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Authoritarian regimes around the world cheer on dismantling of USAid

Elon Musk-led razing of US foreign aid agency led strong-arm rulers in Hungary, Belarus and elsewhere to celebrate

Moscow has welcomed the impending dissolution of USAid, joining a chorus of strongman leaders declaring victory over an organisation they have long portrayed as a vehicle of American political interference.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday described USAid as “anything but an aid, development and assistance agency” and instead branded it a “mechanism for changing regimes, political order [and] state structure”.

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© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

‘Silence is a very obscure sound’: Christine Sun Kim on her sound art

The artist’s new survey at the Whitney shows how she has found a way to create work involving sound as a deaf artist

Existing somewhere in the overlap between the worlds of conceptual and representational art, Christine Sun Kim has developed a rich expressive language by examining the interesting questions around language, music, and her personal expression as a deaf person. Informed by her experiences living in a world where most take the ability to hear for granted, Kim’s art is striking in the complexity and emotional heft that hides beneath its minimalist exterior.

With All Day All Night, the Whitney offers a welcome career survey of Kim’s work. Building on the institution’s longstanding relationship with the artist, the show feels thorough, insightful and composed, as well as looking forward to the next chapters of Kim’s creative output.

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© Photograph: Photograph by David Tufino

© Photograph: Photograph by David Tufino

England will not boycott Afghanistan game despite Taliban ‘gender apartheid’

  • ECB chair condemns ‘oppression of women and girls’
  • But no ‘unilateral’ action for the Champions Trophy tie

England have confirmed they will play Afghanistan in the upcoming Champions Trophy despite pressure to boycott the fixture in response to the Taliban’s violation of women’s rights in the country.

Last month a cross-party group of 160 British MPs wrote to the England and Wales Cricket Board urging it to withdraw the men’s national team from their group stage match against Afghanistan in Lahore on 26 February.

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© Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

© Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

I don’t know if Lucy Letby's convictions will be upheld, but I know we all have a stake in the outcome | Gaby Hinsliff

This is not just about one terrible set of allegations. Health, the law, checks and balances: it is testing public confidence in everything

Beyond reasonable doubt. Those words carry a heavy moral burden, and so they should. Jurors hold another human being’s life in their hands, and must be convinced there is no other rational explanation for the facts presented to them than the defendant’s guilt. But what happens when those facts start to shimmer and blur, to multiply and divide confusingly before your eyes?

Lucy Letby is officially Britain’s worst serial child killer, serving 15 life sentences for murdering seven babies and trying to kill seven more. But her case has become as troubling to some medical professionals as it is attractive to conspiracy theorists because of the stubbornly persistent doubts at its heart. There are things we may never know for sure about those babies’ last moments.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/PA

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/PA

Google edits Super Bowl ad for AI that featured false information

Tech company removes error about gouda cheese after blogger points out ‘unequivocally’ untrue statistic

Google has edited an advert for its leading artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, before its broadcast during the Super Bowl after it was found to contain false information about gouda cheese.

The local commercial, which advertises how people can use “AI for every business”, showcases Gemini’s abilities by depicting the tool helping a cheesemonger in Wisconsin to write a product description, including the erroneous line that gouda accounts for “50% to 60% of global cheese consumption”.

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© Photograph: Google AI

© Photograph: Google AI

The Guardian view on Sudan’s war: borders can’t contain a devastating, destabilising crisis | Editorial

The rest of the world has largely ignored the horror of this conflict, but will find its effects ripple outwards

As Sudan approaches its third year of civil war, the dynamics are suddenly shifting. Sudan’s military, which launched a major offensive against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in September, made swift progress in Gezira state, and in recent days has abruptly and unexpectedly regained ground in Khartoum.

Whether it has truly turned the tide – as key backers appear to believe – has yet to be seen. Even if the capital can be fully retaken and secured, reconstructing the devastated city would be an immense task. The RSF might well entrench themselves elsewhere; this may further spur their ferocity in the western region of Darfur. Meaningful negotiations between the warring parties look even more distant. There is still less prospect of a return to civilian politics, overthrown in a coup by the partnership of the army chief, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF leader, Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti – before they turned on each other.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

DC Comics pull Neil Gaiman title while Amazon Prime series set to go ahead

The Sandman spin-off Death: DC Compact Comics Edition was due to be released later this year

DC Comics has pulled a Neil Gaiman title that was due to be published later this year.

Death: DC Compact Comics Edition was meant to come out on 2 September, but listings have been scrubbed from online bookshops and Amazon, reported Bleeding Cool.

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© Photograph: Danny Moloshok/Reuters

© Photograph: Danny Moloshok/Reuters

Meet-cute at Mansfield Park: can modern covers turn young readers on to Jane Austen?

New editions of her novels are aimed squarely at the BookTok demographic – but will this make these classics appeal to fans of “spicy” romance?

What will get young people reading classic literature? Better blurbs? Changes in the school curriculum? Flashy new biographies of dead authors? Or might it be pastel pink covers emblazoned with characters that look as if they just got back from Comic-Con?

Publisher Penguin Random House (PRH) is trying its luck with the latter: its youth imprint, Puffin, has announced a series of new editions of Jane Austen novels pitched at young romance readers. Although Austen’s stories will remain the same, the covers of these editions feature cartoonish illustrations of the characters, and are being marketed as “full of meet-cutes, missed connections and drama”. This description makes it sound as if these classic works are akin to the kind of contemporary romance novels that are hugely popular on TikTok with teenagers and young adults.

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© Photograph: Puffin

© Photograph: Puffin

‘A crying need’: Goma hospitals plead for blood donors after M23 assault

Facilities overwhelmed by wounded people and unable to get supplies in or transport patients out

Patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds have crammed into overwhelmed hospitals in Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many with serious injuries and in need of blood, after M23 rebels backed by Rwanda marched into the city.

At least 2,900 people have been killed and thousands more wounded since the militia entered the city on 26 January, according to the UN. Fighting raged for the best part of last week.

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© Photograph: Marie Jeanne Munyerenkana/EPA

© Photograph: Marie Jeanne Munyerenkana/EPA

Howie Roseman: from exile on Broad Street to the Super Bowl’s most important man

Once stripped of his power, the Eagles’ salary cap savant has since been the architect of three Super Bowl teams in eight years. But this year’s edition might just be his masterpiece

Howie Roseman has taken on folklore status in the NFL. Whenever the draft and free-agent seasons roll around, you hear the chorus: Howie has done it again! As general manager, Roseman has led the Philadelphia Eagles to three Super Bowl appearances in eight years, winning one title. But this year’s team is his magnum opus.

Repeated playoff heartaches can warp a team’s self-perception. Every flaw becomes magnified. Two years after losing the Super Bowl to the Chiefs – and last season’s disappointing end-of-year collapse – Roseman tore down his roster and built a fresh juggernaut, with fewer than half of the players who played the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII remaining on this year’s roster.

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© Photograph: Brooke Sutton/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brooke Sutton/Getty Images

Planes, trains and automobiles: Newcastle fans gear up for Carabao Cup final

The Toon Army are having to be creative to get to Wembley in hope of seeing Newcastle’s first trophy in decades

Engineering works on the east coast mainline mean Newcastle supporters travelling to Wembley by train during the weekend of next month’s Carabao Cup final face considerable delays and disruption. Yet if the prospect of spending part of an extended journey on a replacement bus service and, judging by Thursday’s prices, often paying more than £400 return for the privilege, does not sound overly appealing, the Toon Army remain undeterred.

The prospect of being able to say “I was there” should Newcastle finally win their first major trophy since the 1969 Fairs Cup – and a first piece of domestic silverware since the 1955 FA Cup – dictates bank balances are being stretched to the limit.

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© Photograph: Scott Heppell/Reuters

© Photograph: Scott Heppell/Reuters

State of emergency declared on Santorini after earthquakes shake island

Greek civil protection authorities announce measures after an estimated 7,700 tremors in less than a week

Greek civil protection authorities have declared a state of emergency on Santorini as natural disaster experts voice mounting fears over the “intense” seismic activity that has rattled the island.

The emergency measures were declared by the island’s town hall hours after seismologists recorded a 5.2-magnitude earthquake – the most powerful tremor to be felt on Santorini since the first of an estimated 7,700 temblors were registered last week.

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© Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

© Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

Oh, no! It takes 162,335 minutes a year to maintain my health and wellbeing

When is anyone supposed to do anything? Bathing, stretching and cooking: the relentless grind of self-care consumes 112 days of my life each year

It was the sixth time I’d washed my hands that day. My red, raw wrists stung as I toweled off, protesting the friction and New York’s bone-dry winter. Being a dog owner (twice-daily poop exposure) during peak respiratory illness season (strangers coughing on you) is no joke.

I thought about how life is a procession of vital, unskippable tasks: washing and eating and resting and pooping and exercising and brushing your teeth on a loop, forever.

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© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

Love Hurts review – Everything Everywhere all over again

Ke Huy Quan’s first live-action film since his Oscar win recycles its predecessor’s hit formula into a gloatingly gory mob romcom co-starring Ariana DeBose

In his first live-action film appearance since winning an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, comeback kid Ke Huy Quan has chosen a movie that recycles the earlier one’s hit formula. Martial arts action plays out incongruously in quotidian locations; life lessons are combined with close-quarter combat. One difference is Love Hurts’s gloating reliance on gore: a hand is impaled with a knife, a pen is buried in a man’s eyeball, teeth stick to the duct tape ripped from a hostage’s mouth. It all rather puts the “ick” in karate kick.

Quan plays Marvin Gable, a realtor whose chirpiness conceals his past as a hitman for his crime-boss brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu). For his last job before going straight, Marvin was asked to kill Rose (Ariana DeBose), his one-time sweetheart who stole millions from the mob. But he took mercy, and now she’s back. Tired of lying low (“Hiding ain’t living,” she says), Rose is out to take revenge on those who wronged her, among them a snivelling accountant played by Rhys Darby of Flight of the Conchords, and to rekindle affections with her old flame. Well, it’s Valentine’s Day after all, as Marvin’s voiceover keeps reminding us.

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© Photograph: Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures

© Photograph: Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures

‘I was deeply upset’: Karla Sofía Gascón to miss Spanish ‘Oscars’ as storm over racist tweets continues

The actor was due to attend the Goya awards on Saturday but has pulled out and has also been dropped by publishers

Karla Sofía Gascón will not attend this weekend’s prestigious Goya awards as the fallout from the Spanish actor’s racist and Islamophobic social media posts continues with her being dropped by her publisher and criticised by prominent politicians.

Gascón – the star of Emilia Pérez and the first transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar – is already understood to have been removed from the film’s campaigning materials by its studio, Netflix. Her comments have been described as “absolutely hateful” by the movie’s director, Jacques Audiard, while Gascón’s co-star, Zoe Saldana, has said the views expressed had saddened and disappointed her.

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© Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP

© Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP

Monkeys, clowns and bottles hidden in Jackson Pollock’s paintings, study says

New paper suggests abstract expressionist may have been unaware of the images because of his bipolar disorder

Monkeys, clowns, self-portraits, elephants and bottles of alcohol are among the things that could be hidden within the work of Jackson Pollock, one of the giants of 20th-century abstract expressionism, according to new research.

The American painter, who used a “drip technique” to pour or splash paint on to a horizontal surface, once said he stayed away from “any recognisable image” in his work.

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© Photograph: Nick Edwards/SWNS

© Photograph: Nick Edwards/SWNS

Trump doubles down on Gaza takeover proposal despite bipartisan opposition

President says territory would be ‘turned over’ to US by Israel as it emerges idea was not discussed with aides

Donald Trump has restated his proposal to take over Gaza amid widespread opposition – even from his own supporters – saying the territory would be “turned over” to the US by Israel after it concludes its military offensive against Hamas.

Trump reinforced his commitment to the idea in a rambling post on his Truth Social network on Thursday, even as it emerged that the proposal – announced without warning during a White House visit by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister – was purely his own and had not been subject to detailed discussion with aides.

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© Composite: APAImages/REX/Shutterstock, Anadolu via Getty Images

© Composite: APAImages/REX/Shutterstock, Anadolu via Getty Images

Back-to-back storms to bring snow and freezing rain to 22 US states

Weather alerts in place for 100 million people as states from Nebraska to Massachusetts brace for disruptions

A series of back-to-back winter storms will hit parts of the midwest, north-east and mid-Atlantic as weather alerts were put in place on Thursday for about 100 million people across 22 US states.

Slippery and dangerous travel conditions are expected through the middle of next week. States from Nebraska to Massachusetts are seeing snow, sleet and freezing rain. Forecasters warn that the cold and hazardous weather may cause power outages and difficult travel conditions during Thursday’s commute and beyond.

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© Photograph: Cj Gunther/EPA

© Photograph: Cj Gunther/EPA

Trump might want to revive America’s imperial heyday – but does his base?

The president’s Gaza proposal is a signal that old-school, blunt-force US expansionism seems to be back in fashion

Donald Trump’s proposal that the US take ownership of the Gaza Strip, expel and resettle the people there, and turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” has outraged Palestinians, shocked the international community and even confused many of his own conservative voters.

Yet the announcement seems like yet another sign that the president, while sometimes distancing himself from the neoconservative foreign policies that entangled the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, is willing to pursue – or at least entertain pursuing – an undisguised US imperialism that has more in common with the expansionism of Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson, the 19th- and early 20th-century presidents associated with some of American’s most brazen and violent conquests.

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© Composite: Getty Images/Reuters

© Composite: Getty Images/Reuters

Mikel Arteta must refocus Arsenal’s mammoth task after chastening exit | Ed Aarons

Manager must put semi-final loss to Newcastle behind them with depleted squad attempting to chase down Liverpool

“Mikel Arteta, it must be the ball.” With hindsight, the Arsenal manager would probably not have criticised the equipment used in the Carabao Cup after his side’s chastening defeat in the first leg of their semi-final against Newcastle at the Emirates last month. But after another traumatic 2-0 loss to Eddie Howe’s side – Arsenal’s third blank in a row at St James’ Park – during which home supporters gleefully teased Arteta about his comments, it was surely not his only regret.

Three times since the Spaniard won the FA Cup seven months after succeeding Unai Emery in 2019, Arsenal have reached a semi-final and failed to progress. On the previous occasion they reached this stage of the Carabao Cup, three seasons ago, they were also beaten 2-0 in the home leg, by Liverpool. It is a trophy they have not won since Steve Morrow’s decisive goal against Sheffield Wednesday in the 1993 final, after which the Northern Ireland midfielder was dropped by Tony Adams and broke an arm.

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© Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

© Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

Who will show Trump and Netanyahu that they're not above the law? It has to be Europe | Steve Crawshaw

The US president is quick to roll out the red carpet for an ally wanted for war crimes. Now Europe must stop placating them

Donald Trump’s proposal to evict 2 million Palestinians from Gaza is an unashamed declaration of support for ethnic cleansing. As so often, he seems ready to ignore moral and legal codes alike. “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” is listed in the Rome statute of the international criminal court as a crime against humanity. And yet a US president has put that idea on the table. Trump insists this would be in everybody’s interest. According to him, Palestinians would not want to return to their homes. “I have heard that Gaza has been very unlucky for them,” he recently said. The population is, in Trump’s words, “living in hell”, with “death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over”. He made no mention of Israel’s responsibility for that death and destruction and rubble.

More than 30 years ago, during the early months of the bloody Bosnian war that I had been reporting on as the eastern Europe editor of the Independent, the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadžić, explained to me that the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population that was then under way was, in fact, doing the Bosnians a favour. “We let them go,” Karadžić explained with a smile, “with their luggage and everything.” Like Karadžić, Trump does not hide the fact that Palestinians who are forced to abandon their homes would have no choice in the matter. Sitting next to Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested: “I don’t think they’re going to tell me no.”

Steve Crawshaw is author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice

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: Shawn Thew/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

Lara Trump to host new show on Fox News

Résumé of pop singer and RNC co-chair will now include hosting a show focusing on ‘the Golden Age of America’

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the president, will host a new show on Fox News, the network announced, in a further sign of the fluidity between the rightwing news channel and the Trump administration.

My View With Lara Trump will air on Saturday nights, Fox News said in a press release. It said Trump’s show “will focus on the return of common sense to all corners of American life as the country ushers in a new era of practicality”.

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© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

Scientists crack what they say is the perfect way to boil an egg

Linda Geddes tests new approach developed in Italian lab that involves alternating egg between different temperatures

Delia Smith demands one minute of simmering plus six of standing with the pan lid on. Heston Blumenthal brings his to the boil from cold. Now scientists have weighed in on the perfect way to boil an egg, and the results are egg-stremely tasty.

From a materials perspective, cooking an egg within its shell is more complicated than it might at first seem. Chefs are challenged by the fact that an egg’s components: yolk and white, are made of different proteins that denature and thicken at different temperatures: 85C (185F) for the white and 65C (149F) for the yolk.

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© Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

© Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

‘I did it for the money!’ The films that made Tim Roth, Benedict Cumberbatch and more apologise

It’s not often that actors criticise their own work. But whether it’s down to movies being slammed for whitewashing or transphobia – or just shonky sets – occasionally they feel they have no choice

When it comes to what movies can get away with, tastes change fast. Just ask Benedict Cumberbatch, who decided to play for laughs a non-binary character named All in Ben Stiller’s 2016 film Zoolander 2. That said, the role was controversial at the time – there was an online petition urging a boycott. But it has only looked more tone-deaf over time.

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© Composite: Guardian Design; Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock; Wilson Webb/Paramount Pictures; PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy; Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design; Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock; Wilson Webb/Paramount Pictures; PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy; Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Court rules Biarritz must drop ‘offensive’ district name linked to slave trade

Area known as La Negresse will be renamed after court decides it is demeaning to people of African origin

A French court has ruled that the seaside city of Biarritz must rename its La Negresse historic district, possibly named after a black woman, after a case brought by activists who argued it was an outdated legacy of colonialism.

The ruling caps a long-running attempt by activists to force authorities in the resort on the Atlantic coast to drop what they say are “racist and sexist” placenames.

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© Photograph: Andrey Khrobostov/Alamy

© Photograph: Andrey Khrobostov/Alamy

Same old stories: is this going to be Hollywood’s laziest year ever?

New trailers for Fantastic Four, Smurfs and Jurassic World movies give us an early glimpse at a summer that’s looking even more tired than usual

It’s Super Bowl season, which means it’s also time for movie studios to start rolling out trailers for some of the biggest, most anticipated movies of the summer. This week alone has seen the release of the first trailers for Jurassic World: Rebirth, Fantastic Four: The First Steps, and – hold your breath – a new Smurfs movie, joining the Superman trailer that was unveiled a few weeks ago. These are likely to be supplemented by additional Super Bowl ads for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, among others.

If this all sounds familiar, well, it should. Unless Disney drops a spot for their upcoming Pixar cartoon Elio, every summer movie receiving the big Super Bowl promo will be a sequel or a high-profile reboot (which is what we’ve been trained to call a remake). This is because just about every big movie coming out in summer 2025 is, yes, a sequel or a reboot of a well-known franchise. The coming attractions include Thunderbolts*, a Marvel entry that looks like a de facto sequel to Black Widow; more traditional follow-ups to Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible, and The Bad Guys; legacy sequels to The Karate Kid and Freaky Friday; reboots of the entire DC Universe (via Superman), as well as the Smurfs and The Naked Gun; a John Wick spinoff called Ballerina; remakes of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon; and new horror installments in the 28 Days Later, M3GAN, Final Destination, and I Know What You Did Last Summer series.

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© Photograph: Marvel Studios

© Photograph: Marvel Studios

Tell us: do you have a tattoo you regret?

We would like to hear about tattoos you regret, and your experiences of having them removed

Comedian Pete Davidson has revealed that he underwent a lengthy process of removing around 200 tattoos.

“I’m trying to clean slate it, trying to be an adult,” he said during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He added that he only saw himself keeping “two or three” of them.

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© Photograph: Bsip Sa/Alamy

© Photograph: Bsip Sa/Alamy

India ease home in opening ODI after below-par England look short of ideas

A different format, a much-changed India, but the same result. England fell to a four-wicket defeat in the opening one-day international at Nagpur, Shubman Gill top-scoring with 87 in a successful chase of 249.

Gill, who did not play in the preceding Twenty20 series, was backed up by half-centuries from Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel in what was no straightforward reply. England’s spinners found assistance, with India requiring technique and ticker to take the lead in the three-match series.

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© Photograph: Aijaz Rahi/AP

© Photograph: Aijaz Rahi/AP

The Apprentice at 20: how Trump and Alan Sugar’s reality TV baby became little more than ritual humiliation

The entrepreneurial reality show has just turned 20 … and it’s never been worse. It’s almost impossible to believe any of the bragging, soundbite-spewing chancers are even good at business

The opening scenes of The Apprentice – Lord Alan Sugar’s search for a new business partner – have become a yearly tradition on British TV. We meet a squad of suited and bodycon business dress-clad candidates, who seem to be competing to say the most ridiculous thing. “I’m like a lion in the business world. Fierce, hungry and ready to devour my prey,” says Chisola Chitambala, a contestant on the latest series, which is airing weekly on BBC One. “The level of competitiveness I have is disgusting! I am the human equivalent of a tank. Nothing gets in my way,” insists meal-prep entrepreneur Mia Collins. “I can sleep when I’m dead!” proclaims Amber-Rose Badrudin, while hair-transplant consultant Carlo Brancati boasts: “What others can earn in a month takes me one hour.” (This gives rise to the question: what are you doing here, then?)

The first series of The Apprentice premiered 20 years ago this month on BBC Two. The days when it felt like a genuinely exciting format are long gone, however, because it is now one of the most predictable shows on TV. Ratings have stalled, it’s being panned by critics and it has grown into a high-cringe spectacle – one that symbolises a wider slide in standards in reality TV and beyond.

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© Photograph: Ray Burmiston/PA

© Photograph: Ray Burmiston/PA

Chelsea fans accuse Boehly of ‘breach of trust’ over his ticket resale website

  • Co-owner and chairman is a director of Vivid Seats
  • Premier League lists as ‘unauthorised ticket website’

Chelsea supporters have accused Todd Boehly of a “breach of trust” and a potential conflict of interest over his co-ownership of a website selling tickets to the club’s games and other Premier League matches to foreign tourists.

Boehly is a director and investor in Vivid Seats, an American site that allows users outside the United Kingdom to buy and sell tickets to concerts and sporting events, often at huge mark-ups. British fans cannot use the site or others like it because it is illegal to resell football tickets in this way in the UK. The Premier League lists Vivid Seats as an “unauthorised ticket website”.

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© Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

© Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

The Waterboys’ Mike Scott: ‘I love Prince’s version of The Whole of the Moon. And Graham Norton’s’

Ahead of his new Dennis-Hopper-themed album, Scott answers your questions on jamming with Dylan, the magic of Ireland and why he’s had more than 80 bandmates

Why did your new album, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, take four years? VerulamiumParkRanger
I knew Dennis Hopper as the actor in Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now and Rebel Without a Cause, and that he stood for the counterculture, but I’d never done a deep dive. Ten years ago I saw his photos at the Royal Academy and realised he was also a brilliant photographer; I started reading biographies and checking out the movies I’d missed. Then I wrote a fun song about him called Dennis Hopper where every line rhymed with Hopper. I thought it would be great to do an EP, because his life was so colourful, but after some of my band members secretly recorded some instrumentals and suggested I put lyrics to them, I realised it could be an album of his life.

I started just before the pandemic but had all these other albums and box set projects, so I’d work intensely on Hopper then leave it and return with fresh ears. It has 25 songs. A friend of mine suggested I was doing too many voices myself – an American commentator, an old hippy and so on – and needed some guests. I used to love those Bruce Springsteen bootlegs where he’d do these incredible narratives at the end of the songs and thought, “If we could only get Bruce … ” He had come to a Waterboys gig in Dublin 10 years ago so there was a connection, and our manager asked his. Bruce did three takes for the song Ten Years Gone and sent all three. I got to pick between them. He did it so brilliantly and brought all the drama that I’d hoped he would.

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© Photograph: Paul Mac Manus

© Photograph: Paul Mac Manus

Spain teammates testify how distraught Jenni Hermoso was by Luis Rubiales kiss

  • Alexia Putellas and Irene Paredes give evidence to trial
  • Both say Jenni Hermoso was in tears on flight home

Teammates of Jenni Hermoso corroborated her account of being distraught and angered by the forced World Cup kiss from the former Spanish federation president Luis Rubiales when they testified at his sexual assault trial on Thursday.

Rubiales, who has yet to testify at the trial in Madrid, has previously claimed that Hermoso agreed to the kiss that took place during the presentation ceremony after Spain won the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in Sydney. Hermoso testified on Monday that the kiss was unsolicited. She also said she was repeatedly pressured by Rubiales and his officials to say otherwise.

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© Photograph: Quique García/EPA

© Photograph: Quique García/EPA

Sam Kerr was ‘speaking her truth’ in clash with police, partner tells court

Kristie Mewis says the Matildas star was ‘treated differently’ by officers after a late-night taxi dispute and that the pair felt ‘gaslit’

Sam Kerr’s fiancee said the footballer was “speaking her truth” when she called a police officer “stupid and white”, a court has heard.

Kerr, 31, the captain of the Australian women’s football team and Chelsea’s star striker, is on trial at Kingston crown court accused of racially aggravated harassment after calling a police officer “fucking stupid and white” when he doubted her claim of being “held hostage” by a taxi driver. She denies the charges.

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© Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

© Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations

Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump’s inauguration

News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.

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© Illustration: Guardian Design/Photo by Kevin Mohatt via Reuters

© Illustration: Guardian Design/Photo by Kevin Mohatt via Reuters

Swedish police investigate possible racist motive for school shooting

Syrians were among the 11 killed during the attack in Örebro on Tuesday

Police in Sweden are investigating whether the country’s worst mass shooting was racially motivated after it emerged that people of several nationalities, including Syrians, were among the 11 killed by a lone gunman at an adult education centre on Tuesday.

Anna Bergqvist, who is leading the police investigation, said people of “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” were among those killed at Campus Risbergska, an adult education centre, in the city of Örebro on Tuesday.

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© Photograph: Kuba Stężycki/Reuters

© Photograph: Kuba Stężycki/Reuters

Borthwick rolls dice with Marcus Smith a ‘gamechanger’ for England after switch

  • Fin Smith starts at fly-half with Marcus at full-back
  • Borthwick: ‘Marcus sees space that other players don’t’

Steve Borthwick believes that Marcus Smith can be England’s “gamechanger” against France after shifting the Harlequins playmaker to full-back and handing Fin Smith a first start at fly-half for Saturday’s crunch clash.

Marcus Smith has started England’s last eight Tests at fly-half but with Borthwick keen to exploit his sparkling talents from deep and introduce a second playmaker to the side, the head coach has rolled the dice as he seeks to end his side’s miserable run of seven defeats in nine matches.

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© Photograph: John Walton/PA

© Photograph: John Walton/PA

I’m told there is an age at which falling over becomes ‘having a fall’. But I’m not nearly ready for that | Paul Daley

A recent trip while walking the dog made me recheck my immense good fortune and my faith in the goodness of others

First things first: I tripped and fell – I did not, as my family teases, have a fall or, even more ridiculous, have a turn.

Here’s what happened.

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© Photograph: franckreporter/Getty Images

© Photograph: franckreporter/Getty Images

From Alice to Zelig via Rosemary’s Baby: Mia Farrow’s 20 best films – ranked!

As the Hollywood royal turns 80, we remember her greatest film roles that include an acting masterclass in Full Circle and a heartbreaking turn in The Purple Rose of Cairo

Like many a Hollywood star, Farrow took part in a 1970s disaster movie. In this Roger Corman production she’s in a love triangle with Rock Hudson, whose ski resort lies under an avalanche-prone mountain, and environmentalist Robert Forster, whose warnings are ignored. What happens next won’t surprise you.

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© Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

© Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

I’m a successful woman but worry I don’t deserve it. How can I shake my constant self-doubt? | Leading questions

Nobody beats you at being you, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Instead of trying to answer your inner critic, use your role and talents with responsibility

I’m a woman in my 40s. On paper, I’ve achieved everything I set out to accomplish. Some milestones took one or two attempts, while others came with surprising ease. I’m now a specialist in a sought-after field, hold an academic position at a university, and am married with a substantial mortgage.

And yet a persistent sense of inadequacy lingers. There’s always someone who seems to have achieved more – at least on paper. I often feel like an impostor, as if luck or connections were the real reasons I got here. When success required more than one attempt, I can’t shake the thought that I didn’t truly earn my place. If I really belonged, I tell myself, I would have succeeded on the first try.

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© Photograph: incamerastock/Alamy

© Photograph: incamerastock/Alamy

Mark Zuckerberg’s charity confirms support for DEI despite Meta’s overhaul

Exclusive: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative workers express concern, as recent changes there similar to those at Meta

The for-profit charity organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan told employees last month that its commitment to corporate diversity is not changing even after Meta eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Employees of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) expressed concern in January after Meta’s top HR executive announced that that company would no longer put resources toward hiring and working with diverse and underrepresented job candidates and business suppliers (a suite of practices often referred to as DEI, for diversity, equity and inclusion), according to internal CZI messages viewed by the Guardian.

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© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

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