Trump tells Iranians the 'hour of your freedom is at hand' as US-Israel launch strikes against Iran


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Bournemouth: Petrovic, Jimenez, Hill, Senesi, Truffert, Scott, Adams, Brooks, Rayan, Kroupi, Tavernier.
Subs: Mandas, Evanilson, Christie, Smith, Diakite, Adli, Enes Unal, Toth, Milosavljevic.
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© Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

© Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

© Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
Champion will face Rico Verhoeven for WBC belt in May
‘I respect people who reach the very top in their sport’
Oleksandr Usyk, who has not fought since a fifth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois at Wembley in July, will defend his WBC heavyweight title against a kickboxer at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The bout with Rico Verhoeven, dubbed “Glory in Giza”, will be the first title fight held in Egypt, according to The Ring magazine, on 23 May and will be streamed live on Dazn.
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© Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA

© Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA

© Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA
The singular director has made a second film about the King of Rock, and Roll and this time audiences will get to see a side of him they’ve never seen before
In the spring of 1972, a film crew trailed Elvis Presley everywhere he went to capture a pivotal moment in his career – his first tour in nearly a decade. Ironically, one of the most crucial things that happened during that project occurred way off camera. “We really wanted to get an interview with Elvis on film,” said Jerry Schilling, a confidant and employee of the King who at that time was working for the company behind the movie. “But he was tired when we were going to do it and for whatever reason we never wound up getting anything on camera.”
They did, however, get Presley to talk casually on tape for about 40 minutes, during which he said things he never put on record before. That was enough to raise concerns for his notoriously censorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who insured that little of that talk saw the light of day during his lifetime.
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© Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb

© Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb

© Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb
‘Rebranded’ terror group seeks to recruit those alienated by Damascus government’s western pivot
On the surface, all that remains of Islamic State in the Syrian town of Baghuz are discarded tubs of whitening cream, spent RPG motors and children’s backpacks, with an old grenade nestled in the frayed pink nylon.
It was here nearly seven years ago that IS made its last stand. Its most zealous followers were obliterated along with the blood-soaked caliphate they fought to defend. Their bodies were collected and buried next to the town graveyard, while bulldozers came and sealed the entire area under a layer of heavy yellow earth.
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© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
He may not be a cyclist, but the photographer was drawn by this bike shop’s jumble of frames and parts
Michael Krupka had passed Philadelphia’s Via Bicycle repair shop for years before he ventured inside. As a photographer rather than a cyclist, he was drawn by the jumble of frames and parts in the front window. “My father was a machinist and when I was a child we had a workshop at home where he could repair pretty much anything mechanical he encountered,” Krupka recalls. “As an artsy kid, I didn’t inherit those skills, but I do have an aesthetic attraction to machines and mechanical things.”
Krupka was out that day on what he describes as an “intentional photo hunt”. He asked a guy repairing a bike near the entrance for permission. “He just shrugged and carried on,” Krupka says. “I’d hoped to capture the graphic chaos against the backlit window. What I found was an even more tangled scene, with even more bikes in the foreground, which I used for the bottom third of the composition,” he says. “The shot has something of a maze or jigsaw element, too, a kind of puzzle that might have interesting things to find within it.”
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© Photograph: Michael Krupka

© Photograph: Michael Krupka

© Photograph: Michael Krupka

We cannot know where this foolish, reckless attack will end – but new hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown and, ultimately, little will be achieved
They never learn. Once again, a bellicose US president has unleashed overwhelming military firepower to force a sovereign nation to its knees. Once again, blatant lies and exaggerated claims are being propagated to justify the attack. Duplicitous American diplomacy became a fig leaf for premeditated aggression. The cautionary advice of allies was spurned. The UN, international law and public opinion were ignored. Democratic consent is lacking. And once again, there are few defined goals by which to gauge success, and no long-term plan.
Now, as in the past, the predictable result of today’s renewed, expanded and apparently open-ended US-Israeli aggression against Iran will be instant, spreading chaos. Civilians will be killed, children orphaned, families torn apart. Regional turmoil and international oil-price panic will follow the Iranian retaliation that has already begun, and which may be backed by Tehran’s Hezbollah and Houthi allies. New hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown. The west’s foes will rejoice. And nothing of enduring value will be achieved. That was the bitter outcome of the failed US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, it’s Tehran’s turn to reap the whirlwind.
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© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters









Second Israeli-US attack during nuclear negotiations may finally jettison any chance of agreement
The attack mounted jointly by Israel and the US on Iran had been planned for months, but the timing, in the midst of negotiations between Iran and the US, will again raise questions about whether Washington was ever serious about striking a deal with Tehran.
In June last year, Israel, with the US later in tow, launched a 10-day attack on Iran just three days before Iran and the US were due to meet for a sixth set of talks.
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© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters
Steve Borthwick started the Six Nations with a settled group but the journey to Australia 2027 has suddenly become a lot more complicated
Not so long ago, Steve Borthwick’s squad for the 2027 World Cup was taking shape nicely. He picked a largely predictable 36-man group for the Six Nations and the same can be said of his matchday 23 to face Wales in England’s championship opener. Borthwick is a loyal coach who relies heavily on depth charts and the exodus of so many players to France after the last World Cup made a number of difficult decisions for him much easier. Just how tailored his squad is to the 2027 tournament is demonstrated by his refusal to pick the Bordeaux-bound Tom Willis on the basis he will not be available despite being awarded an enhanced contract last summer.
Suddenly, on the back of two heavy defeats and shocking performances, things are not nearly as settled. Comparisons have been made with the 2018 Six Nations in which England also bombed. Eddie Jones reacted by deciding that a clutch of senior players such as Chris Robshaw, James Haskell, Mike Brown and Dylan Hartley would not keep going to the 2019 World Cup. There are also similarities with the 2023 World Cup warm-up matches when a number of players played their way out of Borthwick’s thinking. Here we take a look at which stalwarts are now under pressure, those in the maybe pile, who has advanced their case and who may emerge from left field.
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© Composite: Guardian Pictures; RFU/Getty Images; ProSports/Shutterstock; Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Pictures; RFU/Getty Images; ProSports/Shutterstock; Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Pictures; RFU/Getty Images; ProSports/Shutterstock; Getty Images
Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the ‘most hopeful person’ before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbot
On 7 August, Kate Fox received a phone call that upended her life. A medical examiner said that her husband, Joe Ceccanti – who had been missing for several hours – had jumped from a railway overpass and died. He was 48.
Fox couldn’t believe it. Ceccanti had no history of depression, she said, nor was he suicidal – he was the “most hopeful person” she had ever known. In fact, according to the witness accounts shared with Fox later, just before Ceccanti jumped, he smiled and yelled: “I’m great!” to the rail yard attendants below when they asked him if he was OK.
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© Photograph: Clayton Cotterell/The Guardian

© Photograph: Clayton Cotterell/The Guardian

© Photograph: Clayton Cotterell/The Guardian
Few clues as to how 10 heavily armed men intercepted on stolen speedboat came together from across Florida or what they hoped to achieve
Foot traffic was slow outside the Bay of Pigs Museum on Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood. A few tourists in T-shirts and shorts bypassed the gallery dedicated to one of the most fateful days in Cuba’s history and headed instead to nearby Máximo Gómez Park to take photographs of Cuban exiles playing dominoes.
This is the street at the heart of the Cuban expat community of more than 1 million people where tens of thousands partied through the night in November 2016 to celebrate the death of Fidel Castro, and where they gathered in sorrow almost exactly 30 years ago to mourn four Cuban-Americans shot down by the communist country’s air force as they conducted a mission for the humanitarian exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
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© Photograph: Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images