News, tips, previews and more from day three’s action
Day three tips | Queally accuses De Boinville | Mail Niall

And with that, I’ll hand over the reins to Niall McVeigh. Have a great afternoon and hope you back a winner or two …

One of the biggest issues for a number of years now at the Cheltenham festival has been the starts of races and this week has been the same so far with a number of unsatisfactory starts so far. The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has now announced that a full review will take place into the starts of races at the Cheltenham festival following its conclusion.

The BHA’s statement reads: “Following several false starts in 2025, the BHA worked with the PJA and the Jockey Club to discuss the issues that were contributing to the starts. Measured alterations were subsequently made to some starting locations. At the same time, work was undertaken with jockeys to ensure that the rules and procedures were understood by all participants ahead of the start of the 2026 Festival.

“The review will consider factors such as the configuration of the course, the perspectives of riders from differing jurisdiction and licence types, the process of starting the race including the preliminaries and starting process, technology, the penalties and deterrents for rule breaches and the other, varied contributing factors which are unique to the Cheltenham Festival.”

The Israeli army claimed it struck a site that it claims was used for developing nuclear weapons; Iran set ablaze two tankers as it increased attacks on oil and transport facilities across the Middle East

• Iran escalates attacks on infrastructure and transport across the Gulf

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

An Iranian source is denying the country will allow India-flagged tankers to pass through the vital strait of Hormuz, Reuters is reporting.

The news agency a little earlier quoted an Indian source as saying Iran would in fact allow such tankers to pass through the strait, a key artery for global oil trade.

Republicans join in with US president’s demand for John Thune to push through Save America act

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This won’t reassure the oil market much!

US energy secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Thursday that the Navy cannot escort ships through the strait of Hormuz now but it was “quite likely” that could happen by the end of the month.

Latest news from the auction for the new-look Hundred
Historic day but hardly any women to see it | Mail Taha

The domestic marquee names are done. Time for the big overseas stars.

The Yorkshireman could be coming home … SunRisers Leeds have the paddle up. But London Spirit, quiet so far today, put their name in the ring. And he’s off to Lord’s for £160,000.

Campaigners say people unlikely to ‘look favourably’ on package for Wael Sawan, which rose to £13.8m in 2025

The chief executive of Shell saw his pay jump more than 60% to almost £14m in 2025 despite a slump in profits at the oil company and prospects of rising pump prices related to war in the Middle East.

The package for Wael Sawan, who took the top job in 2023 and has refocused the company on fossil fuels, rose from £8.6m in 2024 to £13.8m in 2025.

Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

Robert Booth UK technology editor

Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.

With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.

The most powerful nation in the world is now being led by a rogue president who rejects its longstanding values

As we reach the 13th day of the war in Iran – with death and destruction rippling throughout the Middle East – it’s important to bear in mind where the real failure lies.

So far, nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 175 Iranian schoolchildren and seven US service members. At least 140 US service members have been wounded, several critically. The final tallies on both sides will almost certainly be far higher.

(Silver Arrow)
​With Keef-style riffs and full-blooded commitment to the bit, resurgent brothers Chris and Rich Robinson​ resurrect​ the rocker lifestyle of eras past

Time is not linear for Chris and Rich Robinson. When their group the Black Crowes first surfaced in the late 80s, music was deep into one of its magical transitional eras, technological advances sling-shotting pop into unexpected futures as techno, hip-hop and acid house left rock’n’roll looking like a period piece. The Robinsons clearly hadn’t received the memo, arriving in a blaze of paisley and patchouli with an inspired Otis Redding cover that dragged its 60s Stax strut all the way into the early 70s, redressing it in bell-bottomed denim and Sticky Fingers swagger.

Almost 40 years later, little has changed within the Crowes’ hermetically sealed hotbox. There have been calamitous splits, amicable hiatuses and radical lineup rejigs, to the point where the brothers are the only founding Crowes left. Yet they remain proud exiles from Main Street, and from the 21st century. It makes their 10th album an irresistible pleasure. In this grimmest of moments, with war and genocide and maniacs at the wheel across the globe, who could blame anyone for escaping into the simpler world conjured here, governed by Keef-worthy riffs, infallible slip-slide grooves and the kind of rock’n’roll misadventure that’s always been rejuvenated in the Crowes’ hands?

Best left Bermuda at 17 and joined West Ham, with Bobby Moore among his teammates, but he also faced horrendous abuse

“I did what I had to do,” Clyde Best says as he recalls leaving Bermuda at the age of 17 and travelling to England for a trial at West Ham. There was no fear, no thought of homesickness. Best saw opportunity. It was 1968 and, before setting off on his journey, the boy who would go on to be hailed as English football’s first black superstar received some unforgettable advice from his father, a naval officer who later worked as a deputy commissioner in Bermuda’s prison service.

“My dad told me: ‘When you go to England, you’re not playing for yourself, you’re playing for those coming after you,’” Best says. “I always knew that I had some responsibility, and I had to carry myself in a certain way and behave myself in a certain way. I’m not going to do anything stupid and mess it up. If you listen to what your parents tell you, nine times out of 10 you’re not going to have problems.”

Experts warn younger people not to dismiss symptoms such as rectal bleeding as diagnoses rise for those under 50

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Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in the US for people under 50, according to a new analysis from the American Cancer Society, prompting both experts and those in that age group with the disease to warn others to take certain symptoms seriously.

Becca Lynch, who works in cyber security in Denver, Colorado, was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer last year, when she was just 29. At first, she assumed her symptoms couldn’t be anything serious: “I chalked it up to stress,” she said.

Fears are growing that the new far-right president will slash environmental protections in favour of foreign investment

In Chile’s most northerly region, Arica y Parinacota, Andrea Chellew, 62, relies on tourists for her cafe. They usually travel from the coastal city of Arica to the unique biosphere of the Andean highlands, which rise well above 5,000 metres and host nature reserves and wetlands.

At 3,000 metres (9,800ft) above sea level, along Highway 11, she lives by the trade route that brings raw materials and goods between Bolivia and Chile. Yet the cafe remains empty as fewer tourists come, amid more reports of increased mining activity near environmentally protected areas, such as the Lauca national park.

In her wisdom, Mum taught me to roll with the punches, and reassured me that she’d always be there – even when I staggered in much the worse for wear

What my mum taught me best is her expression: “Let’s play it by ear.” That might sound like an excuse for disorganisation and procrastination, but what she’s really saying at the end of every phone call is: “Life happens, plans change, and we’re always here for you – whatever time you decide to roll up.”

That’s her to a T – putting everyone else first. Even now, at 50, if I go out for a drink or to a gig with my brother and crash at my parents’ place, Mum will still stay up to be sure I’ve made it home safe.

• British No 1 comes from behind in 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) win

• Hard-fought win keeps Draper’s title defence on track

Jack Draper was “overwhelmed” after beating Novak Djokovic for the first time to reach the quarter-finals in Indian Wells and keep his title defence on track.

Playing only the second ATP tournament of his comeback after eight months out with an arm injury, Draper came through a gripping battle lasting more than two-and-a-half hours in a deciding tie-break to win 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Vast release of emergency crude reserves fails to quell mounting fears about supply crunch, rattling markets

• Business live – latest updates

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Oil prices have again topped $100 a barrel as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.

As Donald Trump vowed to “finish the job” and press ahead with the US-Israel war on Iran, the country’s regime stepped up retaliatory strikes on economic targets across the region.

Court makes finding pending final hearing that trafficking victim ‘likely to suffer harm to his mental health’ if returned

A high court judge has halted the removal of an Eritrean trafficking victim to France under the UK’s “one in, one out” scheme, after raising concerns that forcibly sending him back could cause him harm.

The controversial deal, under which one asylum seeker who arrives in the UK on a small boat is forcibly returned to France in exchange for another being brought over legally, was launched last summer. As of 5 March, 370 people have been brought to the UK legally and 354 sent back to France. The aim is to deter small boat crossings, but thousands of asylum seekers have crossed the Channel since the scheme started. So far this month, 1,200 people have made the perilous journey.

After operating on victims of the Westminster attack in 2017 and visiting Ukraine and Gaza, Hettiaratchy has seen more horror than most can imagine – but he still believes in humanity, optimism and selflessness

On 22 March 2017, trauma surgeon Shehan Hettiaratchy was running end-of-term exams for his medical students when his phone buzzed. There had been a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament. A man had driven into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, then started stabbing people on the street. Within minutes, Hettiaratchy was in a car with a colleague and heading to St Mary’s hospital near Paddington, west London, where he is the lead surgeon. Victims injured in the attack were due to arrive.

Though Hettiaratchy and his team were used to treating patients with life-threatening injuries – on paper, he says, what they were facing was no different from “a busy Saturday night” – this felt different. There was “a collective fear that we’re under attack – there are people on the streets of London trying to kill our fellow Londoners”.

In week two of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic put his reputation on the line

Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect being replaced by AI. Many of them say they never use it on principle; I know all of them do.

So this week, as part of my AI diary, I’m conducting the forbidden experiment in plain sight. I’m going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer. Can it truly match me, and might it replace me? Let’s settle this.

Fortunes of the country’s 22 billionaires doubled in last five years, reaching unprecedented collective wealth of $219bn

Scrunched between luxury apartment buildings and a lush gated community, the neighborhood of Santa Lucía Reacomodo in Mexico City is a working-class pocket of real estate. Electrical wires tangle above cinder-block houses, stray cats slink down narrow streets, debris piles up on the pavement.

María del Socorro Corona, 79, arrived here decades ago, back when it was just a cactus-covered hillside. The two-bedroom turquoise house she built with her now-deceased husband is crammed with bags of clothes and knick-knacks she sells at a weekly market.

An Israeli airstrike targeted a tent camp sheltering displaced Palestinians west of Gaza City on Wednesday evening. Palestinians in al-Ansar camp received phone calls from Israeli military personnel ordering them to evacuate the area within five minutes. After two warning strikes, the camp was struck a third time. A huge blaze broke out, sending plumes of smoke into the sky

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

If regime holds, control of enriched uranium may be ultimate measure of US-Israeli success, insiders say

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel did not have a realistic plan for regime change when it attacked Iran, multiple Israeli security sources have said, with expectations that airstrikes could lead to a popular uprising having been driven by “wishful thinking” rather than hard intelligence.

Iran has survived nearly two weeks of bombing raids and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Trump is publicly contemplating ending the increasingly costly war.

Golestan Palace in Tehran, a world heritage site, and buildings in historic city of Isfahan harmed, despite Unesco sending coordinates

• Middle East crisis – latest updates

The governor of the historic Iranian city of Isfahan has accused the US and Israel of a “declaration of war on a civilization” as heritage sites across the country suffer damage in their bombing campaign.

The most serious confirmed damage to date has been to Tehran’s Golestan Palace, dating back to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon Palace in Isfahan.

Under new Taliban laws, a husband is allowed to beat his wife as long as it is not done with ‘obscene force’, which the woman must prove in court

The shocking level of physical violence against women permitted under the Taliban’s new laws has been revealed this week by the case of a woman in northern Afghanistan, who said she was beaten with a cable wire by her husband and told by a judge: “You want a divorce just because of that? … A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you.”

Farzana* said her husband was quick-tempered and often resorted to beating her. He regularly humiliated her and called her “disabled”, she said, because her right leg was slightly shorter than the left. She had tolerated the abuse for the sake of their children, but one evening, she said, his violence went too far.

The differences between what Trump and Netanyahu want out of this war are starting to show and complicating how it will end

When the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran to start a war that is now entering its third week, it was the start of something unprecedented; the first joint Israeli-American war. Even though the US has long been a close military ally of Israel, this has never happened before. Unlike last year’s “12-day war” where Israel launched a war that the US joined near the very end with a single set of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, this Israeli-American war on Iran is deeply coordinated at the operational level between both belligerents day in and day out.

That is precisely why clear, shared objectives between Washington and Tel Aviv will be crucial for the US to exit this war with a political victory and not just the tab for tons of destruction across the region with little significant change. Much of what we have seen so far suggests strongly that that is not the case; Israel and the US have different goals here, if they even really know what their goals are, and because of this no clear endgame can be envisioned even as the costs of the war mount.