National Transportation Safety Board announces recorders are now at a lab for evaluation; operation to recover bodies continues

• Full report: cockpit voice and flight data recorders recovered
• Victims: world champion Russian pair and US skaters were onboard crashed plane
• Visual guide – how did the DC plane crash unfold?

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Wednesday’s night’s collision between a regional passenger jet and a military helicopter near Washington DC’s Reagan airport.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from the American Airlines flight, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has announced, and they are now at the NTSB’s labs for evaluation.

With the 67 people aboard both the American Airlines flight and the army Black Hawk helicopter all presumed dead, the collision is being called “the deadliest aviation disaster” in the US since 2001. At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River, with recovery operations ongoing.

A day before Wednesday night’s midair collision near Reagan airport, a different jet there had to abort its landing and make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path, the Washington Post reported.

The US army saw an increase in very serious aviation incidents during the last fiscal year, with 15 flight and two ground incidents that resulted in deaths of service members, destruction of aircraft, or more than $2.5m in damage to the airframe, the Associated Press reported,

Donald Trump and members of his administration claimed, without evidence, that diversity efforts at the FAA under the Biden and Obama administration could be to blame for the crash, with Trump specifically claiming that the FAA had been accused of being “too white,” and suggesting efforts to hire Americans with disabilities were irresponsible.

Trump signed an executive order that rolls back diversity initiatives to stop “woke policies” in federal aviation.

The Trump administration’s choice to draw an unfounded connection between a deadly tragedy and diversity initiatives at a press conference sparked broad condemnation from Democratic politicians. They called the comments “disgusting,” “despicable,” and “racist,” with Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries saying that Trump was “blaming women and people of color for the deadly plane crash.”

As many as 14 skaters and coaches, including two 16-year-olds and a married pair of world champions, were onboard the American Airlines plane. The Skating Club of Boston said Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, both aged 16, and the Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who were husband and wife, were on the flight.

A patchwork of armed opposition groups have made major gains over the past year, with the military facing further losses

The streets of Lashio, a once bustling city in north-eastern Myanmar, are quieter than usual. Schools are shut, except for those run by volunteers from the pro-democracy resistance in the community. Months of airstrikes have left destruction. Even though the fighting has stopped, electricity is still not running properly. Instead, residents rely on solar power to charge their phones, and firewood and charcoal to cook.

“We saw a lot of civilians who died during the battle [in those days]. We saw them on the streets, on the lanes, some of the bodies were decayed and some of them were freshly dead. Some died in their homes,” said Leo*, a 40-year-old driver, whose family spent months living with constant bombardments by the military, running to hide in the darkness of a homemade bunker each time jet fighters came.

Bankrupt Roman Catholic archdiocese replaced members at church-affiliated non-profit over $16m dispute

The archbishop of New Orleans’ bankrupt Roman Catholic archdiocese on Thursday abruptly fired and replaced top leaders at a church-affiliated food bank, with those dismissed saying it was because the non-profit refused to contribute to paying survivors of child sexual abuse by clergymen.

The ousted members of Second Harvest’s board of directors say the changes “follow months of increasingly aggressive pressure placed on Second Harvest to contribute as much as $16m toward helping to resolve victims’ claims related to the church’s sexual abuse-related bankruptcy”, which has been pending since May 2020.

Thirteen people wounded, including eight-year-old girl, in Sumy apartment block attack. Sweden pledges $1.2bn in Ukraine military aid, its biggest pledge yet. What we know on day 1,073

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

A Russian drone attack on a residential block killed nine people including three elderly couples in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, officials said on Thursday. Images distributed by the emergency services showed a gaping hole in the facade of the long block of flats and rescue workers digging through debris for survivors. “This is a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime. It is very important that the world does not pause in putting pressure on Russia for this terror,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media. National Police later said the search operation had been completed after 19 hours, with rescuers finding nine bodies in the ruins, while 13 people were wounded. Among the dead were three couples – men and women between the ages of 61 and 74 – Ukrainian prosecutors said. Those killed also included a 37-year-old woman, while her eight-year-old daughter was wounded, the Sumy prosecutor’s office said.

Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, during a tense confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee. Colorado senator Michael Bennet attacked Gabbard for a tweet sent out just hours after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in which she said: “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/Nato had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns.” While she did not explain those remarks, she did indicate that she had had a change of heart. Asked bluntly who she blamed for the war between Russia and Ukraine, she said: “Putin started the invasion of Ukraine.”

Sweden’s government on Thursday pledged an additional $1.2bn in military aid to Ukraine, saying Europe needed to prepare to shoulder a larger part in supporting Kyiv. Defence minister Pal Jonson said the package, the country’s 18th since Russia’s 2022 invasion, was the largest to date and was a sign that Sweden was ready to support Ukraine in the “long term”. “This is also a signal to our other allies that we need to prepare for Europe to take more responsibility for supporting Ukraine,” Jonson told a press conference.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry summoned Slovakia’s ambassador on Thursday to reject accusations that it is meddling in its neighbour’s internal affairs and to accuse Slovak prime minister Robert Fico of being a “mouthpiece” for Russia. Kyiv and Bratislava have been at odds for weeks over Ukraine’s decision not to extend a Russian gas transit deal that expired at the end of December. Kyiv’s move came a day after Slovakia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to protest against Ukrainian comments criticising Fico that it said amounted to interference in Slovak affairs.

A British man captured fighting on the Ukrainian side in Russia’s Kursk region will face terrorism and mercenary charges that could see him jailed for years, Russian state investigators said on Thursday. Moscow announced in November it had captured James Anderson, describing him as a former British soldier. Britain’s foreign minister, David Lammy, said at the time he was aware of the case and that London would do all it could to offer him assistance. Russia’s Investigative Committee released video on Thursday showing a handcuffed Anderson dressed in a prison uniform with a shaven head, being brought into a room for questioning and confirming his name. In a statement, it said he would face terrorism and mercenary charges on allegations he participated “in an armed conflict as a mercenary on the territory of the Russian Federation for financial remuneration”. It did not say how Anderson pleaded to the charges, some of which are punishable by up to 20 years in jail if he is found guilty.

Deployment of special forces veterans is unprecedented and poses risk that Americans could be drawn into fighting

A US security firm is hiring nearly 100 US special forces veterans to help run a checkpoint in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, introducing armed American contractors into the heart of one of the world’s most violent conflict zones.

UG Solutions, a low-profile company founded in 2023 and based in Davidson, North Carolina, is offering a daily rate starting at $1,100 with a $10,000 advance to veterans it hires, according to a recruitment email.

Oral drug from Vertex, branded as Journavx, represents alternative to addictive opioids that have fueled US crisis

The US Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug to treat acute pain, the health regulator said on Thursday, offering a first-of-its-kind alternative to addictive opioid painkillers that have fueled a national crisis.

The Vertex Pharmaceuticals oral drug, branded Journavx, works by blocking pain signals at their source, unlike opioids, which trigger the brain’s reward centers as they travel through the blood and then attach to neural receptors, leading to addiction and abuse.

There’s a huge game at Bournemouth, a huge game at Arsenal and … er, a huge game at Portman Road

• Premier League top scorers: latest Golden Boot race

Nuno Espírito Santo said that at Bournemouth last weekend, where they were humbled 5-0, his Nottingham Forest side had been “not accurate and missed a lot of passes”. It is interesting that four of Forest’s last five – and five of their last eight – Premier League games rank in their bottom eight of the season on pass completion. “We have to perform much better,” he said. “We have to be more solid and play better football. We have so many things to improve.” Though results in that period, at least until last week, continued to be good they have relied on statistically unlikely displays of finishing prowess. Before their trip to Bournemouth, Forest had scored with nine of their previous 12 shots on target in all competitions and the last time a Chris Wood shot on target failed to go in was before Christmas. Both Nuno and Fabian Hürzeler were sent off for misconduct during a rancorous conclusion to the fixture between these sides at the Amex Stadium last September. Simon Burnton

Nottingham Forest v Brighton, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Bournemouth v Liverpool, Saturday 3pm

Everton v Leicester, Saturday 3pm

Ipswich v Southampton, Saturday 3pm

National Audit Office says government attempts to tackle misogynistic violence are hampered by poor coordination

An “epidemic of violence against women and girls” in the UK is getting worse despite years of government promises and strategies, a highly critical report from Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said.

The National Audit Office report comes four years after a major government response to violence against women and girls (VAWG) was launched after the murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard.

The Home Office did not have “centrally coordinated funding” for VAWG, unlike that for the 2021 illegal drugs strategy, and had underspent on its own VAWG budget by an average of 15% between 2021-22 and 2023-24.

There was no consistent definition for VAWG – the Home Office includes all victims, while police forces only include women and girls – which “made it difficult to measure progress in a consistent way”.

While 78% of the commitments in the strategy had been met by July 2024, several were not new, and “most” related to additional funding, holding meetings and publication of new guidance.

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London
Jordan Kai Burnett impresses in a fun, heartfelt yet tonally uneven show, co-produced by Michelle Visage

In Tim Burton’s 1990 fairytale, you hear Edward Scissorhands before you see him, as Johnny Depp cowers in the shadows, metallic fingers clinking. But Jordan Kai Burnett, taking the lead role in this jukebox musical reinvention, is no wallflower. They storm the stage with the famous shears raised, imploring us to lift our hands and make some noise.

Previously performed in Los Angeles, co-produced by Michelle Visage and ‘NSync’s Lance Bass, Scissorhandz lands in London like a fully fledged cult hit. Visage’s voiceover welcomes an audience of “beautiful weirdos” and treats us as a pre-existing fan club.

At Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London, until 29 March

A pair of duelling weddings leads to war in this surprisingly funny, if a little overstuffed, Amazon comedy

In the doldrums of January, with Hollywood gracelessly dumping its shoddiest films, one would have understandable scepticism over Amazon’s glossy wedding confection You’re Cordially Invited. Recent attempts to replicate the big studio comedy for a streaming audience have almost all failed, from the intolerable Vacation Friends movies to Amazon’s heinous Space Cadet to joyless big-star Netflix vehicles like the recent Diaz/Foxx mess Back in Action. Even its stars have tried – Reese Witherspoon with charmless rom-com Your Place or Mine and Will Ferrell with grating Christmas musical Spirited – so expectations weren’t just low, they were deep underground.

It also didn’t help that Amazon refused to provide screeners to press, a clear sign that something was up. But even with the many low bars this would all put in place, there’s a surprising amount of low-rent fun to be had here, a simple and silly crowd-pleaser smartly reliant on the high wattage appeal of two, top-of-game professionals. Maybe my enjoyment was also boosted by something else, an ongoing frustration with the industry’s inability to crown a new generation of not just legitimate movie stars but legitimate comedy stars (they seem to exist more on the outskirts now, supporting actors who are in desperate need of it).

• Signing in time for Champions League knockout stage
• Walsh deal follows world record fee for Naomi Girma

Chelsea are expected to confirm the signing of the England midfielder Keira Walsh from the European champions Barcelona on Friday, for a fee understood to be in the region of €550,000 (£440,000).

In one of the highest-profile deadline-day transfers in Women’s Super League history, Walsh completed a medical at Chelsea on Thursday and parties are very confident that the deal was completed in time for the 23:00 GMT deadline, as fans await official confirmation.

In the space of a dramatic 24 hours, the two clubs agreed on the fee overnight on Wednesday night before Walsh flew to London on Thursday, and the move is understood to have progressed without any late hitches.

Skeptical senators ruthlessly questioned Trump’s national intelligence director nominee ahead of confirmation vote

• US politics live – latest updates

Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, refused to call the whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” but sought to rein in her unorthodox views on foreign dictators and opposition to electronic surveillance during a tense confirmation hearing that could sink her nomination to oversee the country’s sprawling intelligence community.

In a three-hour hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, Gabbard, a former congresswoman and member of the Hawaii army national guard, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, said she had “no love” for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and denied meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a trip to Lebanon in 2017.

Tiny plastic pollution more than 50% higher in placentas from preterm births than in those from full-term births

A study has found microplastic and nanoplastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births than in those from full-term births.

The levels were much higher than previously detected in blood, suggesting the tiny plastic particles were accumulating in the placenta. But the higher average levels found in the shorter pregnancies were a “big surprise” for the researchers, as longer terms could be expected to lead to more accumulation.

In the face of those who refuse to see our humanity, I choose to imagine that we are humane enough to believe in theirs

My grandmother, Holocaust survivor Olga Horak OAM, passed away in August 2024 just days after her 98th birthday. Just one week before, she attended her great-granddaughter’s Jewish day school to share her remarkable story of survival with the Year 6 students. Her parting message was simple: “Never forget. Don’t hate.” Although she could no longer stand up straight, in her decades-long commitment to Holocaust education as a volunteer at the Sydney Jewish Museum, she was indefatigable until the end.

When she died, we lost an empire of knowledge. Just as we do whenever we lose a survivor. Her strength of character, her disarming candour, her twinkly eyes, her testimony and her light have secreted themselves in the hearts of the thousands of people she touched, like little mirrors reflecting flashes of her life. A giant photo mosaic.

This was a rare case of Tottenham turning an injury into a positive. The loss of Radu Dragusin was Dane Scarlett’s cue. Recalled from a disappointing loan spell at Oxford United earlier this month, the 20-year-old striker came on for Dragusin and set Spurs on course to victory over Elfsborg when he headed in his first goal for his boyhood club.

It has been almost five years since Scarlett made his debut. He was an unlikely saviour but Ange Postecoglou was not complaining. There was more joy when another substitute, the 19-year-old winger, Oyindamola Ajayi, came on to score on his debut, then when Mikey Moore made it 3-0 with his first professional goal. Spurs had secured their place in the knockout phase. There was relief at avoiding two extra playoff games.

Sundance’s Free Leonard Peltier outlines the decades-long efforts to free the Indigenous activist from prison – up to the commutation of his sentence one week before the premiere

Of all the documentaries at the Sundance film festival this year, perhaps none is as timely as Free Leonard Peltier, Jesse Short Bull and David France’s film on the Indigenous activist imprisoned for nearly half a century.

Peltier, now 80 years old, is serving consecutive life sentences for the killing of two FBI agents during a shootout at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975, though he has maintained his innocence. Activists, celebrities and liberation advocates such as Nelson Mandela have called for his release for decades, citing railroaded justice and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct; the FBI and law enforcement, meanwhile, have campaigned vociferously against any commutation of his sentence.

Canada and Mexico draw plans to mitigate effect of duties Trump has threatened, possibly sparking a trade war

• Trump’s tariffs explained

America’s biggest trading partners are bracing for Donald Trump to impose sweeping tariffs on their exports after the US president repeated his threat to hit Canada and Mexico with new duties.

Officials in Ottawa and Mexico City have drawn up plans to retaliate against Washington with tariffs of their own, raising the prospect of a damaging trade war. Businesses inside the US and across the world have warned of widespread disruption if the Trump administration pushes ahead.

On 68 minutes Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho combined for the Manchester United second that sealed passage into the last 16: over went a delivery from the No 17 and there was Mainoo to finish coolly.

For two young talents who are on the market for the right price here was a satisfying moment that showed Ruben Amorim what can be harnessed if each are retained beyond Monday’s deadline.

One controller reportedly handled arrivals and departures, and also helicopter traffic – a job usually done by two people

• Washington DC plane crash – latest updates
• First confirmed victims include figure-skating champions

A collision on Wednesday between an American Airlines jet and a US military helicopter near Washington DC killed all 67 people onboard both aircraft and sparked questions over whether understaffing in an air traffic control tower played a role in the United States’ worst aviation disaster in years.

As it approached Reagan National airport around 9pm, American Eagle flight 5342 collided with a US army Black Hawk helicopter, plunging wreckage of the two aircraft into the icy Potomac River and killing all 64 passengers and crew on the plane, along with three soldiers on the helicopter.

The music star was also an electrifying screen presence, from The Girl on a Motorcycle to Marie Antoinette

• Marianne Faithfull, singular icon of British pop, dies aged 78
• Marianne Faithfull was a towering artist, not just the muse she was painted as

On the screen and also in life, Marianne Faithfull experienced something similar to her contemporary Anita Pallenberg – the condescension of being treated like an icon or a muse. Maybe her very real success in music ruled her out of a serious acting career in the eyes of some, but Faithfull for a while occupied the epicentre of the late-60s pop culture zeitgeist, for an intense flashbulb moment she found herself in the overlapping worlds of music, movies and the explodingly important world of celebrity itself.

The famous photograph of her in 1967 on a couch between Alain Delon and Mick Jagger absolutely captures her magnetism: Delon is entranced by her, Jagger (her boyfriend) is jealous, looking grumpily down: she and Delon were starring together in The Girl on a Motorcycle by the British cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff in which she was the super-sexy rock chick in a leather body suit whose zipper Delon would lasciviously pull down with his teeth.

His bronzed torso is ridiculously ripped – and will, once again, cause a shift in the acceptable minimum standards for the male physique

So much for the dad bod. David Beckham, who turns 50 this year, has released pictures of himself modelling his new bodywear collection for Hugo Boss. Bodywear, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, appears to mean underwear. In the corresponding ad clip, Beckham returns home for the day in his vintage Aston Martin, Bond-style, but he can’t wait to rip off his sharp suit and slouch around in a leather armchair in nothing but his tighty-whities. He has set the bar very high for middle-aged dads who like to relax by sitting around drinking in their pants, Homer Simpson-style. If you feel at all self-conscious about your soft, squishy, beer-induced centre, Beckham’s new line of smalls will not help.

In recent years, the dad bod seemed to be on the verge of widespread public acceptance, even cautious celebration, and a lot of us were congratulating ourselves on our timing: it was not uncommon for men of a certain age to emerge from the first pandemic lockdown looking like a heap of overproved sourdough. We felt ourselves, however unintentionally, to be in the dad bod vanguard – more oven-ready than beach-ready; soft, saggy and proud.

Discovery by coast guard comes five days after skiff containing five bodies found near Trinidad and Tobago

The coastguard of St Kitts and Nevis has discovered 13 decomposing bodies in a boat adrift off the coast, days after another five bodies were found in a skiff near Trinidad and Tobago.

Officials of the two Caribbean countries said it was not immediately clear if there was any link between the two incidents, or who the deceased were.

Key Trump ally strives to extricate himself from statements he had made earlier, claiming ‘mischaracterization’

Kash Patel sought to allay concerns about his fitness to serve as the FBI director at his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, but declined to engage with questioning that explicitly asked whether he would use his position to investigate some of Donald Trump’s top political opponents.

The hearing revolved around Patel’s provocative public remarks attacking the FBI and his ability to resist political pressure from the White House, a topic that has come to the fore with the justice department rocked by the ouster of prosecutors who worked on cases against Trump.

With 47% approval rating Republican is only president to have sub-50% reading at start of term, Gallup poll indicates

Donald Trump is still historically unpopular compared with other new US presidents, a new poll showed.

“At 47%, President Donald Trump’s initial job approval rating for his second term is similar to the inaugural 45% reading during his first term, again placing him below all other elected presidents dating back to 1953,” wrote Megan Brenan, a senior editor for Gallup, which carried out the poll.