for less.

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© Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

© Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

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The Rivals of Amziah King review – Matthew McConaughey returns with unwieldy misstep

SXSW film festival: The Oscar winner’s first film role for six years shows his undeniable magnetism but squanders it on a baggy mix of tones and genres

In the past six years, the Academy award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, the reigning prince of Austin, Texas, has kept busy. He raised his three kids in the city, written and released a bestselling memoir on “easy-livin’” (“because life is a verb”), taught in the film department at the University of Texas at Austin, pleaded for gun control at the White House after the horrific school shooting in his home town of Uvalde and “seriously considered” running for governor of Texas. But he has not acted on screen – relegating his last two film roles, underwhelming romps in Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum and Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, to the distant memory of a pre-pandemic 2019. With the end of the 2010s, the energy of the McConnaissance went elsewhere.

That is, until Monday, when McConaughey returned to red carpet promotional duties for the premiere of The Rivals of Amziah King, his first film role in six years, to a very friendly hometown crowd at SXSW. Atypically for a non-director, McConaughey introduced the movie himself with typical folksiness, in a stump speech worthy of someone still mulling a run for political office. “I thought I’d been busy,” he said as explanation for his absence from the screen. But the writer-director Andrew Patterson courted him back to acting with this “love story of a whole bunch of misfits and underdogs coming together”.

The Rivals of Amziah King is screening at the SXSW film festival and will be released at a later date

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© Photograph: SXSW

© Photograph: SXSW

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Vatican seeks to debunk fake news on health of Pope Francis

Since pontiff was hospitalised conspiracy theories have swirled online claiming he has died

While Pope Francis was being treated for double pneumonia, Italian TikToker Ottavo made his way unchallenged into a ward at Gemelli hospital in Rome, followed by a camera. His aim was to bolster a conspiracy theory circulating on social media for weeks: that the 88-year-old pontiff was dead “and the Vatican refuses to tell us”.

“There’s no security at all – nothing whatsoever,” he told his 10,000 followers in the video. “I would never have been able to get this far if he were there. For that reason, in my opinion, Pope Francis passed away.”

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© Photograph: Fabio Frustaci/EPA

© Photograph: Fabio Frustaci/EPA

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Trump calls Tesla boycott ‘illegal’ and says he’s buying one to support Musk

Several Tesla vehicles were parked in the driveway of the White House for Trump to pick which vehicle to purchase

Donald Trump said he is buying a “brand new Tesla” and blamed “Radical Left Lunatics” for “illegally” boycotting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company. The announcement came a day after Tesla suffered its worst share price fall in nearly five years.

Later, the president also said he would label violence against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism. Trump was responding to a question during a Tuesday press conference, in which a reporter said, “Talk to us about some of the violence that’s been going on around the country at Tesla dealerships. Some say they should be labeled domestic terrorists.”

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© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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The ninetysomethings who revolutionized how we think about strength training

One simple exercise proved older adults can build and retain muscle – and caused a paradigm shift in science

In 1988, 712 people lived at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged, a Boston nursing home affectionately named “Hebrew rehab” by its residents and staff. The residents’ average age was 88, and three-quarters of them were women. Every resident had multiple medical conditions. Almost half required help to engage in the essential activities of daily life: getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, bathing, walking, eating. But they were survivors. Some had survived the Holocaust. Others fled the Cossacks. They all lived through the Great Depression.

They were ideal research subjects for Maria Fiatarone, a young doctor and faculty member in geriatric medicine at both Tufts and Harvard. In terrible shape, with lifetimes of practice overcoming great challenges: to Fiatarone, they were perfect.

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© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

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North Sea collision: ship’s master arrested as fears grow for marine life

Police launch criminal investigation while local leaders call on Starmer to prevent environmental catastrophe

Police have detained the master of the container ship Solong as experts voiced growing fears over the environmental impact of the collision in the North Sea.

The 59-year-old was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter after the search was called off for a sailor onboard the Solong, which drifted ablaze off the coast of Yorkshire on Tuesday.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

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Trump raises Canadian steel and aluminum tariffs to 50% as trade war escalates

President cites Ontario’s recent imposition of 25% surcharge on electricity exports to US as reason for doubling duties

Donald Trump has announced he is doubling tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% as a retaliation for the province of Ontario’s imposition of a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to several US states, in a dramatic escalation of the trade war between the two ostensibly allied countries.

“Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on ‘Electricity’ coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to ad [sic] an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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© Photograph: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images

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Staley pushed JP Morgan to keep Epstein as client despite human trafficking concerns, court hears

Former Barclays boss told Jeffrey Epstein suspicious withdrawals from his account were being investigated

The former bank boss Jes Staley pushed JP Morgan to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite human trafficking concerns and told him suspicious withdrawals from his account were being investigated, a court has heard.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put the allegations to the ex-chief executive of Barclays during his second day of witness testimony at the upper tribunal in London.

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© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

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